The European Union’s trade commissioner pledged to accelerate efforts to bolster the bloc’s network of trade deals, as Brussels responds to members’ calls to strengthen global supply chains and deepen links with key allies.
Today, Sunday, Valdis Dombrovskis said geopolitical pressures “are changing our view of trade policy,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times.
The official, who is also vice-president of the EU’s executive body, added that he was stepping up work aimed at striking deals with “like-minded partners”, in a bid to boost the EU’s economic resilience.
Goals include an agreement with Chile before the end of the year and an agreement with Australia in the first half of 2023, as well as efforts to ratify deals with Mexico and New Zealand and advance talks with counterparts such as India and Indonesia.
“We can use our network of FTAs to address current geopolitical challenges, diversify away from Russian supplies, and enhance the resilience of supply chains,” Dombrovskis said.
“If we want to reduce our dependence on raw materials from some suppliers, we need to expand our base,” he continued. Dombrovskis seeks to reinvigorate the bloc’s free-trade agenda, which has crumbled as major economies set up barriers and seek to protect domestic industries.
France has just ended its six-month presidency of the European Union, during which Paris has been slow to implement trade deals as it seeks to strengthen trade defenses and bolster the union’s so-called strategic autonomy.
About 15 member states, including Germany, Italy and Spain, wrote to Dombrovskis last month complaining that the EU’s process of negotiating, signing and ratifying trade deals was taking too long and that the union must “take advantage of windows of opportunity when they open, otherwise others will.”
The letter said that the EU’s trade agreements cover only a third of its foreign trade, and that we “need to do better than that” given that 85% of the world’s future growth is expected to occur outside the bloc.
The European Union pledges to speed up the pace of global trade deals
