Sea Change in EU Trade Policy

Opportunities for a liberal foreign-trade policy

It would be wrong to conclude from the experience of the current existential geo­political risks in foreign trade with Russia and China that globalization and the inter­national division of labour need to be rolled back. On the contrary, cross-border trade in goods, the movement of services and for­eign direct investment have all paved the way in recent decades for enormous growth in prosperity worldwide and have contributed significantly to overcoming under­development and reducing poverty in the Global South. The deepening of the division of labour has enabled participating busi­nesses to make significant increases in prod­uctivity. It has stimulated innovation, led to greater product diversity and may well have dampened inflationary trends at the same time. The opportunities for indi­vid­ual eco­nomic returns and the prosperity gains for society as a whole are too huge to even con­sider the dismantling of foreign trade and globalization as a desirable option, let alone allow it to become a dominant global trend.

As an economy particularly strongly inter­connected with the world economy, Germany has benefited more from globali­zation in recent years than other industrial­ized countries of a comparable size. For this reason, it should be very interested in a Europe whose foreign trade is open and liberal. Trade policy efforts to improve pro­tection against unfair competition and strengthen the resilience of domestic indus­try and supply chains need therefore to be complemented by an active liberalization policy – for example, concluding free-trade and sectoral agreements with non-European trading partners.

In addition to the basic productivity and growth opportunities afforded by a liberal foreign-trade policy, the pursuit of an active trade policy can make tangible contributions to Europe’s green and digital trans­for­mation; and it can reduce the geopolitical vulnerabilities of European companies:

• Elements of a climate-friendly industry and agriculture can be included in the sustainability clauses and sector chapters of trade agreements. Political commitments to environmental protection or con­crete measures to reduce CO₂ emissions can be made legally binding not just in­side but also outside Europe. In addi­tion, new markets for climate-friend­ly products and processes can be opened up.

• International cooperation is essential for the success of Europe’s digital agenda. The governance and standardization of digital services and trade in digital goods must be tested, implemented and made binding in international practice. The EU’s desire to have a say in the establish­ment of international rules, including with regard to data security, and in the creation of fair competitive opportunities for European companies by clamping down on regulatory protectionism de­mands an active digital trade policy – both bilateral and multilateral.

• Trade agreements open up access to sales markets and sources of supply and make it possible to limit economic and political risks through diversification. Companies with a broad international presence are generally better equipped to deal with unexpected events such as Covid-19, the Ukraine war and the recent Taiwan crisis. Production locations and purchas­ing and sales markets scattered over a wide area make it easier for German and Euro­pean companies to reduce their vul­nerability to a China that not only threat­ens economic competition but also poses foreign- and security-policy risks that are extremely difficult to predict. That is because neither decoupling from China nor reshoring or rigorous friend-shoring of supply chains can be a viable option for companies competing internationally. In a world in which the G7 account for about 10 per cent of the world’s popu­lation and a good 30 per cent of world trade, a policy that sought to limit for­eign trade to those countries with which Europe shares the same values would be unrealistic and self-destructive. While soberly weighing potential returns against geopolitical risks, European companies must at the same time strive to diversify their sales markets and sources of supply and not restrict their choices of location for production facilities unless absolutely necessary.

