A quite understandable notion. In yesterday's section I referred to the current re-evaluation going on in some Member States of the notion of Community preference. To take umbrage about this would in my opinion be quite wrong. All countries in the world that create a regional grouping, apply or introduce preferences. The USA, Canada and Mexico have set up a regional free trade zone and have got rid of customs duties and other restrictions between them but have retained them with regard to the rest of the world. Europe has been much more liberal than a lot of other countries by applying a common external tariff that is one of the lowest in the world; by granting free access covering almost all ACP country exports and by gradually extending an identical system for all of the world's less developed countries (except for weapons). It has called on other industrialised countries to do likewise but has so far not been very successful in this respect.
No matter what the president of the Ecofin Council, Gordon Brown, thinks about this, and the representatives of big trade interests, Community preference is quite normal because free trade cannot by applied erga omnes in the absence of common standards and disciplines for all participants. Daily management in the EU bares this out every single day. A successful functioning of the broader and borderless market imposes an almost unbelievable number of rules and procedures for disciplining competition: technical standards, industrial property, the environment etc. All this is combined with an institutional system that has the power to make decisions if divergences arise. I believe that when first class players affirm that European construction represents “a model of successful globalisation” they are referring to a construction in which free trade is combined with binding rules of behaviour. Without this, this construction cannot work. Community preference is a direct result: free trade needs an area where uniform rules are respected.
Beginning with the Treaty of Rome. In France, calls for the principle of Community preference have taken on a formal character at a high level as when prime minister Dominique de Villepin referred to it in a general political speech on 8 June. Parliamentarians then indicated that they had to a certain extent suggested this reference themselves. Here are some indications filched from the press. The president of the economic affairs committee at the National Assembly, Patrick Ollier stated, “I have asked the prime minister to defend this concept…We want France to ask its partners to reflect upon the matter. We cannot tolerate competition with unfair partners in the world”. The president of the finance committee at the National Assembly, Pierre Méhaignerie indicated that, “other EU counties are facing the same situation and are waiting to hear what we have to say”. Speaking at the Senate, Jean Arthuis, president of the finance committee recognised that no national precautionary measure was possible and that they had to “act at a European level”. On 22 June, the president of the Senate delegation to the European Union, Hubert Haenel, presented a communication on this notion in the history of the EEC: “Community preference” does not exist in the Treaty of Rome due to the opposition at the time of Germany (supported by the Netherlands) but the concept in practice was introduced with the creation of an external common tariff and the elaboration of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Difficult negotiations between founding countries, reservations and compromises are highlighted by Mr Haenel, who essentially refers to the books by two of the French negotiators of the Treaty of Rome, Jean-François Deniau (“L'Europe interdite”) and Robert Marjolin (“Le travail d'une vie”). The level of the common customs tariff was then set after difficult negotiations with third countries, the USA, in particular and he was established at a level that was much lower than the US tariff. CAP trade mechanisms were only agreed to by Washington in exchange for the definitive renunciation by Europe of all customs protection of oil seed grains and for gluten fed corn. Several years later, these Euro-US battles will have had a spectacular extension in the Blair House Agreement of 1993 (which some European countries are now regretting).
The subject has recently experienced a few developments with the positions taken by economists (rather critical) and the relatively divergent interventions made by Mario Monti and Philippe Herzog in the “Confrontations Europe” debate. I'll be taking note of these tomorrow.
(F.R.)