In an exclusive interview with viEUws, Bernd Lange, Chair of the European Parliament’s International Trade Committee (INTA), discusses the trade priorities for the EP with Joanna Sopinska, EU Trade Insights‘ Trade Reporter.

Bernd Lange welcomes the focus put by the Dutch Presidency of the EU on sustainable global value chains. On the ongoing discussions on conflict minerals, he stresses that the European Parliament wants a mandatory labelling system for both European producers and importers. He talks about the very senstitive issue of granting market economy status to China and foresees problems if the EU moves in that direction without improving its trade defense instruments. On TTIP, Bernd Lange considers that the EU is ready to negotiate but that the US are not. For him, this means that an agreement is unlikely in 2016. Moreover, a minimal agreement would not be acceptable especially if only the interests of the US are covered. As for the trade deal between the European Union and Canada (CETA), he claims that changes could and should be made quickly on the agreement’s provisions relating to the investor-to-state dispute settlement mechanism (ISDS) so that the agreement can be ratified before the end of the year.

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