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Nothing is more blah-blah-blah than the EU’s ‘sustainable’ trade policy
(EurActiv, 25 Oct 2021) You can put all the sustainability principles you like in trade deals but without means for control, monitoring, enforcement or legal consequences for a failure to comply, they aren’t worth a thing, writes Adélaïde Charlier and Deborah Osei-Mensah.
Adélaïde Charlier is co-founder of Belgium’s Youth for Climate movement. Deborah Osei-Mensah is a cocoa producer and fair-trade youth ambassador from Ghana.
Ahead of the COP 26 climate summit, the EU has been enthusiastically promoting its credentials as the world’s climate leader. It points to its plan to cut emissions by 55% by the end of the decade and its new policy of aligning trade – or more specifically, free trade agreements (FTAs) – with environmental aims.
On the first of these, the EU’s so-called Fit for 55 plan is a start and may help push other major emitters to act, but it is insufficient if it is serious about doing its fair share to avert the worst of climate breakdown.
The issue of a renewed trade policy – a key element in making the bloc’s Green Deal a reality – is the subject of a public consultation, which runs until the end of the month.
Taken at face value there is much to shout about: international trade covers a huge amount of exploitative, destructive and carbon-intensive economic activities. Ursula von der Leyen summed it up nicely in her manifesto for the job of Commission president, declaring “trade is not an end in itself”. In her more recent State of the Union speech, she even called for zero forced labour supply chains, stating that “business and global trade can never be done at the expense of people’s dignity and freedom”.
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EurActiv, 25 Oct 2021: Nothing is more blah-blah-blah than the EU’s ‘sustainable’ trade policy
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