Korea Says CBAM Must Be in Compliance with WTO Rules
The South Korean government is having a meeting with the European Union to state its opinion that countries implementing carbon reduction measures should be exempt from the application of the carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM).
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced on July 5 that the meeting in Brussels is between Kim Jung-il, head of the Office of International Trade and Legal Affairs of the ministry, and Gerassimos Thomas and Sabine Weyand, who are the director general for taxation and customs union and the director general for trade at the European Commission, respectively.
The ministry’s stance is that the CBAM of the European Union must be in compliance with WTO rules without hindering international trade in any way, countries implementing emission trading and the like do not have to be subject to the CBAM, and a sufficient international agreement needs to be reached between the announcement of the CBAM bill and the actual implementation of the bill.
The CBAM is to impose tariffs on products the European Union imports from countries emitting more carbon than the European Union. The announcement of the bill is scheduled for July 14 and the implementation is scheduled for 2026.