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Trade

Transparency in EU trade policy: 2023 statistics for DG TRADE

The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Trade (DG TRADE) continues to attach great importance to transparency and public access to documents. The following statistics provide an indication of the resources and efforts put into this in 2023.

Trade topics
  • Negotiations and agreements
  • Trade policy

Access to Documents

In 2023, DG TRADE handled a total of 201 requests for Access to Documents.

Full or partial access was granted to 75% of the identified documents. Most of these documents, notably 67% of the requests, either did not have any content redacted, only had personal data removed, or were full release cases.

Proactive transparency

In 2023 DG TRADE proactively published:

  • information on meetings of committees and dialogues set up in the framework of EU trade agreements;
  • negotiation round reports, and initial EU text proposals tabled during ongoing negotiations;  
  • a large number of Trade and Technology Council (TTC)-related 
  • documents, including submissions and position papers;
  • information on meetings of trade-related Expert Groups;
  • all Commission decisions regarding Member States’ Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs);
  • non-sensitive summary records of the Trade Defence Instruments committee, and;
  • all three BIT decisions adopted in 2023, as well as all 14 non-confidential Committee on Trade and Sustainable Development summary reports.

In addition, DG TRADE

  • organised 16 Civil Society Dialogue meetings and other events with stakeholders to provide updates on ongoing individual negotiations and the EU's overall trade agenda, and;
  • replied to more than 200 questions forwarded by the Europe Direct Contact Centre (EDCC). Overall, the EDCC received and handled more than 1,500 trade-related questions received from all parts of society (citizens, academics, students, etc.).