European Commission released their comprehensive approach for the modernisation of the World Trade Organisation today.
In presenting the ideas, Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström said: “The multilateral trading system has for the past decades provided a stable, predictable and effective framework for companies across the world, helping many economies to grow rapidly. Also today, the WTO is indispensable in ensuring open, fair and rules-based trade. But despite its success, the World Trade Organisation has not been able to adapt sufficiently to the rapidly changing global economy. The world has changed, the WTO has not. It’s high time to act to make the system able to address challenges of the today’s global economy and work for everyone again. And the EU must take a lead role in that.”
The ideas in the proposal are related to three key ares:
- updating the rule book on international trade to capture today’s global economy
- strengthening the monitoring role of the WTO
- overcoming the imminent deadlock on the WTO dispute settlement system.
EU also noted that the US and Japan are engaged in the framework of trilateral discussions. A dedicated workgroup was set up during the latest EU-China summit. And EU pledged to discuss the ideas with other WTO partners in the coming weeks.
Here is the press release. And a 17-page document detailing the proposals.
Earlier today, the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China released an annual position paper. The 33-page paper detailed 14 common concerns faced by European companies in China, and listed out a accumulative total of 828 recommendations.
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