Information Session: Review of the Action Plan on Trade and Sustainable Development
SEM and the Department for Economic Policy within the Ministry for Finance and Employment, held an online information session in view of the European Commission’s ongoing online consultation on the Trade and Sustainable Development (TSD) review.
Mr David Sammut, Director for International Economic
Policy, gave an overview on the topic to a number of social partners and
explained the elements of the TSD review on which they are encouraged to
provide their feedback to the Commission’s online consultation. Mr Sammut
explained how sustainable development started being included in Free Trade
Agreements (FTAs) with third countries in the last 12 years, to ensure a level
playing field and standards in areas such as corporate social responsibility,
human and social rights, environment and climate change.
In
February 2018, the European Commission presented a 15-Point Action Plan on TSD. Organised under four headings: Working
Together; Enabling Civil Society; Delivering; and Communicating and
Transparency; the Action Plan
provides a roadmap for future work to improve the implementation and enforcement
of the TSD chapters in EU free trade agreements. The Plan aims to ensure that countries comply
with their commitments through more assertive enforcement, facilitate the
monitoring role of civil society and make EU resources available to support the
implementation of sustainable development chapters in trade agreements.
The review of this Action Plan, announced in the Trade Policy Review (TPR) Communication, will cover all
relevant aspects of TSD implementation and enforcement, including the scope of
commitments, monitoring mechanisms, the possibility of sanctions for
non-compliance as well as the institutional set-up and resources required.
The Commission has also launched an
independent study to map and compare the different approaches to implementation
and enforcement of TSD provisions by a number of EU partners in their trade
agreements.
The results of this consultation, open until
the end of October 2021, together with the conclusions of the comparative
study, will be key contributions to the TSD review.
The
link to the public consultation is found here.
More
information on sustainable development in EU trade can be found here.
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