The evidence and awareness that we are living in a resource-constrained world has never been so strong. Biocapacity indicators such as the ecological footprint show that the population of the planet has been in ‘ecological overshoot’ since the mid-1980’s, and our current rate of use of planetary resources is 25 percent over the Earth’s actual carrying capacity. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment of 2005 showed that two-thirds of the planet’s ecosystems are in decline. Although emerging economies are increasingly resource-hungry, the majority of the demand for natural resources still comes from Western, industrialised societies like Europe, with economies supported by unsustainable levels and patterns of consumption and production. The quantity of resources used, and the pressure on the environment resulting from the rich minority of the world's population is severely diminishing the viability of the planet to support us in the future.

As demonstrated once again in the Eurobarometer survey of March 2008 on “Attitudes of European Citizens Towards the Environment”, Europeans attach an overwhelming important to protecting the environment. Areas of concern include primarily climate change (top concern) but also the issues of water and air pollution, depletion of natural resources and biodiversity loss (both issues are among the top five concerns). Yet these aspirations of Europeans citizens are not met by supportive political actions at the EU level, and the EU claims of being a resource-efficient society are not supported by its policies. Notably, the EU Natural Resources Strategy launched by the Commission in 2005 did not contain any targets or timetables, and focused more on basic data gathering and on introducing a lifecycle approach to policy development. The Commission’s Action Plan on Sustainable Consumption and Production, published in July 2008, falls far short of aims to alter consumption or production patterns, let alone accelerate such changes.

At the contrary, EU policies crafted in the view of increasing Europe’s “competitiveness” seem to rather accelerate these negative trends. In many external European policies, the imperative of access and supply of raw materials and natural resources prevails over the objective of their sustainable and equitable use.

In particular, the ‘Global Europe’ strategy, adopted in November 2006, seems to run against such an objective. Global Europe is conceived as the “external dimension” of the Lisbon Strategy for “growth, jobs and competitiveness” (adopted in 2000) and a response to new “global challenges”, such as the rise of China and India. Global Europe promotes a globally-oriented and outward-looking Europe and aims at increasing Europe’s “competitiveness” on world markets by increasing trade liberalisation, securing enhanced market access for European companies and ensuring cheap and predictable supplies of raw materials and primary products (including energy resources) for its industry.

In this conference, we will explore the impacts of ‘Global Europe’ and related policies on the sustainable use of natural resources in two specific areas: non-agricultural raw materials and energy resources (hydrocarbons, agrofuels). We will also have a closer look at the impact of EU Free Trade Agreements on sustainability, and discuss future options and alternatives to the mainstream free trade/competitiveness agenda.

We will, more precisely, discuss the role and responsibilities of the EU through its consumption of resources (influenced by changing consumption patterns and choices, political decisions and trade policies), and through its involvement in the extraction of resources (through e.g. overseas operations of European companies, loans, investments and project finance, public subsidies, official development assistance, etc.).

Background documents:

Official documents:

• ‘Global Europe’ Communication, 4 October 2006
• Comunicaciòn 'Europa Global', 4 octubre de 2006 (ES)
• Communication 'Global Europe', 4 octobre 2006, (FR)
• Mitteilung 'Global Europe', 4 Oktober 2006 (DE)
• Annex to the 'Global Europe' Communication, 4 October 2006
• Draft 'Global Europe' Communication, June 2006

Positions of civil society groups:

• Alert to European civil society, November 2006
• Appel à la société civile européenne, novembre 2006 (FR)
• Llamada a la sociedad civil europea, Noviembre de 2006 (ES)

• Global Europe, Position Paper, Friends of the Earth, June 2007
• Position Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund Bundesvorstand, February 2007
• Position European Trade Union Confederation, December 2006
• Mapping the impacts of ‘Global Europe’ in Latin America, Friends of the Earth Latin America, March 2008
• Position War on Want, December 2006
• Position CGT (Spanish Trade Union), March 2008 (ES)
• Global Europe: une critique du document politique de la Commission européenne relatif à la compétitivité extérieure de l’UE, AITEC (FR)
• Global Europe: An Open Door Policy for Big Business at DG Trade, CEO, October 2008

Positions of industry and business groups:

• Position Eurochambres, February 2007
• Position American Chamber of Commerce to the EU, January 2007
• Position UNICE, December 2006
• Position Foreign Trade Association, November 2006
• Position UAEPME, November 2006
• Position European Services Forum, March 2006
• Position CIAA, February 2006
• Position Eurochambres, June 2005