Trade: Council signs off reinforced rules on trade preferences for developing countries
The Council today formally adopted the revised Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) regulation that grants EU trade preferences to developing countries, reinforcing the link between preferential access to the EU market and respect for human rights, labour rights, environmental protection and good governance.
The revised framework strengthens the current GSP system by improving monitoring and transparency and expanding the list of international conventions beneficiary countries must respect. It introduces a faster procedure to suspend trade preferences in cases of serious violations of these conventions, in particular international agreements on climate change and environmental protection.
The regulation also introduces, for the first time, a link between trade preferences and cooperation on migration and readmission. Under the new framework, the Commission will be able to assess whether beneficiary countries cooperate effectively on the readmission of their nationals illegally staying in the EU and, where necessary, propose the withdrawal of preferences.
The revised regulation also strengthens safeguards to protect EU producers in the event of sudden increases in imports from beneficiary countries, including a specific safeguard mechanism for rice imports. To avoid serious disruptions to the EU rice market, if rice imports rise significantly above normal levels, the EU will be able to temporarily reintroduce tariffs on those imports.
Next steps
The regulation will now be signed and published in the Official Journal of the EU. It will apply from 1 January 2027.
Background
The EU’s generalised scheme of preferences (GSP) is a trade policy that offers vulnerable developing countries and territories preferential access to the EU market through reduced or zero tariffs on their exports. The scheme has three main arrangements designed to support different stages of development:
- standard GSP, granting a partial or full removal of customs duties on two-thirds of all tariff lines to low and lower-middle income countries
- GSP+, offering complete duty-free access for the same two-thirds of tariff lines to vulnerable low and lower-middle-income countries, provided they ratify and effectively implement 27 international conventions related to human rights, labour rights, environmental protection and good governance
- everything but arms (EBA), the most generous treatment, granting duty- and quota-free access for all products (except arms and ammunition) to the world’s least developed countries (LDCs).
