It is generally recognised that economic development, social development and environmental protection are interdependent and mutually reinforcing components of sustainable development, and that further trade liberalisation should be accompanied by whatever measures may be needed to enhance the contribution of trade to the wider sustainable development objective.
The European Union has proposed a number of policies and measures to ensure consistency between trade liberalisation and sustainable development in the developing and least developed countries: 1. All industrial countries should commit themselves to tariff free treatment on essentially all products from the least developed countries, to be implemented by 2003. 2. Further support for capacity building should be provided, which goes beyond standard forms of technical assistance. This would include co-operation to address human resource and infrastructure constraints, particularly in least developed countries. This should be developed as part of a longer term programme of cooperation with other international organisations aimed at achieving better policy coherence with regard to assisting developing countries. 3. Measures to simplify WTO procedures and structures to facilitate the greater participation of developing countries with limited resources.