Indo-Pacific – a key region

The Indo-Pacific, geographically defined as comprising the sub-regions of South, South­east and Northeast Asia as well as Oceania, is by far Europe’s most important regional partner in foreign trade, accounting for 33 per cent (2021) of the EU’s total non-Euro­pean trade. The Indo-Pacific is also the fastest-growing region in the world; in 2021, it accounted for 44 per cent of global economic growth (based on purchasing power parity), with China alone accounting for 22 per cent. Realistically, the region’s multi-decade growth trend can be expected to continue for some time, unless the Indo-Pacific economies are derailed by a dis­ruptive military conflict. Given the market size and growth potential of this region, it is clear that the EU’s regional trade policy should prioritize the Indo-Pacific. But besides economic considerations, there are also political arguments in favour of a shift towards this region, as the EU High Rep­re­sentative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy made emphatically clear in September 2021 when he unveiled a European Indo-Pacific strategy. Europe’s self-interest in maintaining peace and stability in Asia, in preserving a rules-based world order and in upholding and respecting democratic principles and human rights demands a stronger engagement and deeper cooperation with the countries of this region. Thus, for both economic and political reasons, it is imperative that the EU’s trade policy priorities are directed towards the Indo-Pacific region. There can be no doubt that an offensive liberal trade policy is also appropriate with regard to other non-Euro­pean regions of the world. However, it is precisely Europe’s claim to be able to assert itself in an environment of geopolitical rivalries – a claim associated with the guiding principle of “open strategic autono­my” – that requires an active trade policy engagement in precisely that macro-region which, by virtue of its size and dynamism, has established itself as the centre of gravity of world trade and the world economy.

European trade policy has tapped only part of the potential of the Indo-Pacific region. To date, free trade agreements have been concluded with just four important partner countries – Korea, Japan, Singapore and Vietnam. Unlike the US, Canada and Japan, the EU has not succeeded in networking with the region through multi­lateral trade agreements. The opportunity to expand and deepen trade and economic relations (for example, via ASEM) with the Indo-Pacific through a region-to-region agree­­ment or interregional strategic co­operation has never been seriously con­sidered. Nor did the negotiations for a free trade agree­ment with ASEAN, which began in 2007, go beyond preparatory consultations and the ex­change of technical infor­mation; and in 2010, they were suspended by the EU because of the difficult and un­promising nature of the talks. Also, con­trary to the po­litical conviction of the High Represen­tative – and in contrast with the course adopted by the US, Canada, Japan and the UK – the European Commission’s Direc­torate-General for Trade has not made the Indo-Pacific the focus of its regional trade policy.

Regardless of any misjudgements or stra­tegic failures in the past, the imperative of the present should be to exploit the eco­nomic potential of the Indo-Pacific through trade policy and to develop supply sources and production locations in the region out­side China. In terms of foreign trade, the EU should be pursuing two main strategic goals. First, given the now dense tapestry of discriminatory bilateral and multilateral free-trade agreements, it should strive to enter and operate in the markets of the Indo-Pacific region on the same terms of access as its main competitors – for exam­ple, Japan, China, Korea and the US. How­ever, non-discriminatory market access can be achieved only by concluding binding trade-policy agreements. Second, the EU has a strategic interest in its own trade and regulatory standards being recognized and enforced in the Indo-Pacific. If the countries of the region are working on the further development of standards within the frame­work of the transregional alliances RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Part­ner­ship), CPTPP (Comprehensive and Pro­gressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Part­ner­ship) and IPEF (Indo-Pacific Economic Framework) – separately from and prob­ably in anticipation of corresponding mul­tilateral agreements at WTO level – the EU should feel compelled to exercise influence, directly or indirectly.

And the opportunities for opening mar­kets in the Indo-Pacific and reducing eco­nomic vulnerabilities through trade agree­ments are fundamentally good. With­in the region, there remains a high level of interest in the European single market and European investments, not least because the Indo-Pacific states want to limit their economic dependence on China. The economic and political weight of Europe, the referential model character of the EU and its regulatory standards all speak in favour of the EU.

In order to optimally exploit the potential of the Indo-Pacific region, a three-pronged trade policy agenda is to be recom­mended. First, the existing trade agreements with Korea, Japan, Singapore and Vietnam must be expanded. A positive example here is the current efforts by Ger­many and the EU to reach a digital part­ner­ship agreement with Singapore, Japan and Korea. Second, the EU should seek integra­tion with the multilateral trade-policy networks (RCEP, CPTPP, IPEF). Third, at the bilateral level, Europe’s trade and investments should be liberalized through indi­vidual agreements with as many partner countries in the region as possible. The fol­lowing analysis focuses on this third rec­ommendation. It takes a closer look at the status of the ongoing negotiations about new EU trade and investment agree­ments with Australia, New Zealand, Indo­nesia and India and what the prospects for concluding such agreements are.

