EU is all set to ban import of products made using forced labour.
This move could further increase strains in its trade relations with China in the light of allegations about forced labour in the province of Xinjiang.
As per media reports, apparels, shoes and few other commodities such as timber, fish and cocoa are amongst the products most likely to be affected.
It is worth mentioning here that in June, the US enacted a blanket ban on all imports from China’s Xinjiang province, where there have been allegations of widespread human rights violations — including torture, arbitrary detention and forced labour — against Muslim Uyghur and other minorities.
It is being said that the EU ban will instead focus on all products made from forced labour — including those made within the bloc — to avoid breaching World Trade Organization rules on non-discrimination.
The Green/European Free Alliance bloc in the European Parliament has backed a US-style ban.
Henrike Hahn, a German Green MEP and Member of the Parliament’s China delegation, said “We are not like-minded friends of the totalitarian regime in China. We demand a ban on imports of products from Chinese forced labour and on products from Chinese companies in general produced with forced labour.”
The European Commission, the executive body of the EU, is expected to announce its plans this week.
Financial Times, a leading news organisation, reported on base of confidential draft paper, which does not cite individual countries that could be targeted by the ban, added that the EU did not have time for a “fully fledged” impact assessment because of the urgency of the issue.
The ban, which is likely to become law by next year at the earliest, will apply to products where forced labour has been used at any stage of their production, harvest or extraction and to all products, of any type, including their components, the paper said.
Reuters also reported that the products made with forced labour or those imported into the 27-country EU will be banned under draft rules, according to an EU document seen by Reuters, a move driven by EU lawmakers concerned about human rights in the Chinese province of Xinjiang.
China has denied it is abusing human rights in Xinjiang, one of the world’s largest producers of cotton and a key supplier of materials for solar panels.