The Committee on International Trade adopted an
own-initiative report on the implementation of Regulation (EU) No
978/2012 on the Generalised Scheme of Tariff Preferences
(GSP).
As a reminder, the scheme contains three
arrangements:
- the general GSP scheme: currently 18 countries benefit from reduced
customs duties on 66 % of all EU product categories;
- the GSP+ incentive scheme: the eight GSP+ beneficiaries export around 66 % of
all product categories duty-free in return for their commitment to
effectively implement 27 international core conventions that cover
labour rights, human rights, good governance and environmental
concerns;
- the Everything But Arms scheme
(EBA): the 49 least developed
countries (LDCs) under the EBA arrangement of GSP are granted
duty-free access to the EU for all products, except arms and
ammunition.
Conclusions
Members welcomed the fact that the new Regulation has
seen an increase in exports from beneficiaries of the Everything
But Arms (EBA) and GSP+ arrangements.
In 2016, EUR 62.6 billion worth of imports entered the
EU under GSP preferences (a rising tendency), broken down as
follows: EUR 31.6 billion from standard GSP beneficiaries, around
EUR 7.5 billion from GSP+ beneficiaries and EUR 23.5 billion from
EBA beneficiaries (Eurostat data as of September 2017).
The report stated that the GSP+ plays an important
role in promoting international labour law, human rights, good
governance and environmental protection standards in the
beneficiary countries and that the GSP in economic terms benefits
the beneficiary countries and the European Union in economic
terms.
Main recommendations
The report emphasised, among other things, the
following points:
- raise awareness of GSP rules in beneficiary countries
and implement international conventions and reforms to prevent GSP
programmes from promoting environmental and social
dumping;
- ensure a reinforced, systematic and continuous
monitoring of the implementation process through enhanced
cooperation between all parties in order to improve information
gathering and in-depth analysis by using all the available
information and resources;
- explore other options for structured, formal and
independent participation of civil society, trade unions and the
private sector, which could help strengthen the monitoring
process;
- add the Paris Agreement to the list of 27 fundamental
international conventions that GSP+ beneficiary countries must
comply with;
- strengthen coordination with the European External
Action Service (EEAS), EU delegations, Member States' diplomatic
missions, governments of beneficiary countries, international
organisations, businesses, social partners and civil society, in
order to improve information gathering provide more in-depth
analysis of monitoring;
- maintain the current targeted approach for the
withdrawal of preferences and ensure that these withdrawals are
limited to specific sectors and are designed to minimise negative
effects on the local population; the withdrawal of trade
preferences should be considered as a measure of last
resort;
- use conditionality to preserve the credibility of the
mechanisms and ensure that action is taken in the event of severe
and systematic violations of international conventions;
- consider various measures to increase diversification
among beneficiaries. In this respect, the possibility of bring
together countries that have been excluded from the GSP scheme
should be reintroduced in the next GSP Regulation and ways should
be considered to include services in the next GSP
Regulation;
- create a favourable environment for women in business
as the GSP has contributed to womens economic empowerment and
promoted their participation in the labour market;
- provide measures to amplify the effect that the GSP
has had on adopting cleaner and safer technologies and on voluntary
corporate social responsibility initiative;
- explore the possibility of introducing additional
tariff preferences for products that have demonstrably been
produced sustainably.
Members recalled that the EU must encourage other
international players, such as multinationals, to participate fully
in improving respect for human rights, children's rights, social
rights, environmental rights and public health in the
world.