GENEVA: The World Trade Organization will work with a number of European countries to ensure a proposed EU carbon tax will respect international trade rules, the WTO and France said Thursday.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and the WTO’s new leader Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told a press conference in Geneva that they would set up a working group to examine the proposed carbon border tax.

The tax plan, which is still in the early planning phases, would be aimed at shielding EU companies against cheaper imports from countries with weaker climate policies.

Le Maire said the working group being set up between the WTO and a number of European countries would mull “how to ensure that this mechanism conforms with WTO rules and how to guarantee a fair transition for developing countries.”

France, which takes over the European Union’s rotating presidency next January, was intent on ensuring that the new mechanism “respects WTO rules”, he said.

“We cannot on one side support trade multilateralism and on the other not respect its rules.”

Okonjo-Iweala stressed the need to ensure that the Europeans create “something that is fair and justifiable.”

The working group would help “make sure that we don’t come up with a mechanism that either is discriminatory or protecting domestic producers against others, or disadvantaging domestic producers against others,” she told the press conference.