Mandelson’s planned trade defence reforms under fire

Peter Mandelson, the European commissioner for trade, is facing increased opposition to his attempts to reform EU trade defence rules, with member states and MEPs pushing for further delays to his proposals.

Publication of Mandelson’s controversial reform plan was recently postponed from last month to January, the latest of a series of delays. It emerged last week (29 November) that Romano Prodi, prime minister of Italy, had sent a letter to José Manuel Barroso, his successor as president of the European Commission, setting out his concerns.

Italy has led criticism of the mooted reforms of how the EU protects its interests against unfair trade practices, believing that they may tilt trade policy in favour of companies with outsourced manufacturing processes.

According to Corriere della Sera, an Italian daily, Prodi outlined concerns about the timing of Mandelson’s proposals and the levels of discretion that would be afforded to the Commission in its assessment of trade complaints.

"It is very important that a European president [of the Italian council of ministers] like Prodi has written to Barroso…I hope that the anti-dumping reform will now be postponed and that we can discuss it further next year," said Gianluca Susta, an Italian Liberal MEP.

"I hope that Italy, Germany, France, Spain and Portugal do battle for a fair reform. We need a real political debate with EU manufacturers and unions," he said.

Christofer Fjellner, the Swedish centre-right MEP who is drafting a report on trade defence for the European Parliament’s international trade committee, said he was unhappy about the delays and the disagreements among member states. "Pretending that the rules in this area don’t need to be changed is to ignore reality," he said.

"Today we run a high risk that it will be used in protectionist ways. It would be simplistic to limit it to whether we should limit production abroad," he added.

A Commission official said that the latest delay was merely to ensure that guidelines to be used for assessing complaints were announced at the same time as legislative proposals reforming the current regulation on trade defence. Mandelson, he said, had no plans to respond to Prodi’s letter since it had been addressed to Barroso. "It’s normal for member states to express their views to the Commission," he said.

An EU diplomat cast doubt on the novelty of plans, recently leaked, that are supposed to give the Commission powers to target directly foreign companies that are exporting to the EU which have benefited from state subsidies. No industry complaints would be needed to begin defensive measures by the EU, in the so-called ex-officio initiation of cases.

"It was presented as a potential reform, but it is definitely not a reform," said the diplomat, who is a member of the EU trade policy committee, the so-called 133 committee. The possibility for ex-officio action, he said, already existed under article 10.10 of the current regulation. "It was only the option of using a possibility that already exists in the current regulation. It was nothing revolutionary," he said.

Peter Mandelson, the European commissioner for trade, is facing increased opposition to his attempts to reform EU trade defence rules, with member states and MEPs pushing for further delays to his proposals.