Trade barriers

The term trade barriers refer to the business practices adopted or maintained by a third country in respect of which international trade rules establish a right of action. That right of action will exist when the international trade standards prohibit the right of search the elimination of the effect of the practice at issue.

The removal of trade barriers to trade in goods and services can be carry out in various ways:

• In WTO, through its Mechanism of solution of differences or taking advantage of the negotiations of Accession to the WTO of the countries that are still not members. There is also an WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) and an WTO agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) that deals with getting that neither the technical regulations, nor the standards, or the test procedures and certification bring unnecessary barriers to trade.

• In the European Union there are specific provisions to eliminate the barriers to trade that are collected in the Trade Barrier Regulation (TBR). The TBR confers to complainant companies the right that their claim will be object of investigation and led, in its case, to the appropriate international instances.

• In order to identify adequately the different trade barriers that hinder access for member state companies to the markets of third countries, this Sub-directorate manages the system on Barriers in Foreign Markets of the Secretary of State.

• The European Union has the Database for Access to Markets.