On Tuesday 19 November, European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström said, during a debate at a joint meeting of the international trade and employment and social affairs committees at the European Parliament, that there was a need for a "clear response" from the EU to the concerns about the impact of international trade and free trade agreements on employment and labour rights.
"Many people feel economically disadvantaged by the new global economy. And this is an important factor in the rise of populist and nationalist movements, who see trade as a problem. This sentiment has also fed into scepticism in several EU member states about a number of trade agreements and negotiations – particularly those with Canada and the United States", Malmström said.
Public opinion wants reassurance that trade agreements do not only benefit multinationals but also consumers, workers and SMEs. It also wants reassurance that imported goods are manufactured in compliance with labour rights, she added.
In response to this, political actors must improve their communication strategies to show the benefits of trade for employment, Malmström stated, saying that 31 million jobs in the EU (or one in seven) – which are better paid and better qualified than the average – are supported by exports. "The primary goal of the EU's trade policy is to ensure that we have more jobs like these in the future. We want to give European firms access to international export markets and allow them to source from the world so as to stay competitive. That is why we are negotiating more than 20 trade agreements with more than 50 countries. CETA is an excellent modern and progressive agreement that will do much to support and create high-quality jobs across Europe", she assured.
To support those losing out from open markets, and to respond to the job losses (for which technology and automisation are "probably more responsible" than "difficult" international competition), Malmström encourages governments "to do more to help people and communities adapt to difficult changes like these". "We need to do more on infrastructure investment, on education and training, on active labour policies and on any and all other policies that can help. Again, this is a shared responsibility of the EU, national, and local institutions", she said.
Malmström also underlined the need to include "solid" arrangements, in all trade agreements, on upholding labour standards and workers' rights as part of the chapters on sustainable development. The EU is committed to upholding the core standards of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), in this regard, she said, giving assurances that the chapters on sustainable development were backed up by a "robust" settlement system for disputes between states.
"CETA is an excellent example of that. It's the first time one of our agreements specifically addresses workers' rights beyond the core labour standards. It covers, for example, health and safety at work and compensation for injury or illness at work. It's also the first time Canada has made commitments in a trade agreement on the ILO conventions. And those commitments are driving real change. In June, Canada ratified the ILO's convention on minimum working age. And it's in the process of ratifying the convention on the right to organise and collective bargaining", Malmström added.
"The universal right to work, the eight key conventions of the ILO should be integrated into every free trade agreement. We want fair trade and we want to avoid social dumping. Each trade partner should ratify and implement each of the essential elements of labour law. We have a whole series of mechanisms available that enable us to monitor this", the chair of the Parliament's international trade committee, Bernd Lange (S&D, Germany), had said previously. He agreed, however, that there was a need for stricter control mechanisms in the long term, and suggested combining the US approach based on sanctions and the European approach based on promotion.
"Should we develop a system of sanctions? The member states are divided. The USA has used sanctions only once – against Guatemala. But it's a good question to ask. We should examine how this can be done", Malmström stated.
Scepticism about CETA's job creation potential. During the debate, many MEPs said they doubted that CETA could create as many jobs as the Commission claimed. "They're pipe-dreams. We're not going to gain jobs, we're going to add losers from globalisation to other losers from globalisation", said Karima Delli (Greens/EFA, France). "We don't know if we'll lose jobs or gain them. We need a more nuanced approach", said Rina Kari (GUE/NGL, Denmark). "You've convinced me there's no certainty that CETA will lead to jobs. The impact studies contradict each other", Guillaume Balas (S&D, France) said in Malmström's direction. "Mr Balas is right. We have no guarantee in terms of jobs", said Emmanuel Maurel (S&D, France), who underlined "the social cost of free trade". "Stop using the job creation argument when we know it can't be justified", said Yannick Jadot (Greens/EFA, France).
"Quite frankly, the reasons for the destruction of jobs are not linked to the trade agreements but to technology and automisation, to companies that operate in a network and to the disappearance of low skilled jobs, which poses a very clear problem", said Michel Seroz, director general at the European Commission's DG Employment. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)