The French Trade Minister, Franck Riester, noted that France must count on the support of other Member States to impose a better consideration of sustainable development in European trade policy, during a conference on the same subject on Wednesday 13 October.
“We must convince the other Member States, in order to see France’s major ambition to put more conditions in free trade agreements be taken up by other Member States and these policies be retained”, he said.
During this conference, he highlighted the French position on European trade policy and certain free trade agreements. He wants to strengthen the sustainable development chapters in the agreements by, for example, making tariff reductions conditional on compliance with these chapters.
The Commission is due to present a revised version of its 15-point action plan on trade and sustainable development next year. This could make the ‘trade’ and ‘sustainable development’ chapters in free trade agreements binding, as requested by the European Parliament and civil society players.
Asked by EUROPE to comment, Maria Martin Prat, deputy director-general of the European Commission’s DG Trade, who attended the conference, said it was difficult to see the action plan being published in the early months of 2022. The mid-2022 time frame seems most reasonable according to her. She added: “It is clear that this is an important political objective”.
However, she did not respond to EUROPE on the timetable for the implementation of this action plan or on the potential impact on agreements already in force.
But for Riester, the free trade agreement with New Zealand could be a benchmark for sustainable development. However, he does not consider that the negotiations would be concluded during the French Presidency of the EU Council, from January to July 2022. “It will take time”, he added. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)