In a paper submitted to the WTO today as part of ongoing work to reform the organisation, the EU proposes three thematic areas for deeper deliberation by WTO Members: state intervention, the environment and inclusiveness.
The EU’s submission will be presented at the WTO General Council on 6 March 2023 and provides a basis for further discussion on the matter ahead of the 13th WTO Ministerial Conference taking place in early 2024.
The EU has identified the following three areas as key for WTO deliberative engagement:
- Trade policy and state intervention in support of industrial sectors. State interventions, such as subsidies, can be an important part of addressing policy challenges like the climate transition, but can also have impacts on trade and investment.
- Trade and global environmental challenges. As WTO Members step up their efforts on the climate transition, there is a need to look at how measures are designed and their impact on trade.
- Trade and inclusiveness. How to share the benefits of trade more widely, how to better link poorer developing countries into global supply chains, and how to better integrate stakeholders in the trade policymaking process are all issues which need discussion.
The EU believes that more substantive deliberation of today’s trade issues at the World Trade Organization (WTO) can help avoid trade tensions by promoting converging approaches to today’s policy challenges.
Such deliberations can also lay the groundwork for future formal negotiations between WTO Members.
