The European Commission called, on Wednesday 22 June, for six measures to enforce the Trade and Sustainable Development (TSD) chapters in the free trade agreements that the EU concludes with its trading partners, including the possibility of adopting sanctions as a last resort for violations of fundamental environmental and social principles.
The 46 trade agreements the EU has signed with 78 international partners give us “leverage” to encourage them to adopt practices that are more respectful of the environment and human and social rights, the European Commission Vice-President, Valdis Dombrovskis, told the press.
Referring to recent progress at the multilateral level in the WTO, notably on sustainable fisheries (see EUROPE 12974/2), the EU Trade Commissioner listed six priorities for action to ensure that the EU’s bilateral trade policy contributes to sustainable development: (1) dialogue with EU partners and, where appropriate, provide them with technical and financial assistance; (2) identify, in particular in the impact studies carried out before the start of trade negotiations, sustainability priorities that will be specific to each partner (differentiated measures and timetable for implementation); (3) facilitate imports and exports of products and services considered ‘green’, particularly in the energy sector (4) facilitate the submission of complaints, for example by civil society, in the event of violations of the sustainable development chapter of a trade agreement and speed up the processing of these complaints (new guidelines adopted); (5) continue technical and financial assistance to civil society so that it can rigorously monitor the implementation of trade agreements; (6) provide for the possibility of imposing sanctions, as a last resort, on trading partners that do not respect the fundamental provisions of the chapters on sustainable development.
“By core provisions we mean the core principles of the International Labour Organization, and material breaches of the Paris Climate Agreement”, said Mr Dombrovskis. “We propose to apply these trade sanctions based on the standard dispute settlement that we use for the rest of our bilateral deals. And we will only do so as a matter of last resort, in cases of blatant and persistent breaches of internationally agreed standards”, he added, citing “the suspension of tariff preferences” as a possible sanction.
The inclusion of the possibility of adopting trade sanctions for breaches of international sustainable development standards has been a long-standing demand in the European Parliament (see EUROPE 12917/22). The Spanish MEP, Inmaculada Rodríguez-Piñero (S&D), and the Belgian MEP, Saskia Bricmont (Greens/EFA), welcomed the move in a statement.
Mr Dombrovskis also pointed out that the Commission was not starting from scratch in this area, as it had successfully lobbied for South Korea to ratify three ILO conventions and to amend its labour law (see EUROPE 12667/15).
The communication presented on Wednesday is an assessment of the 15-Point TSD Action Plan that the Commission presented in March 2018 (see EUROPE 11971/10). The EU institution’s reflection was supported by the external study it had commissioned on the issue (see EUROPE 12888/4).
See the Commission’s communication: https://aeur.eu/f/294
See the guidelines: https://aeur.eu/f/295 (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)