Policies

EXTERNAL TRADE RELATIONS

In modern societies, which have developed modern economies, growth is seen as a fundamental objective of keeping pace with the aspirations of citizens and trying to achieve even better standards of life for everyone. Promoting growth implies active policies by the political bodies - development of world trade being one of them.

Expansion of trade between countries, to develop production capacities beyond national borders and foster competition at a level above national markets, has been since its inception one of the core aims of the European Economic Community established by the 1958 Treaty of Rome, which later developed into the European Union. One of the original articles of the Common Commercial Policy stated that, by establishing a customs union between them, the Member States aimed namely to "contribute, in the common interest, to the harmonious development of world trade".

Since then an ever-increasing number of free-trade areas and customs unions have been implemented in most regions of the world, reflecting the European pioneering approach of regional integration as a major tool of development and a path to world-wide economic integration. Of course the customs union was just the 'internal' side of the common commercial policy, which was needed as a pre-condition for its 'external' side to function in a coherent and cohesive manner, based on uniform agreed principles.

These uniform principles apply to:

The establishment of tariffs
The conclusions of tariff and trade agreements
The achievement of uniformity in liberalisation measures
Export policies
The defensive measures to protect unfair trade, such as dumping and export subsidies

One recent interesting feature of the step-by-step integration of the European Union is that in future the common commercial policy is to be conducted in the context of the principles and objectives of the Union's external action, as it appears in the Draft Treaty submitted by the Convention to the new Intergovernmental Conference. The Commission, nevertheless, maintains its proposal prerogatives to open negotiations with third parties and to conduct them, but some grey area may appear on matters where strict trade arrangements may form part of common foreign and security policy.

Because external trade is a powerful engine for growth and development, a general macro-economic rule has been found which links annual increases in trade with annual increases in world-wide GDP (although it does not guarantee automatic increases for every one of the single countries participating in trade), some agreed procedures and rules have been consensually established to "govern" trade at global level. The original forum and decision-making body was the GATT, superseded ten years ago by a new, more structured body, the WTO. The EU Member States originally and later the EU as such have always played a very active role in the build-up of the current state-of-play in international trade - and this seems now somewhat obvious as the EU at 15-level is already the world leading trade power, only to increase its share when moving to 25 Member States.

GATT and WTO are fully-fledged multilateral bodies, embedded by the basic principle of non discrimination between participants. Regional trade areas are nevertheless given consent to be implemented, under certain conditions. In reality there is an ongoing theoretical and political debate, also inside the European Union, about the merits of both multilateralism and regionalism to better achieve the desired aims of growth and development (and stability). Even those who strongly view multilateralism as the first-best may accept that, in practical terms, regionalism is an efficient way to prepare and facilitate more functional multilateralism in future.

In practical terms the Union's trade business deals with what can be seen as a double set of policies:

one deals with external direct negotiations, at multilateral and bilateral levels, this one covering individual partners or regional associations, and a permanent follow-up of existing mutual engagements and their fulfilment, which may lead to possible complaints, through existing agreed procedures (the so-called panels in the case of the WTO);
the other deals with unilateral defensive mechanisms, through which the EU tries to overcome, or redress, the negative consequences of the European undertakings of unfair actions, permissiveness or lack of respect for internationally assumed engagements by our trade partners (foreign governments) or trade operators (foreign companies).

THE GROUP POLICIES IN THE FIELD OF TRADE

The EPP-ED Group favours and votes accordingly in the House:

the accession to the WTO of all countries not yet members, provided they agree to respect the common rules, in order to achieve a complete world-wide organisation;
the work of the current round of WTO talks (Doha Development Agenda), as agreed in the Doha Conference of November 2001, with an inclusive agenda, including inter-alia:

Special and differential treatment for developing countries, even more special treatment for the least developing ones, coupled with technical assistance by the developed countries to improve the capacity building and commercial capacity of the former;
A forward approach by the EU, together with other developed partners, to the particular question of access to medicines by poor countries;
Improvement of market access for agricultural products from development countries, with reductions in tariffs and quantitative restrictions, while guaranteeing recognition of non-trade aspects of the sector and non-trade-distorting support;
Clear reduction of peak tariffs and all-sectors tariff cuts;
Clarification of the WTO meaning of the "precautionary principle", for instance by adopting the formula which came out of the Rio de Janeiro Conference on Environment and Development;
Reinforcement of rules governing the TRIPS (Trade-Related aspects of Intellectual Property rights) agreement and full implementation of its standards by each participant;
The no-offers strategy of the European Commission in the health, education and audio-visual sectors inside the GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services) negotiations;
The formal launch of negotiations for multilateral agreements on issues such as competition, investment, trade facilitation and public procurement;
A more rules based approach on trade defence mechanisms;
Integrate the labour standards issue in the WTO framework, for instance via some inter-institutional WTO/ILO body;
The establishment of a permanent panel for dispute settlement;

the creation of a WTO Parliamentary Assembly, to overcome the present democratic deficit of the organisation and allow for a proper parliamentary scrutiny;
the primacy of multilateralism versus bilateralism and regionalism, as an ultimate goal to be reached by the world community when feasible;
coherent reforming of the world trade system in the interests of fairness, democracy, sustainable development and the fight against poverty;
a proactive EU policy of promoting free-trade regional areas, coupled with non-trade co-operation, including political and developmental, namely with neighbouring states and regions (like the non European Mediterranean countries, through the Barcelona process), historical overseas partners (like the ACP countries) and other similar-minded organisations (like Mercosur);
acceptance of the principle of temporary non reciprocity in dealings with developing countries, when and where it appears this may help the sustainable development of the partners;
support for EU unilateral measures in favour of LDC's (Least Developed Countries), like the EBA (Everything But Arms) initiative, which aims to enhance market access to the EU for the poorest Sates, through elimination of all duties and quotas for all their products.

João Silva Maia