According to the EU’s basic philosophy, it
will open its market to imports from outside provided its trading partners
do likewise. It is also keen to liberalise trade in services. But it is
ready to make allowances for developing countries by allowing them to open
their markets more slowly than industrialised countries and is helping them
integrate into the world trading system.
The removal of barriers to free trade within the EU has made a significant
contribution to its prosperity and this has reinforced its commitment to
global liberalisation. As the EU member states removed tariffs on trade
between them, they also unified their tariffs on goods imported from
outside. This meant that products paid the same tariff whether they entered
the EU via the ports of Genoa or Hamburg. As a result, a car from Japan
which pays import duty on arrival in Germany can be shipped to Belgium or
Poland and sold there in the same way as a German car. No further duty is
charged.
The creation of a harmonised common external tariff (CET), as it was known,
meant that EU countries had to participate as a single group in
international trade negotiations. External trade thus became one of the
first instruments of European integration requiring member states to pool
their sovereignty.
The Union has granted duty-free or
cut-rate preferential access to its market for most of the imports from
developing countries and economies in transition under its general system of
preferences (GSP). It goes even further for the 49 poorest countries in the
world, all of whose exports – with the sole exception of arms – enjoy duty
free entry to the EU market under a programme launched in 2001.
The EU has developed a new trade and development strategy with its 78
partners in the Africa-Pacific-Caribbean (ACP) group of countries aimed at
integrating them into the world economy. It also has a trade agreement with
South Africa that will lead to free trade between the two sides, and it is
negotiating a free trade deal with the six members of the Gulf Cooperation
Council (GCC) – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United
Arab Emirates.
The EU has trade and association agreements with Mexico and Chile in Latin
America and has been trying to negotiate a deal to liberalise trade with the
Mercosur group – Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.
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