“We are out of step with the composition of the world. We regulate too much, we invest too little, we are too open and we don’t defend our interests enough”, said French President Emmanuel Macron in his speech on Europe on Thursday 25 April (see other news).
In his view, the EU needs to be less naive on the trade front, and that means mirror clauses in free trade agreements or the extension of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). This is precisely where his method differs from that of other EU member states, the European Commission and many experts on these subjects.
In recent months, the European Commission has developed, put in place and implemented a number of trade defence tools, precisely to put an end to this much-criticised “naivety”. However, the EU must be careful not to become a “prison of economic security”, warned the head of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Trade, Sabine Weyand, speaking at an event organised by the ‘Centre for European Policy Studies’ on Wednesday 24 April. “It’s a lose-lose game”, according to her. Attacking Emmanuel Macron's rejection of the EU-Mercosur agreement, she reiterated that diversifying trading partners is of major importance.
Free trade agreements have always benefited the EU, according to Pascal Lamy, Vice-President of the Jacques Delors Institute, who is also a former Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and a former European Commissioner for Trade. “None of the trade agreements have altered the increase in our trade surplus with these countries. This has always worked in our favour”, he told Agence Europe.
He admitted that an adjustment is needed in Europeans’ expectations, in terms of adding the dimension of economic security and sustainability to the agreements. He explained that the EU has a weaker negotiating position in these areas than it does for market access. This means that the approach to these two issues needs to be tailored.
His colleague at Europe Jacques Delors, Cláudia Azevedo, gave a concrete example: for a country that extracts a lot of critical raw materials, the provisions on deforestation in the agreement are perhaps not so relevant. On the other hand, provisions on responsible extraction may be, she explained to Agence Europe. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)