Members of the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade (INTA) want the European Commission to speed up preparatory work on its legislative proposal for a new anti-coercion instrument. They discussed this very subject with the European Union’s Chief Trade Enforcement Officer, Denis Redonnet, on Wednesday 14 April.
The European Commission plans to publish its proposal by the end of the year. A public consultation on this issue is currently open until 15 June (see EUROPE 12684/22).
“We need to take actions quickly, why is it taking so long?”, asked MEP Markus Buchheit (ID, Germany). His Belgian colleague Kathleen Van Brempt (S&D) also called on the European Commission to “speed up the work” on the issue.
MEP Marie-Pierre Vedrenne (Renew Europe, France) said the European Commission should present its proposal by autumn at the latest: “The submission of the instrument should not be delayed because of the change of administration in the US, for example”, she told EUROPE.
Denis Redonnet has taken note of these remarks after presenting the Commission’s progress on the proposal. In particular, he indicated that the Commission wanted the countermeasures allowed by the instrument to be rapidly applicable. He also clarified that this tool would only be used in the event of enforcement action taken by a non-Member State, and not as a preventive measure taken by the EU.
Extraterritorial sanctions
Many MEPs have called for the response to extraterritorial sanctions to be included in the anti-coercion instrument. “In view of the global situation, why not integrate the blocking statute into a big anti-coercion instrument?”, insisted the Chair of the INTA Committee, Bernd Lange (S&D, Germany). The blocking statute is intended to protect European operators from extraterritorial sanctions that are imposed by non-Member States.
He was supported in this by several of his colleagues, including Marie-Pierre Vedrenne, who emphasised “the importance of using this instrument to deal with this issue”.
In his introduction, Mr Redonnet had indicated that the European Commission had not yet decided whether or not extraterritorial sanctions should be included in the instrument. “We will continue to seek views on this aspect”, he said. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)