Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on trade and investment barriers 1 January 2016 – 31 December 2016

As part of the Market Access Strategy, this seventh edition of the Trade and Investment Barriers Report (TIBR) analyses the trade and investment barriers reported by business and Member States to the Commission through the Market Access Partnership (MAP).

This Partnership between the Commission, Member States and European business has already proven invaluable to gather information on trade barriers, and to jointly prioritize and define a common barrier removal strategy. Building on this experience and mindful of the rise in protectionism, the Commission in its Communication Trade for All announced an 'enhanced partnership' to reinforce the existing joint efforts and to extend them beyond the removal of obstacles to trade and investment to the implementation of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs).

In this context, this year's edition of the TIBR focuses on concrete barriers directly affecting EU economic operators in third countries. This approach marks a shift from the analyses of general protectionist trends examined in the previous edition, in order to focus on the most relevant barriers affecting EU exports to 51 third countries as reported via the MAP and recorded in the trade barriers section of the Market Access Database (MADB). This analysis of measures impacting EU businesses also allows drawing some conclusions that generally confirm the continued rise in protectionist trends observed in previous TIBRs and protectionism reports.

The first section of this report presents a numerical analysis, per country, per type of barrier and per sector, of the total stock of 372 active trade and investment barriers registered in the MADB and of the 36 new barriers recorded in 2016. The second part provides a more detailed analysis of the new barriers reported in 2016, describing specific trends in various countries and sectors and assessing potentially affected trade flows. The third section elaborates on the tools used to address these barriers and provides an overview of the 20 barriers that were successfully resolved in 2016. Following a general analysis on potentially affected trade flows and main sectors that benefitted, some major success stories are also highlighted.