Trade – From Uruguay to Doha

In many of the areas of policy in which the EU operates collectively, as opposed to through the individual member states, it has acquired the power to do so over time. But the power to determine trade policy has been a European Community competence from the very beginning.

This is not at all surprising as this was necessitated by the combination of internal free trade and a common external tariff which was a defining feature of the original common market from its very inception.

It was, however, the successful conclusion in 1993 of the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) Uruguay Round which constituted the most substantial exercise of this trade competence so far. Surprisingly, this met remarkably little objection at the time, even though Euroscepticism was already alive and well in many member states.

The principal reason for this was the almost universal belief in the paramount necessity of concluding the Uruguay Round and the knowledge that no individual member state could possibly wield the necessary negotiating clout on its own. Unlike today, there was also no significant body of opinion which queried the very desirability of opening up and expanding world trade.

On the other hand, when I took on the trade portfolio at the end of 1992 there were many gloomy predictions that many countries would not be prepared to open up their markets further at a time when many of them either were in recession or had just emerged from it. The reality proved to be the exact opposite. At a time of widespread economic difficulty virtually the only step which was felt to be available to boost the world’s economy was a major trade deal.

There was consequently an almost universal and palpable sense of the importance and urgency of concluding the Uruguay Round. There were of course then, as now, ferocious arguments about how far the EU should go in liberalising trade in agriculture, with France then, as now, the most reluctant to go very far. But the balance of forces was different from what it is today, with the business community campaigning for an agreement with a vehement insistence which is absent today. I vividly remember Helmut Kohl, the then German chancellor, almost pleading with me not to make him choose between the demands of German industry and his paramount political desire to stay alongside France.

In the end, the overwhelming desire to get the deal done led to success and well nigh universal support for the deal. But there is another important difference between the situation then and today. This is that although there were already some hundred GATT members in 1993, in effect what was required to secure a deal was an agreement between the EU and the US. When I went to Geneva to see the ambassadors of the members of GATT, seeing them in groups to find what their requirements for a deal really were, I was surprised to find that they were reluctant to spell out what they wanted. Almost all told me: "You do a deal with the US, and we’ll then tell you if we want it modified or if we want anything added to it." The result was that I engaged in head-to-head negotiations with Mickey Kantor, my American counterpart, which were intense and even on occasion heated, but with both of us knowing that any plaudits which we gained from our home audiences for being ‘tough’ would be short-lived, if we could not get a deal at the end of the day. Inevitably the negotiations went to the wire, with the last outstanding point not being agriculture, but a US demand for unfettered access to the European audiovisual market. In the end we did reach a deal, the interests of the rest of the world were surprisingly quickly accommodated and the Uruguay Round was successfully put to bed.

Within a very few years it became apparent that life for future trade negotiators was going to be much more complicated. At the 1996 World Trade Organization Singapore ministerial meeting it took five days of hard bargaining to get the developing world to agree to a mere communiqué setting out the principles that would be followed for the future.

Since then the difficulties have multiplied, with increasing opposition to globalisation and liberalisation and with the developing countries becoming far more vociferous in their expectations and demands. In spite of undertaking substantial agricultural reform and putting forward a far-reaching liberalisation offer, Europe has often (unfairly in my view) been cast in the role of villain of the piece, while the more advanced developing countries, which would gain so much from opening up their markets, especially to trade in services, have been reluctant to do so.

Currently the outcome remains uncertain but differences within the EU, although always present, have been contained. Moreover, pressure for a deal from the business community is much less than it was in 1993, perhaps because the current growth of the European economy makes it less hungry for future liberalisation.

For me the lessons of the past for the EU today are clear: meet the legitimate expectations of the developing countries, but insist that they should face up to their own responsibilities too. Remind them that if there is no deal they will get nothing. Indeed they will face the prospect of growing protectionism and a series of politically motivated bilateral deals, slanted in favour of the friends of the most powerful nations and not those most in need. But above all, Europe must stay united and recognise that our major asset is having a single negotiator in the form of the Commission, which needs and deserves support in what we all must hope will be the end-game, leading tortuously but ultimately to a successful conclusion.

• Leon Brittan was a European commissioner in 1989-1999.

In many of the areas of policy in which the EU operates collectively, as opposed to through the individual member states, it has acquired the power to do so over time. But the power to determine trade policy has been a European Community competence from the very beginning.