The Future of EU Trade Policy

20 Sep 2010

Shane Fitzgerald

After months in which an inward-looking EU has been preoccupied with firefighting a seemingly irrepressible financial crisis, the European Commission is now trying to shift the agenda back to the one international context in which the EU excels: trade.

The Commission's DG Trade has just concluded a broad public consultation on the future direction of the union's trade policy. The aim is to replace the 'Global Europe' strategy implemented by the previous Trade Commissioner, Peter Mandelson, in 2006.

The current Director General for Trade, Irishman David O'Sullivan, discussed the issues recently in a 'Vox Talks' interview with CEPR's Viv Davies, which you can listen to here. The conversation is well worth a listen as it covers the EU’s responsibility within the world trading system, trade governance and the WTO, the role of reciprocity, the BRICs, the importance of successfully concluding the DDA negotiations, and the  notion of ‘multilateralising regionalism.'

His boss, the Belgian Commissioner Karel De Gucht, is set to launch  the revamped international trade policy in the coming weeks. The scene is already being set. The recent agreement of trade deals with South Korea and Pakistan, the progress of negotations with the South American trade bloc Mercosur, and last week's Council Summit devoted to strengthening ties with the EU's strategic (read: trading) partners were all designed to remind the world that the EU's economic clout is still immense.

As the financial crisis rumbles on, a brand new institutional crisis unfolds,  and nearly a year on from the Lisbon Treaty a new apparatus of foreign policy is not yet functioning, international trade is the arena to which the EU must look in order to bolster waning influence abroad. As countries across the bloc pin their hopes on an 'export-led recovery', it is also the single most crucial prerequisite for nursing the ailing continent back to economic health. 

NOTE: We look forward to discussing these issues with Commissioner  De Gucht when he visits the IIEA on 6 December.

 

 

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