EU Statement at the Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC) and Informal HODs meeting on 12 December 2025

EU Statement at the Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC) and Informal HODs meeting on 12 December 2025

Statement Delivered by Ambassador João Aguiar Machado

We would like to thank you Director-General for convening us today for this important milestone as we prepare for deciding what topics under the TNC to take forward to MC14. We would also like to thank the Chairs for their work, updates and assessments in the different areas.

The European Union sees ministerial endorsement of further post-MC14 work on WTO reform as the top priority. But we will be conveying our views on reform at the General Council after receiving the Facilitator's report.

As regards agriculture, the EU takes note and agrees with the assessment today by the DG that no broad substantive outcome on agriculture can be expected for Ministerial action at MC14. But we should still try to address issues of importance for all Members, where the WTO can contribute positively at the current moment. Food security concerns, including those related to development assistance and improved market access in cotton, are certainly areas where we could work on after the winter break, to try to converge on a realistic and meaningful outcomes at MC14. Agriculture and food security are an important area of the WTO negotiations, and the EU supports the CoASS Chair's efforts to continue the conversations in various settings around the agricultural negotiations to try to find a credible and common path for an effective negotiating process postMC14.

On fisheries subsidies, we do not see a viable path to progress on the phase 2 negotiations in the short term due to the divergent positions. We do welcome the recent appointment of Guyana's Ambassador Leslie Ramsammy as Chair of the NGR and hope that he will bring the necessary momentum and impetus to the negotiations following MC14. As for a possible MC14 ministerial decision on fisheries subsidies, while we do not have a problem with this in principle, we would urge caution so as not to engage in lengthy exchanges given that the mandates for completing the fisheries subsidies negotiations already exist.

The urgency of incorporating the IFD Agreement is clear as a demonstration of the WTO's ability to address and deliver negotiating outcomes on issues of great interest and benefit to members. The request of 128 WTO members for incorporation must be tabled for ministerial decision at MC14.

The EU fully supports the E-Commerce Agreement to demonstrate the multilateral trading system's ability to address modern challenges.

On development, the EU will continue to engage on proposals from developing countries including least developed countries. At the same time, we call for pragmatism. We welcome the direction of the latest proposal of the G90 on TBT and SPS. While we are still consulting internally, we believe discussions in the relevant technical committees on how to improve the implementation of the special and differential treatment (SDT) provisions is the right approach that could be replicated for other Agreement Specific Proposals. Work will need to continue post-MC14 in this area. We note the work on the LDC graduation proposal that can hopefully be progressed before MC14.

Finally, while outside the scope of MC14 decision-making, we would like to underline our support for the valuable work and ongoing engagement by members in the CTE on trade and environment and thank led by Ambassador Bollinger in leading this discussion.