In an opinion published on 28 July on the Commission’s report concerning the implementation of free trade agreements in 2018 (see EUROPE 12348/10), the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) judged that trade will have to “play a key role” in fostering a sustainable economic recovery and enabling businesses to consolidate their value chains.
“This crisis underlines how important global cooperation and the WTO reform process are in ensuring a strong and effective organisation that can act against protectionism and unilateralism”, declared the opinion’s co-rapporteur Alberto Mazzola (Employers, Italy).
According to rapporteur Tanja Buzek (Workers, Germany), the EESC believes that the EU’s new trade strategy should go beyond old trade models so as to build a new trade model that is “economically resilient, greener, socially sustainable and responsible”.
A call has also been made to seize the opportunity to review European trade policy so as to learn from this crisis (see EUROPE 12507/5 and 12494/7).
The EESC thinks that the EU must first and foremost ensure that its global supply chains are “more resilient, diversified and responsible”. It calls for consistency with the Green Deal, notably via the development of “stronger instruments”.
The EESC also stresses the “important role” of civil society, which should be consulted in the drafting of future reports. Lamenting that the contribution of domestic advisory groups (DAGs) remains largely absent from the report, it advocates strengthening the impact of DAG recommendations on investigations into violations of trade and sustainable development provisions.
The EESC has also issued a call to improve transparency, use national data more consistently, reflect on trade in services and its evolution more systematically, and target specific areas or groups in order to better illustrate trade flows.
Lastly, the EESC is calling on the institutions to work together to improve the use of trade preferences, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Link to the EESC opinion: https://bit.ly/3hCloYi (Original version in French by Hermine Donceel)