Proposal for a Council Decision establishing the position to be taken on behalf of the EU within the General Council of the WTO on Jordan’s request for a WTO waiver relating to the transitional period for the elimination of its export subsidy program

The objective of this proposal is to establish the position to be taken by the European Union within the General Council of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on Jordan's request for a WTO waiver to extend until 31 December 2018 the transitional period under Article 27.2(b) of the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM Agreement) for the elimination of the Jordan Export Subsidy Program. In July 2007 the General Council already extended the phase-out period for this measure to 31 December 2015. Jordan has introduced its waiver request on the basis of Article IX.3 of the WTO Agreement.

The waiver request would be the third extension of the transitional period to phase out the subsidy scheme. The first extension was granted in 2001 which brought the transitional phase out period up to the end of 2007. This was extended a second time in July 2007 when Jordan, among others, was granted a further extension for the elimination of export subsidy schemes until 31 December 2015. While that decision stated that no requests for further extensions could be made, the current circumstances in the region could not have been foreseen at that time.

The EU recognises the economic challenges caused by the extraordinary and unique regional political environment that Jordan continues to face, including the significant influx of refugees from neighbouring countries and associated financial burden, the disruption of trade with regional partners such as Iraq and Syria and additional costs resulting from the disruption of traditional energy supplies from Egypt and of road transit routes across Syria to Turkey.

For the EU, continuation of the export subsidy programme is unlikely to have any significant economic impact. Jordan's share of world trade is very small (0.04% in 2013). The bilateral trade balance between the EU and Jordan is overwhelmingly in the EU's favour with EU goods exports to Jordan accounting for 92% of the total €4 billion bilateral trade in goods in 2014. At the same time Jordanian products are not in significant competition with EU exports on third country markets.

In light of these considerations, the EU can join the emerging consensus in favour of the waiver request in the WTO General Council.

EUR-Lex: COM(2016)22: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2016:022:FIN

---