The Franco-German powerhouse took the helm of ongoing ambitions to modernize the EU’s trade defense system, with a joint letter to Malmström on “reforming” trade defense, sources in Berlin and inside the Commission confirmed. A spokesperson for the German economic ministry said, “We need to boost our trade defense measures by switching from an approach under which the Commission can only launch an investigation after a company claims to be discriminated, to a new scheme under which the Commission can take the initiative on its own,” he said. “And we need to speed up these investigations.”
Discussions among trade ministers will likely touch on the so-called “lesser duty rule,” which limits levying of duties on dumped imports and stalled the debate on EU trade defense in 2014. Originally, the goal was to eliminate this rule entirely, but this has been modified to abolishing it in certain circumstances only.
Some 546 MEPs voted in favor of the resolution, with 28 against and 77 abstentions. “This vote sends a strong signal that the European Parliament will not accept any measures that weaken our ability to defend ourselves from unfair Chinese competition,” said Socialist MEP David Martin, the lawmaker who pushed the resolution.
There are enough powerful countries on board for turning the EU-Canada deal into a “mixed agreement,” meaning that not only the Council and European Parliament, but also the national parliaments would have a say in approving it. However, the final decision is not expected before late June, after the Commission has said how it wants to apply the deal. And that’s the really interesting question.
Brussels exchanged long-awaited market access offers with the South-American trading bloc Wednesday, with the EU withdrawing its initially planned offer of a 78,000-ton beef quota and excluding ethanol. Both are described by the EU as “sensitive” areas, but might pop up later in the negotiations.
“Agricultural products are included in the offer the EU is making … just like beef, pork, dairy and grain,” said Rodolfo Nin Novoa, the foreign minister of Paraguay, which now holds the Mercosur presidency. “What’s not in there is the quota for beef, but [the offer] says they are determined to follow up on that, which gives us the certainty that this is part of the negotiation and we will obviously negotiate on that.”
Meanwhile, on the European side, other criticism remains. “It’s a first step excluding beef [quotas]. But we are still concerned about poultry, where lowering [import] restrictions towards Mercosur could have a detrimental effect for our agriculture industry,” a senior European diplomat said. Pekka Pesonen, secretary-general of the farmer’s lobby Copa-Cocega, criticized the Commission for including sensitive products in the offer “before any clarification was done in terms of removing red tape and other unnecessary non-tariff barriers to trade which stop our exports from entering these countries.”