EU launches public consultation on green goods initiative

On 4 June the EU launched a public consultation on trade in environmental green goods and services in view of negotiating an agreement on this field. The EU and 13 other WTO countries have pledged to start negotiations for the liberalisation of global trade in environmental goods – the green goods initiative. The negotiations are scheduled to start in July 2014. The deadline for submitting contributions to the public consultation is 31 July 2014.

The aim of this consultation is to get interested parties’ views on the negotiations of an agreement on trade in environmental (green) goods and services. On 24 January 2014 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the EU, together with 13 other WTO members pledged to launch negotiations to liberalise global trade in environmental goods – the green goods initiative. See the Davos announcement on environmental goods.

This initiative has initially brought together: Australia, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Chinese Taipei, the EU, Hong Kong (China), Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, Singapore and the US. Collectively, they account for around 86% of world trade in green goods. Any other WTO Member sharing a similar ambition to liberalise trade in green goods is welcome to join this initiative. The negotiations are scheduled to start in July 2014.

The contributions received, together with the identity of the contributor, will be published on the Internet, unless the contributor objects to publication of the personal data by checking the appropriate box in the questionnaire (see question 1.1. in the questionnaire).

An online questionnaire has been developed. The announcement states that this questionnaire must be completed and submitted within 90 minutes, otherwise the data will be lost. The Commission therefore suggests that commenters print the pdf document of the consultation, draft their replies separately and then copy/paste them into the respective fields in the questionnaire.