How can we strengthen links with the countries of the Indo-Pacific region by overcoming the wide disparity in the types of partners? MEPs on the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade (INTA) debated this and heard from experts on the issue on Thursday 1st September.
The European Parliament, the European Commission and Member States are in agreement on the need to strengthen Europe's presence in the region and to diversify trading partners. However, there are two different routes under discussion as to how to do this: concluding regional or bilateral agreements with as many countries in the region as possible.
The first approach was recommended by Alicia Garcia Herrero, consultant at the Bruegel think tank. According to her, but also according to Peter Draper, a professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) could prove to be an option for the EU.
This agreement brings together eleven countries, including Australia, Japan, Canada and Vietnam. “Since the US left the project, the CCTPP has been looking for an external anchor and I think the EU offers that potential”, Draper said.
However, Luisa Santos, deputy director of the employers’ organisation BusinessEurope, believes that there is a potential issue since the CCTPP does not share the same level of ambition as the trade agreements that the EU wants to conclude. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to impose new terms. Moreover, bilateral agreements have the advantage of being able to deal with large differences between the partners in the region in a custom fashion, she said.
In addition, the EU has already concluded agreements, or plans to conclude agreements, with ten of the eleven countries that make up the CCTPP, noted the Deputy Director of DG Trade at the European Commission, Maria Martin Prat.
However, it does not rule out an EU-ASEAN agreement, which is already under discussion between the two parties, who are due to hold a joint summit on 14 December (see EUROPE 13004/9).
Maria Martin Prat also said that the European Commission expects to conclude free trade agreement negotiations with Australia next year, rather than this year as some had hoped.
The Taiwan question
Members of the INTA committee have called for closer ties with Taiwan, as did their colleagues in the Committee on Foreign Affairs moments earlier (see EUROPE 13012/17). They asked the experts present, as well as the European Commission, about prospects for a bilateral investment agreement between the EU and Taiwan.
In the opinion of the three experts, an increase in European investment in Taiwan, and vice versa, is desirable. “No resilience can be envisaged without the semiconductor value chains, and we know 85% of advanced semiconductors are produced by one single company in Taïwan”, said Alicia Garcia Herrero.
However, such an agreement is not on the agenda of the European Commission (see EUROPE 12964/18). (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)