Several political groups asked for clarification on trade and sustainable development. They addressed the European Commissioner for Trade, Valdis Dombrovskis, who came to present the European Commission’s Communication on the Trade Policy Review on Wednesday 24 February to the Committee on International Trade (INTA).
Regarding the provisions in the Trade and sustainable development (TSD) in trade agreements, the Renew Europe, S&D and Greens/EFA groups demanded concrete explanations after last week’s announcement by the Commission to anticipate the revision of its 15-point action plan on the implementation of the TSD chapters. It is expected to present a text at the beginning of 2022, but MEPs are getting impatient. “We need new proposals quickly”, insisted Kathleen Van Brempt (S&D, Belgium).
Commissioner Dombrovskis tried to reassure: “We will start the review this spring and the study on best practices on enforcement of TSD chapters, including the possibility of sanctions. We expect the draft report somewhere towards August”.
Some MEPs also regretted the lack of mention of the agreements concluded or under negotiation for the Sustainable Development Goals and climate neutrality. The Commissioner persisted: there is no question of going backwards. “We are not proposing to reopen all FTAs (Free Trade Agreements) concluded but we outlined how we can engage more on the existing mechanism in our FTAs”.
In addition, the issue of forced labour has been raised several times by MEPs. They want to strengthen their approach towards partners who use this practice. Valdis Dombrovskis referred to the future legislation on the Duty of Care of companies. “We are aiming for a legislative proposal by June, a priori”, said the Commissioner. This text aims to make European companies responsible for human rights abuses resulting from the production of the goods they import (see EUROPE 12645/4).
Favourable reception from the right. The EPP was rather enthusiastic about the Commission’s Communication. The group’s MEPs in turn recalled the need to support SMEs in this trade dynamic. In this context, they welcomed Commission initiatives such as the information toolsAccess2markets or Rosa on rules of origin. “Maybe you should step up your communication budget for DG Trade. We need an awareness raising campaign, a multilingual one would be welcomed”, suggested MEP Iuliu Winkler (EPP, Romania). (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)