michael posted on July 10, 2009 18:33
“Social Agenda” back on the EU trade agenda ?
Anticipating the eventual breakdown of the Doha Development Round at the WTO, the European Commission (EC) produced its own strategic plan for shifting the momentum for trade liberalisation to the bilateral level.
“Global Europe. Competing in the world” (2007) sets out the EC Commission’s vision for trade between the EU and its partners through Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) in the case of major traders (India, China, South Korea inter alia) and through Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) in the case of the developing countries in the ACP treaty arrangements (Afro-Caribbean-Pacific). The EU prefers to deal with such countries on a regional basis and so the EPAs are with West Africa, East and South Africa and the Caribbean. The individual countries relations with the EU are subsumed in the regional framework. This applies also to South East Asain (ASEAN) and South America (MERCOSUR).
The move towards EPAs was already fully underway primarily because the former preferential arrangements between the European Union (EU) and the ACP were incompatible with the non-discriminatory principles of the WTO.
In “Global Europe” the EC Commission resurrects the notion of “social justice” as a consideration in trade negotiations whilst tacitly recognising the inabilities of the free trade agenda pursued since the late 1980s to deliver inclusive growth.
“We (the EU) must also recognise the potentially disruptive impacts of market opening for some regions and workers… we need to do better in anticipating the effects of trade openings; in helping sectors, regions and the workforce adapt; and in ensuring benefits are passed on to the citizens. As we pursue social justice and cohesion at home, we should also seek to promote ourvalues, including social and environmental standards and cultural diversity”
“Global Europe” offers no guide to how the above should be achieved but clearly some consultation process is intended.
It is interesting, if also disappointing that the EC still talks of “our values” as distinct say to promoting universal, or international agreed values and standards.
It is also remarkable that the EC also assumes that promoting “our” values is compatible with “cultural diversity”.
Nonetheless there is a clear admission that the “social” must play a role in these new trading relationships between the EU and the wider world and this revives a thread which the EC has neglected since the late 1980s in its multilateral dealings at the WTO.
Throughout the Uruguay Round of GATT talks culminating in the establishment of the WTO in 1995, the EC had supported a policy of social conditionality in trade, of a social agenda in world trade. However, the EC abandoned this position under the pressures of:
1.resitance from the developing countries which suspected “social agenda” was a protectionist measure aimed against their exports
2. growing internal ideological pressure in favour deregulation and free trade.
3. A failure to establish a consensus on how and which bodies should set and monitor social conditionality standards
It should be noted however that the EC kept up some sense of conditionality in terms of good governance, labour standards and human rights particularly in its bilateral arrangements under the GSP (General System of Preferences) and the ACP arrangements.
Now the issue is back on the agenda, how will it work ?
As part of the EU’s internal consultation process, both the European Parliament and the EC’s own tripartite consultative body EESC (European Social and Economic Committee) raised the issue of the need to promote “decent work” in the EU’s trade negotiations.
EESC has established “Round Tables” with trading partners who are negotiation FTAs (for example with China and India). The partners in the Round table are meant to have the same composition as EESC (employers, employees and civic society). The EU/China Round Table meeting twice in 2008 had “corporate social responsibility” and “decent work” on the agenda.
With developing countries under the auspices of EPAs, the EC has included social and labour standards on the agenda of negotiations under the general heading of “sustainable development“.
The current negotiations of an EPA between the EU and the ESA (Eastern and Southern Africa) for example mention specifically “core labour standards as defined by the ILO”. Taking advantage of the EPA umbrella, Mauritius for example, is enhancing its cooperation with the ILO to improve its labour laws.
Michael Hindley
Aide-momoire prepared for students at the Summer course on "current issues in the world trading system" at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. July 2009