Brussels, 18/10/2011 (Agence Europe) - The EU's partners in the G20 who, like the EU, pledged not to put in place protectionist measures as a response to the crisis, have adopted 130 restrictive measures, a rise of 30%, in the space of a year, regretted Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht in the run-up to the Cannes summit at the start of November.
The European Commission will publish its latest report on trade restrictions at the end of the week. The picture is clear: since the end of 2010, the EU's trading partners have introduced 130 new restrictive measures - a rise of 30%. Economic recovery has not led them to give up the protectionist measures adopted when the crisis was at its worst in 2008 and 2009: only 17% of measures since the start of the crisis have so far lapsed, said De Gucht speaking to German industry in Berlin on Tuesday 17 October. “So, measures designed to temporarily support demand hit by the crisis, are now locked-in. What is more, several G20 members are embarking on industrial policies based on import substitution, local content requirements and restrictions in public procurement”, he said, pointing out that the other economies which are part of the G20 (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, Turkey and the United States) “have clearly not kept all their promises”. “The EU will therefore continue to remind its trading partners of their commitments in all multilateral and bilateral fora”, the commissioner promised. He was eloquent in his argument against protectionism. “If all WTO members were to raise their applied tariffs on goods to bound levels, world income would fall by some $350 billion. In a more conservative scenario: if all countries raised their tariffs back to the highest level they applied since 1995, the loss to global output would be $134 billion. These are extraordinary figures, but such scenarios are not entirely impossible”, he warned, putting his confidence in the WTO and its multilateral rules to prevent its member countries succumbing to the temptation of protectionist measures. (EH/transl.rt)