The technical and political negotiating sessions due to take place this week on the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) have been cancelled by the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The previous week, after the resumption of the negotiating sessions (‘trilogue’), the Polish Presidency had expressed its confidence in reaching an agreement with Parliament on behalf of the Council. The GSP regulation, which is due to be revised, removes tariffs on exports to the EU from developing and least developed countries.
The only remaining issue was the text’s safeguard clauses to prevent exports from GSP beneficiary countries from flooding the European market. The case of rice is of particular concern to some Member States and a large number of MEPs.
The task at hand is now to define the details of the safeguard clause, i.e. how it is triggered and at what import threshold.
No compromise has been reached between the Member States on this issue, which are themselves divided. In the absence of a proposal to make to the European Parliament, the Polish Presidency has cancelled all the discussions that were due to take place and referred the matter to the Danish Presidency, whose term of office will begin on 1 July. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)