Australia and New Zealand – partners with shared values

Located on opposite sides of the planet, the EU and Australia/New Zealand have grown closer politically and economically in recent years, notwithstanding the UK’s exit from the Union (Brexit) and historical reser­va­tions on the fifth continent about protectionism stemming from the Common Agri­cultural Policy. The mutual interest of defending the liberal world order, similar views about trade liberalization and multi­lateralism, and the same perception of glo­bal and regional threats have fostered this closeness. To put their good relations on a treaty footing, the EU and New Zealand concluded a partnership agreement in 2016 while Brussels and Australia reached a frame­work agreement in 2017. Australia and New Zealand rank 21st and 50th, re­spec­tively, among the Union’s most impor­tant trading partners in terms of trade volume (€42.3 billion and €7.8 billion in 2021). At the same time, the Union is the third most-important trading partner of both Australia and New Zealand. In June 2018, the EU launched parallel negotiations on a free trade agreement with Australia and New Zealand; but despite broad agree­ment on democratic values and the closely aligned foreign policies of the negotiating parties, the talks were not an immediate success. While the parties’ agricultural inter­ests were too conflicting, Australian reservations about European regulatory and sustainability standards were too strong.

In the end, the negotiations with New Zealand, which proved easier than those with Australia, were successfully concluded in late June 2022. The two sides agreed on almost total tariff exemption, albeit with significant exceptions for agriculture. Imports of sensitive agricultural products (beef, lamb, powdered milk, butter and cheese) to Europe remain restricted by quo­tas, much to the chagrin of the New Zea­land agricultural lobby. However, the fol­low­ing are envisaged: the liberalization of digital trade, movement of services and public procurement as well as improved protection of intellectual property rights, in particular the recognition of the geographical indications for 163 European food prod­ucts and for the complete list of European wines and other alcoholic beverages. The binding sustainability agreements in the areas of labour, environment, climate, agri­culture, forestry, fisheries and, for the first time, gender equality are both innovative and far-reaching; either side can respond to violations of core labour standards or the Paris Climate Agreement by imposing sanc­tions if necessary. The next steps include a legal review of the draft texts and the trans­lation of the treaty into the official EU languages. The treaty will then be submitted to the Council for approval. Finally, it will be signed by the two parties and rati­fied by the European and New Zealand parliaments. The European side expects bilateral trade in goods and services to expand significantly – by an estimated 30 per cent – as a result of the agreement.

Negotiations with Australia are well advanced, too, and, following a short inter­ruption due to French disgruntlement over the AUCUS agreement, have now entered a decisive phase. While Australian reser­vations about European sustainability standards are likely to be fewer under the government of Anthony Albanese, which took office in May 2022, they have not yet been dispelled altogether. Since Australia has committed itself by law to a 43 per cent reduction in CO₂ emissions by 2030 and to CO₂ neutrality by 2050, the two sides are on the same page with regard to climate policy. But it remains to be seen whether Australia will be willing to commit bilat­er­ally, as New Zealand has done, to climate-policy sustainability standards that are sanctions-based.

However, the main stumbling block remains agricultural trade. There are still gaping differences between the offensive interests of Australia with regard to exports of grain and, in particular, meat and dairy products and the countervailing protectionist interests of Europe, especially France, Ireland and Poland. At the same time, the European demand that the geographical indications for European food, wine and other alcoholic beverages be recognized meets with strong reservations. It is very unlikely that Australia will agree to a treaty like that negotiated with New Zealand. Can­berra’s demands carry more weight owing to the country’s larger import mar­ket but, above all, because of Europe’s urgent need for reliable access to crucial energy resources and raw materials. Given the Australian-Euro­pean confluence of inter­ests in geo­politics and current con­vergence on climate policy issues, the two sides should be pre­pared to reach a com­promise on agricultural trade. Agreement on a free trade treaty would be an impor­tant milestone for the fur­ther development of the political and economic relations between Australia and Europe.

