The European Union has approved a profound reform of the system with which it offers easier access to its markets to developing countries. The new rules, which received the definitive green light from the Strasbourg Parliament, with 459 votes in favour, 127 against and 70 abstentions, introduce more stringent conditions on respect for human rights and the environment, link commercial advantages to cooperation on migrants for the first time, and strengthen protections for some sensitive European production sectors, such as rice.
“This is good news for more than 2 billion people in more than 60 countries, who will benefit for another 10 years from reduced or zero tariff preferences granted unilaterally by the EU. The agreement sends a clear message: in a context of growing geopolitical tensions, nationalism and protectionism, the EU remains a reliable and lasting partner”, declared the German socialist Bernd Lange, president of the Committee on International Trade and rapporteur of the text.
The old system
For over fifty years the EU has been applying an instrument called the “generalized preference scheme” (in English Generalized Scheme of Preferencesor GSP), introduced in 1971 with the aim of helping the world’s poorest countries participate in global trade. In practice, the EU lowers or eliminates customs duties on goods imported from these nations, making their products more competitive on the European market. The system covers over 60 countries and two billion people.
The old scheme was divided into three treatment bands, ordered by increasing generosity. The first, the “standard GSP”, offered a partial or total reduction in duties on approximately two-thirds of the customs items for low- and middle-low-income states.
The second, called “Gsp+”, went further: duties eliminated on the same items, but only for countries that formally committed to respecting 27 international conventions on human rights, labor rights, environmental protection and good governance. The third, known by the acronym “Eba” (Everything but Arms, i.e. “everything except weapons”), was reserved for the least developed countries of all and guaranteed free access to duties and quotas for all products, with the sole exception of weapons and ammunition.
But the international conventions that beneficiary countries had to respect did not include some key treaties approved in recent decades, such as the Paris Climate Agreement, and surveillance mechanisms were insufficient. Furthermore, the system did not include any link with the migration issue, which in the meantime had become central to the European political agenda.
Human rights and climate
The most substantial innovation of the reform concerns the international conventions that the beneficiary countries must ratify to access trade preferences. The Paris Climate Agreement, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, both adopted within the United Nations, are added to the already existing list.
The logic is simple: commercial advantages are not an automatic right, but a concession that the EU subordinates to the respect of shared minimum standards. Anyone who wants to export to the EU on favorable terms must demonstrate that they adhere to these values. The GSP+ system remains the main mechanism in this sense: to access the most generous band of customs exemptions, countries must not only ratify the conventions, but also demonstrate their effective application.
Stricter measures are also introduced in case of environmental violations. The new rules provide for the possibility of revoking trade benefits in the event of “serious and systematic violations” of climate and environmental protection conventions.
The migration clause
The most controversial point of the reform is the so-called “migration conditionality”: the possibility for the EU to suspend trade preferences to a country that does not collaborate in the repatriation of its citizens present irregularly in European territory. It was an explicit request from the European Council, and Parliament accepted the principle, while fighting to limit its application.
In practice, the mechanism works like this: if a country benefiting from the system does not cooperate with the EU on the readmission front, the European Commission can initiate a procedure which ultimately leads to the suspension of the tariff advantages. But Parliament has obtained that this procedure is subject to very specific conditions. First of all, a formal dialogue must be initiated with the country concerned lasting at least twelve months before any revocation can be carried out.
Secondly, the least developed countries, those that fall within the EBA band, benefit from a grace period of two years from the entry into force of the new regulation before the clause can apply to them.
However, the radical left The Left criticized the measure. The inclusion of the clause on repatriations “represents a step backwards for human rights and a step backwards for sustainable development”, argued the Irishman Lynn Boylan, according to whom “this clause is not compatible with the rules of the World Trade Organization and is morally wrong, as it contradicts the entire spirit of the GSP as a development instrument”.
Rice and sensitive sectors
Among the operational innovations there is also the introduction of an automatic safeguard mechanism for rice imports. This is a measure designed to protect European producers, in particular Italian and Spanish ones, from sudden increases in imports from third countries.
The mechanism works through a system of tariff quotas: as long as imports remain below a certain threshold, the preferential duties provided for by the scheme are applied. However, if imports significantly exceed the historical average, ordinary duties are automatically triggered (those applied to countries that do not benefit from preferential agreements, called “most favored nation duties”) for a specific period. There is no need to launch an investigation or wait for a political decision: the system activates itself when the threshold is exceeded.
Specific safeguard measures are also introduced for imports of textiles and ethanol. In these cases, however, the protections do not apply to the EBA countries, the poorer ones, but only to the standard GSP and GSP+ bands. They are also triggered only if imports from a single country exceed six percent of the total EU imports of the product in question and 47 percent of imports from all the beneficiary countries of the system.
Transition period
The new regulation also grants greater flexibility to countries that, over the years, improve their economic conditions. Under the old scheme, leaving the EBA band automatically led to the loss of wider benefits, without adequate transition periods.
The new rules provide that countries that will leave the category of least developed countries in the next ten years can continue to benefit from very favorable customs conditions, as long as they agree to adhere to the sustainability standards envisaged by the Gsp+ band.
Entry into force
The new regulation will apply starting from January 1, 2027. The general structure of the scheme remains unchanged: the three bands (standard GSP, GSP+ and EBA) continue to exist, and the basic criteria for accessing them remain substantially the same. What changes is the scope of the obligations, the severity of the controls and the range of protection tools available. The system will continue to cover over 60 countries and approximately two billion people worldwide.
