The European Union’s top trade official presented a new strategy blueprint on Tuesday that seeks to open new markets, especially in key emerging nations, but also outlined a revamped enforcement agenda to ensure businesses get a fair deal.
The trade policy measures could help increase the size of the EU economy by 2020 by about 150 billion euros, or more than 1 percent of gross domestic product, said Karel De Gucht, EU trade commissioner.
The thrust of the new policy, presented in Brussels, includes a series of pro-trade initiatives aimed at markets such as China, India, Brazil and Russia. The EU estimates that by 2015, about 90 percent of world growth will be generated outside Europe, with a third from China alone.
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“The tectonic plates of global commerce are moving,” De Gucht said. “The challenges, as well as the opportunities, from globalization are greater than ever before. At a time of economic crisis, we have to step up efforts to ensure that trade delivers more growth and more jobs in the years to come.”
De Gucht, a former foreign minister of Belgium, also noted that a public opinion survey by the EU, which polled 26,635 citizens across the 27 member states, showed that 65 percent think the EU has benefited from international trade. But 45 percent of the respondents said they also expect the EU to become a secondary economic power in the future.
“While people feel Europe is well placed today, they worry about whether Europe can compete tomorrow alongside the fastest growing economies,” De Gucht said.
He said global trade issues are changing and emphasized “we have to evolve too in response.”
He said cutting import tariffs is still important, but also underlined that the majority of barriers now lie elsewhere and highlighted the importance of better protection for intellectual property, overcoming regulatory barriers and securing an unrestricted supply of raw materials and energy. He also said the global Doha trade talks are “overdue” and that the aim is to conclude the round “as a matter of urgency, and at the latest by end 2011.”
De Gucht said history has taught that trade works and that Europe has rejected protectionism. But the EU’s “Trade, Growth and World Affairs” paper also includes an arsenal of trade enforcement measures to defend European business from unfair practices by competitors, and also calls for the removal of non-tariff measures that stifle commercial flows.
The EU said the biggest obstacles in trade and investment with the U.S., its biggest partner, “lie in the divergence of standards and regulations across the Atlantic.”