[SESSION 3] Free Trade Agreements & Sustainable Development - The Need for a Re-evaluation?

Background

With the launch of ‘Global Europe’, the European Union put an end to its 8 year-old moratorium on Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) which started in 1999 in view of the WTO Ministerial Conference in Seattle which was supposed to mark the start of a new round of multilateral trade negotiations.

Today there are between 300 and 350 FTAs in place or in negotiation worldwide.  Of these, around 60 have already been concluded by the EU*, and many others are currently being negotiated. This makes the EU a “world champion” in FTAs in contradiction to its self-image as an advocate of multilateralism**.

The EU’s ‘bilateral drive’ has spurred widespread criticism in European and in developing countries, and a number of concerns have been raised around:

1. The deviation from multilateralism;
2. The domino effect it has on other countries or regions, creating a vicious circle of more bilateral trade agreements across the world;
3. Their radical liberalisation agenda, notably through the strong push for ‘Singapore Issues’ and further intellectual property right enforcement, which were all issues rejected by developing countries at the multilateral level;
4. The asymmetries arising from ‘face-to-face’ negotiations between rich and poor economic partners.

The EU has put forward a ‘new generation’ of FTAs that it says will contain strong ‘sustainability chapters’, making the EU’s bilateral trade agenda and its sustainable development objectives ’mutually supportive’. But evidence from previous EU FTAs and current negotiations suggests that such social and environmental chapters or clauses within free trade agreements present little leverage to make trade a driver of genuine sustainable development.

Economic Partnership Agreements with African Caribbean and Pacific countries, in particular, have caused widespread concerns among civil society, parliaments and ACP governments, for both the negotiating tactics employed by the EU and the severe impacts these agreements would have on ACP economies; on their agriculture, natural resources, industrial development and policy space.

* Trade and Trade-related bilateral and bi-regional agreements with third countries or regional blocks carry different names: Free Trade Agreements, Economic Partnership Agreements, Association Agreements, Partnership and Cooperation Agreements, Trade & Development Cooperation Agreements, Stabilisation and Association Agreements, Trade and Investment Enhancement Agreement,

** Bilateral trade agreements are taking an increasing importance in EU’s external trade policy, with already major agreements in place (EEA, EU-Chile, EU-Mexico, EU-South Africa, various FTAs with central European and Mediterranean countries) and others being negotiated (EPAs with ACP countries, FTA with Gulf Cooperation Council, the Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Agreement, Association Agreements with Central America and Andean Community; FTAs with India, Korea, ASEAN and Gulf Cooperation Council) or envisaged (Armenia, Georgia, Russia, Ukraine, Canada).
See an updated list here (6 November 2008)

In this session, we will raise the following questions:

• What are the EU initiatives to ensure that trade liberalisation and sustainable development are mutually supportive?
• What are “sustainability chapters” in EU FTAs? Are they a political opportunity to mainstream sustainable development in trade agreements, or merely a smokescreen?
• Why are the EU’s FTAs detrimental to people and environmental protection? How are they impacting developing countries?
• Why has the EU’s bilateral trade strategy failed and why is there a need for re-evaluation?
• What has been the role of the European Parliament in EU’s FTAs?
• Why is there a growing number of civil society groups saying “Stop FTAs” and what does it imply for the future of EU’s trade policy?

Background documents:

• Undercutting Africa – Impacts of EU-ACP Economic Partnership Agreements on Natural Resources and Biodiversity, Friends of the Earth, October 2008
• Mapping the Impacts of ‘Global Europe’ in Latin America, Friends of the Earth Latin America, March 2008
• EPAs: Corporate Conquest, Friends of the Earth, Sep. 2006
• Global Europe, Position Paper, Friends of the Earth, June 2007
• Les accords commerciaux bilatéraux et régionaux : moteur de l'intégration régionale ou nouveau cheval de troie du libre-échange ?, CNCD, mai 2008
• Letter of European civil society groups to EU Trade Ministers, April 2007 (EN)
• Letter of European civil society groups to EU Trade Ministers, April 2007 (ES)
• Open Letter to ASEAN Leaders, EU-ASEAN FTA Campaign, June 2008
• Latest news from FTAs around the world: www.bilaterals.org

 

Links to the sessions:

[SESSION 1] 'Global Europe': Trading Away the World's Natural Resources?
[SESSION 2] Fuelling Europe: A Trade-off between Energy Security and Sustainability?
[SESSION 3] Free Trade Agreements & Sustainable Development: The Need for a Re-evaluation?
[PANEL DEBATE] Taking Stock of Global Europe, Looking Ahead