NewsEuropeNegotiating "fatigue" affects EU trade agreements

Negotiating “fatigue” affects EU trade agreements

The bloc currently has 41 trade agreements with 72 countries.

It’s not a word normally associated with free trade agreements, but “fatigue” is setting in across the EU. After years of unsuccessful negotiations with various countries around the world, some member states are beginning to doubt how much they really want to continue negotiating deals with countries whose benefits are beginning to be questioned by many voters.

“I think ‘fatigue’ is a pretty good word to describe it”Ville Skinnari, Finland’s foreign trade minister, told Euronews on Thursday.

And he is not wrong. Some of the agreements have been under discussion for more than ten years, such as the EU-India Free Trade Agreement, which has recently been resumed after several failed attempts in the last decade.

EU trade ministers met in Brussels on Thursday to discuss the deadlock in talks on these deals, but with many member states doubting their added value, there has never been more urgency to get them done.

According to Olivier Becht, France’s deputy foreign trade minister, the slowdown has nothing to do with fatigue, but with the need to defend European interests.“The agreements must be able to move forward, without also endangering our own sectors. I am thinking in particular of the agricultural sectors. We must be fully vigilant on this point,” Becht explained upon his arrival in Brussels.

“From this point of view, it is clear that time must be devoted to negotiations in order to reach compromises that are acceptable, of course, to the Member States, but also to public opinion”has assured

For the EU, these trade agreements are a signal to its international partners to show their support for multilateralism. But Niclas Poitiers, a researcher at the Bruegel Institute, says that many of the benefits that previously accrued from such broad agreements might not materialize under the new ones. “Part of this is the result of successful two-way globalization”Poitiers has detailed to Euronews.

“The first is that historically we have already reduced many tariffs to a very low level, which means that the benefits of these trade agreements in terms of market opening are not as great as they used to be and this means that the benefits of other trade agreements They’re not as big as they used to be, which also means the incentives to sign them aren’t as big as they used to be.”has explained.

“The second reason is that we have seen a large displacement of industries in the EU due to globalization and technology, which has caused an increase in inequality within the EU and has led many people who are concerned about this inequality to react against globalization and trade agreements”has added.

The EU has defended the signing of this type of agreement for many years. However, given the current international geopolitical situation and the difficulties encountered in supply chains due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Member States now seem to want to reflect on their previous approach to free trade.

Source: Euronews Espanol

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