hankyoreh

Jung Eun-joo　
　
It was confirmed Thursday that the European Parliament and economic groups secured the right to apply for investigations toward applying safeguards on the South Korea-European Union free trade agreement (KOREU FTA). As this content is not included in South Korean or World Trade Organization regulations, some analysts are saying the potential exists for the EU nations to abuse the safeguard to protect their industries.
At a regular meeting of its Committee on International Trade in Brussels, Belgium, on Wednesday (local time), the European Parliament passed KOREU FTA safeguard legislation with 24 votes in favor, none against, and two abstentions. A safeguard is a trade regulation measure that suspends or revokes reduce tariff rates on products if domestic industries suffer serious damage, or fear suffering serious damage, due to tariff abolition after an FTA takes effect.
In a press release Thursday, the European Parliament said that the parliament and industries gained the right to request an investigation by the European Commission as to whether damages to domestic industry arose as the result of an FTA.
The press release said that the act established measures for protection so that European industries would not be threatened by rapid increases in the importation of South Korean products.
The European Commission closely monitors import trends for South Korean products in sensitive areas such as automobiles. In particular, it has specified through legal provisions that information on South Korean products subject to duty drawback is to be shared regularly by the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union, and industry. In addition, safeguard-related decisions and trade figures between countries must be reported to interested parties, and a separate web site is to be set up for exchanging related information.
In addition, the European Commission officially stated that if the special automobile safeguard provisions introduced into the South Korea-U.S. free trade agreement through recent renegotiations by South Korea and the U.S. do not conform to the safeguard act passed by the European Parliament on Thursday, it would automatically apply the content to the KOREU FTA.
Regarding this, attorney and trade law expert Song Gi-ho said, “The EU’s safeguard legislation is more protectionist than World Trade Organization regulations and included much content that is not even in the South Korean law.”
“The groundwork has been laid for the abuse and overuse of safeguards,” Song said.
But a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade official said, “It just says that if the European Parliament adopts a resolution recommending the initiation of a safeguard investigation, the European Commission will examine it, so there is nothing that would be a problem.”
The European Parliament plans to submit the KOREU FTA ratification motion to the corresponding permanent committee, the Committee on International Trade, on Feb. 7, and to pass the safeguard legislation and ratification motion together at a plenary session scheduled for Feb. 14 to 17.
　　
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