Brussels, 28/10/2003 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday, the European Commission must propose an extension of the EU's System of Generalised Preferences (SGP) for one year, until 1st January 2005. The current system expires in 2004. The EU Council must rule very quickly to enable the renewed SGP to come into force at the beginning of 2004.
For the GSP which expires on 1 January 2005, the Commission is planning: - simplification of criteria for grading, so that countries currently subject to grading are the major beneficiaries of the system; - a simplification of the social GSP to make it more readable and accessible to countries who would like to benefit from it (those committed to the five ILO conventions: union rights, banning of forced labour, etc). "Rather than an in-depth revision, pending clarifications from Geneva, we would like just to renew it, to give operators legaland commercial security. They need transparency, said a Commission source.
Geneva'sverdict on the drugs GSP attacked by India last Spring should be published in the next few months, and will apparently be negaivte (EUROPE of 9 October, p.11).
The Commission also hopes to know more, by the end of 2004, about the guidelines of negotiations under the WTO, where preferential systems have been criticised by certain emerging countries.