Brussels, 24/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - Responding to the call of European trade ministers, European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström promised - at their meeting on 21 November - to present a revised strategy “in a year's time” for the EU's trade policy.
“The Commission will propose in a year's time a new strategy. The communication will include everything when it comes to bilateral, plurilateral, multilateral and autonomous preferences. Trade is a powerful tool for foreign policy and for creating growth and jobs”, Malmström stated.
“Trade is more and more a political subject, not only a technical subject. We have in front of us a real challenge that is related to growth and jobs. Trade is one of the most important policies within this strategy. So there has to be coherence between what we do on trade and the objectives we have in terms of job creation and growth”, said Italy's Minister for Trade Carlo Calenda.
The document that will succeed those of Malmström's predecessors - Peter Mandelson from the UK (“Global Europe”, October 2006) and Karel De Gucht from Belgium (“Trade, growth and world business”, November 2010) - is much awaited in a general context of mistrust from public opinion as regards the negotiations for the transatlantic trade and investment partnership agreement (TTIP).
The Council has now outlined this future exercise in the conclusions it adopted on Friday. These reiterate “the EU's determination to promote free, fair and open trade in a spirit of reciprocity and mutual benefit”. The Council also reaffirms the EU's determination to strengthen the multilateral trade system further - through the Doha negotiations and implementation of the Bali package, and through the plurilateral and sectoral agreements (including the WTO agreement on information technologies, and the green goods initiative) - while continuing to focus on development of its bilateral trade relations. In addition, the Council underlines the “significant contribution” of trade in goods and services, and investment for sustainable growth and jobs.
In order to release the potential of the agricultural, industrial and services sectors on the trade level, the Council believes it is necessary to address “some structural problems” - energy costs, access to raw materials (primarily through the removal of export duties and restrictions), internationalisation of SMEs, technical barriers and other non-tariff barriers, and other challenges such as respect for intellectual property rights, open government procurement, and support for sustainable development.
The Council encourages the Commission to continue improving all ex ante impact assessments that are produced for free trade negotiations, as well as to produce ex post impact evaluations for agreements already implemented. The Council also underlines the need for increased transparency in the trade negotiations, and for improved information for citizens as regards the trade gains.
High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini participated in some of the work on Friday. “The EU trade policy is a strategic and powerful foreign policy tool, and we need to work together to develop a strong coherence of EU policies”, she stated. (EH)