Indonesia and ASEAN

Europe continues to underestimate Indo­nesia as a trade and economic partner. Indonesia ranks just 31st among the EU’s most important trading partners in terms of trade volume (€24.7 billion in 2021) and thus lags even the ASEAN neighbouring countries of Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. The world’s fourth-largest country in terms of population and the seventh-largest in terms of economic output at purchasing power parity (2021), Indo­nesia has the potential to become Germany and Europe’s most important foreign-trade partner in Southeast Asia. A positive devel­op­ment is that the EU’s political relations with Indonesia have gradually improved since the end of the Suharto dictatorship (1998) and have been amicably anchored in a partnership and cooperation agreement since May 2014. Given their respective com­mitments to the preservation of democracy, human rights and pluralism and their shared advocacy of a rules-based international order, it can be said that Europe and Indo­nesia are in political unison. And it is interesting that the EU and Indonesia have chosen the same slogan to emphasize the internal cohesion of their region despite all the diversity: “United in Diversity” / “Bhi­nek­ka Tunggal Ika”.

But compared with political ties, European-Indonesian foreign trade relations and trade policy still have a lot of catching up to do. Indeed, the launch of negotiations on a bilateral free trade agreement in July 2016 was long overdue, not least since both the EU and Indonesia have been seeking to diver­sify their trade and economic rela­tions. However, the two sides have different expectations of the Indonesia-EU Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IEU-CEPA). For its part, the EU hopes the agreement will lead to non-discriminatory access to Southeast Asia’s largest market and a strategically important supplier of natural resources and metals – on the same terms as competitors from Japan, China, Korea and the US. Moreover, it sees the negotiations as offering a unique oppor­tunity to counter the protectionist tendencies of Indonesian economic policy and en­force regulatory and sustainability stand­ards. But Jakarta’s main goal is to develop and modernize the domestic economy. The government of the island-state hopes that improved access to the EU’s internal market and increased investor confidence in Indo­nesia as a business location will stimulate both domestic production and employment and increase the inflow of foreign direct in­vestment. The country’s economic de­pend­ence on China and Japan could thereby be reduced somewhat.

It is due to this fundamental divergence of interests that after 11 rounds of nego­tiations – and despite agreement having been reached on many points at the tech­nical level – the two sides remain far apart on the substantive issues of market access, trade rules and sustainability. On the one hand, the EU demands that Indonesia abolish the manifold constraints to foreign direct investment, lift export restrictions on raw materials, open its services and public procurement markets and end competition-distorting subsidies. On the other hand, it is precisely these regulations that Indonesia sees as legitimate instruments to promote its development and industrialization. So far, the negotiations have not clarified whether and to what extent the above-mentioned measures are in any way con­ducive to promoting development or whether, on the contrary, they are protec­tionist and even inhibit development.

The main bone of contention in the nego­tiations, if not in European-Indonesian relations as a whole, is palm oil. For Indo­nesia, the world’s largest producer of this commodity, the EU remains the third most-important market (after China and the US). But within the Union, the cultivation of palm oil in the tropics and imports of the product to Europe meet with the dual resist­ance of biofuel suppliers, which feel threatened by shipments from Southeast Asia and accuse Indonesia of inadmissible subsidies and unfair competition, and civil society groups, which point to the violation of labour and human rights and the eco­logical damage caused by palm oil produc­tion. Against this background, the EU, in its Second Renewable Energy Directive, no longer recognizes palm oil as a biofuel energy resource unless the sustainability of production can be proved. Indonesia, for its part, considers this directive an inadmissible protectionist measure but at the same time is going to great lengths to make the domestic cultivation of palm oil more sus­tain­able. Resolving this issue is likely to involve the two sides reaching agreement on and enforcing certified sustainability standards for palm oil production, similar to the provisions of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) that Indonesia has concluded with EFTA. For a compromise to be reached, Indonesia would have to guarantee the reliable imple­mentation of those sustainability standards in a legally binding way, including through strict control and sanction mechanisms. And the European side would have to actively seek to sell the agreement to the domestic agricultural sector and civil society, as Switzer­land did ahead of the referendum on the EFTA CEPA with Indo­nesia.

