Brussels, 04/05/2006 (Agence Europe) - In a speech on Thursday in Wolfsberg (Switzerland), European Commissioner for Trade Peter Mandelson outlined his priorities for the Union's trade policy beyond Doha. Before presenting the main guidelines of the Community agenda for the rest of 2006 and beyond, in the context of trade policy, he declared, “Europe's trade policy lies at the intersection of two challenges - Europe's external and internal responses to globalisation”. Before calling on the European Commission to demonstrate “leadership to push for change, even if it is painful”, Mr Mandelson underlined that this “focuses on hard economic priorities and adapts our thinking to the realities and challenges of globalisation”.
Mr Mandelson stressed that a satisfactory conclusion to the Doha Round remained his “paramount priority” and provided assurances that the Union would, beyond the ongoing negotiations on liberalisation of world trade, “take a decidedly hard-headed approach to ensuring markets are genuinely open and that international rules are applied openly and transparently” to regulate world trade. To this end the Commissioner for Trade promised to adopt “a new strategic approach to market access” (a strategic document of the Commission examining how the Union can enhance its external competitiveness is expected out in the autumn), which recognised the need to realign Union trade policy into taking account of the rapid growth in the Asian economies. In this context, the EU will continue to push for the suppression of tariff barriers and the opening up of the services market, explained Mr Mandelson, who, nevertheless, warned that although it was effectively a race to open up the markets “this cannot be a mad rush towards open markets at any cost”.
Defending anti-dumping rules as a necessity in a globalised world to guarantee confidence in fair trade and protect European companies from unfair trade, Mr Mandelson emphasised that “such rules are adapted to the complexity of global markets…to the changing patterns of trade and production, where manufacturers in the EU may compete with European distributors who have outsources production, and where consumers and other manufacturers expect the benefits of wider choice and lower prices”. On this subject the European Commissioner indicated that he would probably be launching a formal reflection in the second half of this year on the use of anti-dumping measures.
The Commissioner said that relations with Chine were on centre stage of the Union's trade agenda once the Doha round negotiations had been finished. He underlined that, “China is the biggest single challenge of globalisation in the trade field” adding, “Europe must get China right, as a threat, an opportunity and prospective global partner”. Mr Mandelson announced that this autumn a Commission communication would analyse the impact of China on the global economy and the way the EU had to respond to it. According to Mandelson trade policy with Beijing had to target major challenges such as respect for intellectual property, market access and investment opportunities.