Proposal for a Council Decision on the position to be taken in the 11th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization

The Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the WTO (‘the WTO Agreement’) entered into force on 1 January 1995. The European Union and all 28 EU Member States are parties to the Agreement. The Ministerial Conference is the highest decision-making body of the WTO and meets at least once every two years. The next meeting of the Ministerial Conference will take place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 10-13 December 2017.

MC11 may adopt decisions having legal effects regarding (1) public stockholding for food security purposes; (2) trade-distorting domestic support, including for cotton; (3) export restrictions in agriculture; (4) fisheries subsidies; (5) domestic regulation in services; and (6) SMEs/transparency of regulatory measures for trade in goods. The objective of this proposal is to allow the Union to join a possible consensus at MC11 on the adoption of these decisions.

Since negotiations are currently ongoing on all elements of the possible Buenos Aires package, the Commission expects that the Council will take its decision on the EU position on the outcome of the negotiations once the situation regarding the relevant texts becomes sufficiently clear, possibly during the Ministerial Conference itself.

This proposal concerns the establishment of the position to be taken on behalf of the Union in the 11th Ministerial Conference (MC11) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in connection with the possible adoption of several decisions relating to the Doha Development Agenda (DDA).

EUR-Lex: COM(2017)668: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2017:668:FIN

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