Proposal for a Council Decision establishing the position to be taken by the European Union within the Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as regards an extension of the moratoria on customs duties on electronic transmissions (‘e-commerce moratorium’) and non-violation and situation complaints

The objective of this proposal is to allow the European Union to join a consensus in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on the adoption by the WTO Ministerial Conference of two decisions extending the moratoria on customs duties on electronic transmissions ("e-commerce moratorium") and non-violation and situation complaints.

The Union has always supported the extension of the "e-commerce moratorium" as, from the Union's perspective, e-commerce is a service and therefore it should not be subject to customs duties. Further, the moratorium provides significant economic benefits to the Union companies.

As regards non-violation and situation complaints, the Union is of the opinion that they were designed to maintain a balance of negotiated market access and tariff concessions under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1994 (“GATT”) and, accordingly, it does not appear appropriate to have them apply at this stage under the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (“TRIPS”).

The proposal provides that the Council authorises the Commission to take a position on behalf of the European Union within the WTO to join a consensus as regards the said decisions.

EUR-Lex: COM(2013)746: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2013:746:FIN

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