An IEU-CEPA would serve the trade, geo­strategic and environmental interests of both sides. Moreover, the successful conclu­sion of a free trade agreement with Indo­nesia, the leading ASEAN power, could pave the way for the EU to reach an interregional treaty with the entire ASEAN community. There are already signs that negotiations on a free trade agreement with Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines will resume.

India – fast-growing market

The EU and India have been strategic part­ners since 2004. They have concluded various cooperation agreements and meet an­nually for a bilateral summit. At the same time, they are committed to maintaining the liberal, rules-based international order and seek reassurance against the va­garies of China’s rise. However, the EU and India, which are each other’s third and tenth most-important trading partners, respectively, have so far failed to conclude a bilat­eral trade or investment agreement. In fact, India unilaterally terminated the exist­ing bilateral investment treaties with 23 EU mem­ber states in 2017. Moreover, negotiations on a free trade agreement, which began in 2007, were suspended in 2013 owing to irreconcilable differences. The main sticking points were the EU’s sweep­ing demands for tariff liberalization, the opening of India’s services and agricultural markets, improved patent protection, and social and environmental sustainability, while India was insisting on recognition as a country with an adequate level of data security and wanted flexible work permits and visa regulations for Indian skilled work­ers. Although these issues remain unresolved, the EU and India resumed negotiations on a “balanced, ambitious, comprehensive and mutually beneficial” trade agree­ment in 2022 and launched separate consultations on a bilateral investment protection agreement and the protection of geographical indications of origin. A joint Trade and Technology Council is to provide consultative and coordinating support for bilateral cooperation.

There can be no doubt that closer trade ties are in the political and economic inter­ests of both sides. As non-members of the multilateral trade alliances RCEP and CPTPP, both the EU and India are, to all intents and purposes, isolated outsiders in the Indo-Pacific economic area. A bilateral free trade agreement would not only benefit both actors economically but also enhance their political standing. After all, the EU and India are important and attrac­tive trade and economic partners for each other – Europe as a provider of investment capital, tech­nology, infrastructure and as a door opener to global sales markets, India as a huge mar­ket with enormous growth potential and as a promising alternative manufacturing location to China. India has a good chance of continuing to develop along the path of urbanization, industrialization and demographic transition and growing at a rate of 6–7 per cent annually for some time to come. But for these prospects to be realized, the subcontinent will have to impl­ement difficult internal structural reforms and permit a degree of external economic opening. At regards the latter goal, there is some cause for optimism be­cause India is currently changing the course of its foreign trade policy. Fearing a neo-colonial dependence on its big neigh­bour to the north, the country is resolutely pur­suing a policy of decoupling from China. At the same time, it is actively seeking inte­gration into international supply-chains while striving to attract capital and tech­nology and gain market access. Moreover, it is prepared to liberalize. In the first half of this year, India became a partner in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), a US initiative, and concluded a free trade agree­ment with the United Arab Emirates and Australia. And negotiations for similar treaties with the Gulf Cooperation Council, the UK, Israel and Canada are under way. It is likely that India will be prepared to make more concessions to the EU than to other trading partners. For this reason, there are pretty good prospects of the EU concluding a comprehensive and ambitious free trade agreement with India. However, it would be illusory to assume that Brussels could im­pose European regulatory and sustainability standards on India in the same way as it has on New Zealand. India, like the EU, is a trade heavyweight and a confident nego­tiator. To conclude a deal of substance, the EU will probably have to make more com­promises than it has done with other part­ner countries in the past. But it is likely to be worth its while to do so.