Brussels, 18/11/2002 (Agence Europe) - Within the framework of its strategy aimed at improving access to foreign markets, the European Commission has financed a study identifying trade barriers and investment facing European operators in a growing number of countries where requirements as far as labelling and marks are concerned are becoming particularly complex and detailed if not unpredictable, mainly for textiles, food products, wines, shoes and cosmetics. These provisions, set in place on a legal terrain that is still vague, are increasingly linked to the aim of consumer protection in the food sector especially but, in some cases, labelling naturally serves as a non-customs barrier to protectionist ends, stresses the report by Franklin Dehousse, Katelyne Ghémar and Tsonka Iotsova. One lobbyist notes that, for wine, some countries demand the full list of ingredients and, in China, it is also necessary to translate everything into Chinese and to renew procedures for changing the vintage. "Mexico is a drama for us", added Sergio Marchi d'Euratex, who explained: "The labelling requirements are very complicated and numerous, as well as very detailed, and customs officers can always stop goods (…) There must be a full description of the fabrics and they may say no, it is not pink, it is red". For other parties concerned, "transparency is the key issue", mainly in China where "who can know all the standards?", as well as in India for the "new arrivals". Furthermore, Mr Dehousse added, the legal framework made up by the multilateral agreements on the Technical Trade Barriers (TTB), the sanitary and phytosanitary measures and GATT is uncertain, as well as certain bilateral agreements. "It is sometimes difficult to know where one is. GATT is still vaguer than the TTB", he stressed. "Many questions do not have an easy answer. Is there any hope?" he asked, explaining: "Yes, in the long term. We must negotiate something new" and "try to reduce the margin that the WTO member countries currently have for stepping up controls".
It is therefore in Geneva, in the multilateral framework, that the solution of substance is to be found, the experts say, recommending that preference be given to: (1) improvements to the TTB and SPS agreements of the WTO, where one should envisage making corrections and additions (extending coverage to requirements other than those relating to the methods of production and processing, obligation of circumstantial justification on the part of national authorities, etc.), and possibly seek solutions through the trade facilitation mechanism; (2) recourse to bilateral and regional agreements to improve the overall situation and the position of European exporters, mainly by placing more emphasis on labelling during implementation of existing agreements and taking advantage of the opportunity provided by the Doha Round for promoting restraint in recourse to new labelling requirements by negotiating parties; (3) the development of new international standards including the legal value should be strengthened and their adoption, as well as revision, facilitated; (4) the development of a common approach to labelling between the Union and the developing countries with a view to promoting the European approach around the negotiating table, encouraging certain trading partners to engage in regional integration and obtaining guarantees concerning the administrative implementation of labelling requirements in developing countries. "In many cases, the problems created by the customs and administrative controls are far more dangerous for European producers than labelling requirements are", experts note.