On Wednesday 22nd January, Ellie and her Green colleague Anna Cavazzini hosted a roundtable on WTO reform and climate change.

Ellie and Anna invited Mehdi Abbas, a trade and governance specialist from the University of Grenoble; Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now; and Jana Titievskaia from the European Parliamentary Research Service.

The roundtable discussed the existing structure and trading rules of the WTO and how these could be reformed to include considerations of climate change.

Ellie’s opening speech:

“For those of you who haven’t worked with me before, my name is Ellie Chowns and I’m a Green MEP and member of the INTA Committee here in the European Parliament. Since I’ve been here, I’ve been a member of the WTO Inter-Parliamentary Steering Group, and in WTO meetings here in the EU Parliament, I’ve consistently fought for environmental issues to be on the agenda. In dialogue with the Commission negotiating team for the Eastern and Southern African Economic partnership Agreement, I’ve highlighted the lack of a sustainability assessment of the region’s existing trade provisions with the EU, urged the Commission to prioritise climate change, and engaged with civil society to bring the voices of the most vulnerable to the forefront of future negotiations.

 

As a British MEP, my time in the European Parliament is unfortunately drawing to a close. I’m grateful, however, to have such fantastic colleagues who will keep fighting to ensure that our multilateral trading system is fit for purpose, and that climate justice and sustainable trade are at the centre of any future reforms. In particular, Anna Cavazzini, who has organised this event with me, has produced the first comprehensive analysis of the EU-Mercosur agreement, which has revealed the negative effects of the agreement on consumer rights, the environment, climate and animal welfare.

 

As things currently stand in international trade relations, it appears to be the law of the strongest that prevails, while ecological visions for trade take a backseat. As we saw with the WTO Appellate Body ceasing to function in December, our multilateral trading system is at a standstill. At a time of increased trade tensions, certain WTO members have used the Appellate Body crisis as leverage to impose their own unilateral visions of international trade. Meanwhile, the climate crisis requires urgent action now and we need to ensure that any future multilateral trading system prioritises the protection of our environment.

 

Before we get started, I’d like to let you know that the audio for this session will be recorded and parts of it might be used on social media at a later date. Please do let me or one of my assistants know if you are not happy with this. This is a roundtable debate, and we’d like to encourage everyone to participate. I’d therefore like to start this off with a tour de table…

 

We have three fantastic speakers who will each give a short presentation of approximately 10 mins, and then there’ll be time for question and answers. Firstly, we have Jana TITIEVSKAIA, who is a trade analyst at the European Parliamentary Research Centre. Jana has produced this excellent briefing on international trade and climate change, and is responsible for research on sustainable trade and the WTO, among other things. Then we’ll hear from Mehdi Abbas – Associate Professor at the University of Grenoble. He’s just written a paper on trade and climate, and he’ll give a presentation on his key findings. And finally, I’d like to welcome Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now to speak. Recently, Global Justice Now has exposed the secret trade talks taking place between the US and the UK, and has been critical of the injustice of current WTO rules. Nick himself has been at the frontlines of campaigns for trade justice and democracy.”