Landmark deal to renew prime EU trade instrument for development 

This article is brought to you in association with the European Parliament.

• EU will continue to grant trade preferences to developing countries to help eradicate poverty 
• New human rights and environmental conventions added, coupled with effective monitoring 
• New safeguards for EU rice producers 

On Monday, Parliament and Council negotiators reached a provisional agreement on revised rules for the EU’s preferential trade arrangement with developing countries.

The updated rules revise the EU’s generalised scheme of tariff preferences (GSP), which allows vulnerable developing countries to export goods to the EU with low or no tariffs. Co-legislators added several international human rights and environmental conventions to the list of international treaties that participating countries must ratify to benefit from trade preferences. These include the Paris Agreement, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Migrant readmission conditionality

MEPs negotiated a series of stricter criteria that will need to be fulfilled before GSP countries see their preferential tariffs withdrawn for continued non-cooperation in the readmission of irregular migrants, as proposed by the Commission with the “readmission conditionality”. These criteria include a longer evaluation procedure and mandatory engagement of at least 12 months with the countries concerned. Parliament’s negotiators also secured a two-year delay for the least developed countries in the application of the readmission conditionality, following the application of the new GSP regulation.

Rice

To do more to protect the sensitive EU rice sector, negotiators ensured that automatic safeguards will be triggered once a certain volume of rice imports is reached from any third country.

Quote

Bernd Lange (S&D, DE), Chair of the Committee on International Trade, and rapporteur, said:

“This is great news for more than two billion people in over 60 countries. They will benefit for another 10 years from the low or no tariff preferences granted unilaterally by the EU. The agreement sends them a clear message: in these times of growing geopolitical tension, rising nationalism, and protectionism, the EU is committed to being a trustworthy and durable partner.

The agreement is also a boost to multilateralism: the regulation aims to be fully World Trade Organisation-compatible and it promotes the ratification and implementation of international conventions that will advance fundamental workers’ rights and environmental standards. Transparency and civil society engagement are also key. Parliament ensured that plans to ensure effective implementation of international conventions by GSP beneficiary countries will be public.

Two issues weighed on the negotiations: the readmission conditionality and the rice safeguards. On readmissions, Parliament believed that trade and migration were best kept separate. Council moved considerably to meet Parliament’s concerns, creating a balanced system with clear guardrails and a differentiated system for least developed countries. Parliament will have full access to documents in the procedure so that we can ensure the new mechanism is used in a proportionate manner. On rice safeguards, we now have a system that will be triggered automatically in the event of excessive volumes of rice imports from third countries.”

Next steps

Parliament and Council must both give their final green light to the provisional agreement, before it can enter into force.

Background

The generalised system of preferences (GSP) has been the EU’s preferential trade arrangement with developing countries since 1971. It offers developing countries reduced duties when exporting to the EU with the aim of eradicating poverty, promoting sustainable development, and better integrating these countries in the world economy. The GSP system covers more than 60 countries and two billion people in the world. Parliament voted in October 2023 to extend current rules after talks with the Council on the new rules were paused.