The European Commission is taking an important step towards greener, fairer and more sustainable EU trade. A new plan is presented to increase the impact of EU trade agreements on environmental protection and workers’ rights worldwide. In its Communication entitled 'The Power of Trade Partnerships: Together for Green and Fair Growth’, the EC proposes actions to improve the implementation and enforcement of the trade and sustainable development chapters of EU trade agreements.

„We have promised that trade will become more sustainable and today we are delivering on that promise. Our trade agreements strengthen the EU’s position on the world stage and support economic growth and sustainable development, but now we want to make them an even stronger driver of positive change. To this end, we will work with our partners and support their efforts. We will enforce the agreements more effectively and impose sanctions if key labour and climate commitments are not met,” said Valdis Dombrovskis, Executive Vice-President and Commissioner for Trade.

All modern trade agreements concluded by the EU include chapters on trade and sustainable development, including a number of mutually agreed commitments. The Communication sets out policy priorities and key policy actions that will further enhance the effectiveness of the current approach to trade and sustainable development – based on commitment and with a strong foundation in the form of international frameworks and standards – by focusing on more effective implementation and enforcement. This new approach provides, in particular, for the application of trade sanctions for breaches of the fundamental provisions on trade and sustainable development. Where appropriate, it will be applied in both future and ongoing negotiations.

The new approach to trade and sustainable development includes in particular the following aspects:

Results-oriented and prioritized cooperation with partner countries

• In order to achieve better results, we will negotiate with partner countries individualised targets and timely action plans;
• To improve compliance with international labour and environmental standards, we will engage more closely in the cooperation process with trading partners, including through technical and financial assistance.
• We will step up cooperation with both Member States and the European Parliament to monitor and implement our trade and sustainable development commitments.
• We will seek to open up new markets for imports and exports of green goods and services and raw materials, which is particularly important to increase diversification in the context of the current geopolitical situation.

 Increasing civil society participation and support

• We make it easier for civil society and DAGs to complain about breaches of sustainable development commitments. We are updating the Operational Guidelines for the Single Window to introduce timetables that the Commission will generally follow when dealing with complaints about trade and sustainable development;
• DAGs will be more involved in technical assistance projects and meetings with EU Member States;
• We will ensure greater transparency in the work of daGs, including by publishing lists of participating organizations;
• We will further strengthen the role of the EU’s DAGs by providing the resources needed for their activities.

More focus on implementation and enforcement

• The compliance phase of the standard state-to-state dispute settlement procedure will be extended to include the trade and sustainable development chapter of EU trade agreements. This means that a party found to be in breach of any trade and sustainable development commitment will have to immediately communicate how it will implement the Panel’s report and comply with its commitments within a specified timeframe;
• We will include the possibility of using trade sanctions as a last resort for significant violations of the Paris Climate Agreement and ILO core labour standards.

All modern trade agreements concluded by the EU already include chapters on trade and sustainable development. Their provisions require continuous and consistent efforts to ratify the core ILO conventions, as well as the effective implementation of ILO conventions and multilateral environmental agreements already ratified by each party, such as the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity.

In 2018, the Commission services produced a working document entitled 'Feedback and future actions to improve the implementation and enforcement of TSD chapters in EU FTAs’ (15-point action plan), which provides guidance on improving the implementation and enforcement of these chapters. In line with the plan announced to the European Parliament in September 2020 and detailed in the Communication on the Trade Policy Review of February 2021, the Commission launched an early review of the 15-point Action Plan.

As part of the review, the results of which were used in this Communication, the Commission commissioned an independent comparative analysis of third countries’ trade agreements in terms of trade and sustainable development practices. This analysis confirms that the EU is one of the top countries promoting sustainable development through trade agreements. In order to gather views from the widest possible range of citizens and stakeholders on how to improve the current approach and make it more effective, the Commission has also conducted an open public consultation. It also engaged in a wide-ranging debate involving the Member States, the European Parliament and the European Economic and Social Committee.

Source: ec.europa.eu

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