 "European Union (EU) flags flutter outside the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels. (Photo: Reuters)")
The European Union’s (EU) green rules have emerged as contentious issues with major trading partners like Qatar and India.
Qatar on Monday warned it would stop gas supplies to Europe if the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) would not be diluted or withdrawn. Previously, India has also opposed the EU’s ‘carbon tax’, formally called Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM).
Qatar is among the largest gas-producers in the world. And it has emerged as a major supplier for Europe after EU members began to cut their gas imports from Russia after the country’s forces launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
India and the EU are currently negotiating a free trade agreement. It has been reported that carbon tax is one of the sticking points. The two sides are committed to conclude the trade deal by the end of the year.
Qatar oppose EU’s green rules, India states red lines
Qatar Energy Minister Saad Al-Kaabi on Monday said that the country would halt the supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe over EU’s planned environmental and human rights rules.
The provision is titled Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and requires large companies to fix the “adverse human rights and environmental impacts” of their global supply chains.
“If Europe does not look at how they can water down or cancel the CSDDD, and still have a penalty of 5 percent of our total world turnover as a penalty, we will not be delivering LNG to Europe, for sure,” said Al-Kaabi, as per AFP.
As for India’s position, India is formally “opposed o parts of it”.
“We have very deep reservations about CBAM and we’ve been quite open about it. The idea that one part of the world will set standards for everybody else is something which we are against,” External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told Euractiv in June.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsEU officials have said that they are working to arrive at a middle ground with India on the issue.
In September, EU chief negotiator Christophe Kiener told a meeting of the European Parliament’s trade committee that the EU “will need to adjust the approach we usually take on trade and sustainable development” to reach a deal with India.
“The notion that there would be a dispute settlement, let alone sanctions applying to those commitments, the idea that the commitments would be legally binding, that civil society would be involved in the management of the agreement from that perspective, but also that those commitments would apply at the sub-federal level — these are elements that are very difficult for India,” said Kiener, as per Euronews.