The European Commission proposed, on Tuesday 4 July, to extend the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) for the period 2024-2027, when the current system expires at the end of 2023, by means of a draft regulation. The Commission had proposed a revision of the GSP in September 2021 (see EUROPE 12796/1), but the co-legislators have still not been able to agree on the text (see EUROPE 13211/31) since negotiations began almost a year ago.
Without an extension of the current GSP, 65 of the world’s poorest countries would see their tariff preferences removed for exports to the EU.
Parliament’s negotiators do not want to support the idea of being able to withdraw tariff preferences from a beneficiary country that refuses to readmit its nationals. The Commission recently proposed a compromise whereby beneficiaries would be given a total of one-and-a-half years’ reprieve before preferences were suspended for this reason.
This solution did not convince either the EU Council or Parliament, and MEPs even asked for a pause in the negotiations (see EUROPE 13211/31).
The co-legislators are now called upon to approve the proposed regulation extending the system so that it comes into force before the end of the year.
On the eve of the presentation of the European Commission’s proposal, the Federation of the European Sporting goods Industry (FESI) called for an extension in order to “give the parties sufficient time to negotiate effectively without being pressured by the timetable” and to avoid putting thousands of European companies and workers around the world “in a situation of great uncertainty”. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)