ESF Position on EU Proposal to amend EU Enforcement Regulation2020-09-18

On 18 September 2020, ESF Chairman, Noel Clehane sent a letter with the ESF Position to European institutions on the EU proposal to amend the EU enforcement regulation.

We expressed some concerns in relation to the European Parliament proposals on adjustments to the EU Enforcement Regulations that, in our view, go well beyond those of the Commission. We highlighted our concerns to see the proposal to expand the scope of EU unilateral enforcement powers to include services and intellectual property in the list of possible trade measures the EU can use against a trading partner. We hence requested the EU institutions, before adopting such an extension, that the Commission and all EU institutions provide some clarifications on what kind of measures they foresee for implementation in the services and IPR, and what impact these could lead to.  Should the decision in the trilogue to extend the regulation to services and IPR be taken, ESF urged the EU to accompany such decision by setting up a proper control mechanism among the EU institutions, with prior consultations of interested stakeholders before triggering any retaliation.