Minister Bettel Cals for Upholding Rules-Based Trading at 13th WTO Ministerial Conference

From Sunday 25 to Tuesday 27 February 2024, Luxembourg's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Xavier Bettel, participated in the 13th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which took place in Abu Dhabi.

Ahead of the 13th Ministerial Conference (CM13) of the WTO, European ministers responsible for trade gathered for a session of the EU's Foreign Affairs Council on Trade.

CM13 took place in a difficult geopolitical context, marked by a weakening of global supply chains and an increase in food insecurity.

In this context, Minister Bettel underlined the importance of working together to strengthen the rules-based multilateral trading system.

The minister highlighted the importance of extending the moratorium on the imposition of customs duties on electronic transmissions and of advancing work on WTO reform, including in particular the reestablishment of the appeals body.

Minister Bettel also underlined the need to launch a discussion forum on the links between trade and industrial, environmental and social policies.

Luxembourg hopes that the conference will also enable the conclusion of phase 2 of the Multilateral Fisheries Agreement aimed at eliminating subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing.

On the sidelines of the Ministerial Conference, Minister Bettel participated in an event in support of Ukraine and attended the celebration of the entry into force of the plurilateral agreement on domestic regulation in services.

He also took the opportunity to hold bilateral meetings with several ministers, including the Minister Delegate for Foreign Trade of France, Franck Riester, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the United Arab Emirates, Abdullah bin Zayed al Nahyan.

In addition to bilateral relations between Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates, Minister Bettel and Sheik Abdullah mainly discussed the situation in Gaza. Deploring the unacceptable number of civilian casualties in Israel and Gaza and the vicious cycle of violence that followed the Hamas terrorist attacks, they stressed the need for an immediate ceasefire and the release of all hostages remaining. Minister Bettel and Sheikh Abdullah also discussed the need to find a political solution to the current situation, in particular through the two-state solution, the only way to offer a lasting solution to this conflict. The importance of the unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid was also discussed.