At the Foreign Affairs Council EU informal trade talks in Valletta on Thursday and Friday this week, Luxembourg Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Jean Asselborn said that Luxembourg supported the European Commission’s proposals for protecting EU companies from unfair competition.
Minister Asselborn added that the challenge for the EU and for Luxembourg is to best protect European industries against any form of unfair competition, while at the same time providing them with the same opportunities and opportunities for investment in third countries as the EU offers to its partners.
The ministers' discussions covered the new EU methodology for anti-dumping investigations, which is part of the wider framework for the modernisation of EU trade defence instruments. With this methodology, the EU will take into account existing market distortions in a specific country or in a specific sector.
"Europe must focus on distortions and not on countries," said Minister Asselborn, adding "I remain convinced that the fulfilment of our commitments under the WTO, The elimination of market distortions by appropriate instruments in this context while encouraging mutual investment in a mutually beneficial approach constitute the basis for the strengthening and successful development of links between countries Third countries and Europe.”
Turning to the Commission’s draft proposal for a future multilateral investment court, the minister said that Luxembourg considers this objective to be the logical continuation of the new European model of investment protection, the Investment Court System (ICS), a reformulation of the controversial Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism.
"As I have said on other occasions, the ICS is now the minimum standard in all trade agreements in the European Union. There can be no return to the old-age system (ISDS) and Luxembourg will oppose any attempt to do so,” said the minister.
“The recent experience with CETA demonstrates that we cannot continue on the path of the old model of settlement of investor and state disputes, ... justice must not only be rendered, but it must also be seen as independent, impartial and equitable.
"A multilateral, permanent and public judicial institution will make a significant contribution to alleviating the current lack of legitimacy in the settlement of investor-state disputes," he concluded.
Ministers then exchanged views on the priorities of European trade policy in the context of the position of the Trump administration in the field of international trade.
Image: Minister Asselborn, EU Commissioner for Trade Anna Cecilia Malmström, Belgian foreign affairs minister, Didier Reynders
