The European Union will very soon have a revamped ‘enforcement regulation’, a hitherto hardly known legal instrument that allows the bloc to retaliate against countries contravening international trade norms and not cooperating in legal disputes and thus protect itself against ‘appeals into the void’ at the World Trade Organization.
The measure was proposed by the European Commission in late 2019 as a consequence of the demise of the World Trade Organization’s Appellate Body.
The EU wants to deter countries with which it is engaged in a legal dispute at the WTO to bloc legal proceedings and be able to retaliate after a first panel ruling if there is no prospect of an appeal via the Appellate Body or an alternative mechanism such as the MPIA or other ad hoc appeals panel.
The EU originally simply wanted to amend a few paragraphs in the legislation to take into account the Appellate Body situation per se and leave the rest of the law untouched. Among the provisions in the regulation is one that states that the EU may lift trade preferences granted country in the area of goods and public procurement.
See the rest of the Article on Borderlex : https://borderlex.eu/2020/10/28/eu-institutions-conclude-deal-on-trade-enforcement/
