HOW TO PUSH FOR GREEN TRADE: A new analysis published Wednesday by the Europe Jacques Delors think tank calls for more integrated sustainability efforts between the EU’s trade deals and its unilateral trade policy.
In other words, the EU should ensure that sustainability objectives pursued in bilateral approaches — such as FTAs — are in line with unilateral tools (think of the deforestation regulation, CBAM, or the due diligence rules.)
What’s best? The authors, who include environmental policy heavyweight Geneviève Pons and the former World Trade Organization’s Director Pascal Lamy, argue that measures such as the deforestation regulation or the due diligence rules seem to be more efficient to advance sustainable trade objectives than bilateral approaches, but they suffer from a lack of legitimacy in partner countries.
“Bilateral approaches pursued through FTAs appear more suitable to develop country-specific, and sector-specific approaches to cooperation, implementation and capacity building,” the authors argue.
Further reading: Barbara and Karl had this interesting piece into how trade partners are seeing red over Europe’s green agenda.
Pascal LAMY 