Ladies and gentlemen, let me start by thanking Minister Forssell for chairing this meeting.
This has been the last Trade Council under the Swedish Presidency, so I use this occasion to thank you for your excellent cooperation and for your dedication driving the EU trade agenda forward. But there are still some things to do in the coming weeks!
As Minister Forssell outlined, I would like to thank Member States for approving the extension of tariff-free imports from Ukraine to the EU.
This suspension has formed a crucial part of our support for Ukraine over the past year.
This extension will maintain Ukraine's vital access to the EU market.
We also welcome the ratification of the WTO fisheries subsidies agreement. I think this is an important signal. It's a Phase One agreement, and in the next WTO ministerial, we should be discussing the next steps on fisheries subsidies.
Now to our broader policy discussions, which started with Transatlantic relations.
The U.S. continues to be our key ally and largest trading partner. Our bilateral trade reached a stunning 1.4 trillion euro last year.
Our wider cooperation on geopolitical, economic, climate, and defence challenges remains crucial.
The next Trade and Technology Council taking place in Sweden next week will be an important occasion to discuss all those issues.
We want to see concrete actions to facilitate bilateral trade. This can make a real difference for businesses on both sides of the Atlantic.
It is crucial for the EU that the TCC delivers tangible trade-creating and trade-facilitating results. For instance, in terms of facilitating testing and recognising each other's standards, including in machinery. We also want to see faster progress to increase the use of digital tools to make trade easier.
We want to advance a shared green Transatlantic marketplace, including via our new Transatlantic Initiative for Sustainable Trade. We will endorse a work plan for this important initiative.
We want to maintain and enhance our unprecedented level of cooperation on export controls in the context of Russia's aggression against Ukraine.
At the same time, there are also challenges.
As you know, the EU has strong concerns on discriminatory elements in the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act. So, we are working with our American counterparts to find workable solutions, including through the Clean Energy Incentives Dialogue. And we are negotiating an Agreement on Critical Minerals.
This would help to mitigate some of IRA's negative impacts. We need to see real progress on this.
We will also be discussing the Global Sustainable Steel and Aluminium Arrangement. Both sides are committed to concluding an ambitious agreement by October. This agreement will drive decarbonization of those two important industrial sectors and address non-market excess capacity issues.
Our next discussion was about our second biggest trading partner: China.
China remains an essential trading partner for the EU – our trade value is of 2.3 billion Euro per day.
However, our economic relationship continues to be unbalanced, characterised by a large trade deficit, distortive economic practices, and strategic dependencies, not least when it comes to critical raw materials for green and digital transitions.
Our priority is therefore to rebalance and de-risk the relationship, reducing the EU's vulnerabilities and promoting transparency, predictability and reciprocity.
In general, Russia's brutal war against Ukraine is making the context for EU – China relations more complex.
This was among the messages I passed to the Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao when we met last month.
We had a broad-ranging discussion on EU – China bilateral trade and investment issues.
The next step for our engagement is the EU-China High Level Economic Dialogue on Trade and Economy, which we are planning after the summer.
So, it will be our capacity to achieve concrete results and deliverables in rebalancing our relationship that will ultimately determine the success of our engagement.
We also discussed preparations for the next Ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization.
The EU remains the strongest global champion for a reformed WTO underpinned by a functioning and relevant global rules base.
In this context, today is an important moment, as Member States approved the EU commitment on the WTO Fisheries Subsidies Agreement.
As regards the next Ministerial, we want to see progress on WTO reform, in particular on dispute settlement;
We are looking for a stable solution on the e-commerce moratorium;
We want to advance on the issue of industrial subsidies, especially transparency; and
Food security will remain important for us.
At MC13, we need to address transparency especially in areas such as export restrictions and food aid.
Finally, we discussed ongoing trade negotiations.
Our trade deals are critical for the EU's economic security and competitiveness.
They help us to grow our exports and therefore support more European jobs.
They also help secure diversified and reliable access to the inputs we need for our green and digital transitions.
So, we have invested significant energy and resources into progressing a number of important deals.
The EU-New Zealand agreement is already with the Parliament and Member States for adoption, and we also want to put the modernised agreement with Chile forward for adoption very soon.
We want to conclude negotiations with Australia and Kenya by the summer. Negotiations with India and Indonesia are also ongoing.
We are also keen to advance on the modernised Mexico agreement as well as the EU-Mercosur deal. Let me remind you that here we are addressing concerns regarding sustainability issues, notably deforestation.
So, I think that gives an overview of the broad discussions we had today, and I thank the Swedish Presidency for its work to help drive this agenda forward. Thank you.
