Abstract
This chapter assesses the tension that exists between the EU internal and international legal obligations to achieve gender equality in all its activities, and the lack of actual implementation of this value in the context of trade negotiations with the Asian region. The EU’s willingness to foster good economic relations with key rising markets in Asia together with the Asian countries’ systematic rejection of the inclusion of norms in Free Trade Agreement create a double barrier for the diffusion of gender equality norms. Ultimately, the failure to insert gender equality norms within trade negotiations with Asian countries casts serious doubts about the EU’s international “actorness” and it fails to serve women in Asia.
‘For money, you would sell your soul.’ Sophocles, Antigone
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Notes
- 1.
Reflexivity here means that there is a state of consistency between the internal and the external EU actions (David and Guerrina 2013).
- 2.
Acknowledging the unequal effects of trade liberalisation, ‘Global Europe’ establishes the European Globalisation Fund to help stem some of the negative effects, and ‘Trade, Growth and World Affairs’ aims to extend and simplify the fund.
- 3.
Indeed in C-270/97 Deutsche Post v Sievers & Schrage [2000] ECR I-929, the Court of Justice held unambiguously that the economic aims are now only secondary to the social aims, therefore providing a clear ideological motivation for the application of European Union law. See also Case 149/77 Defrennes (no. 3) [1978] ECR 1365, paragraphs 26 and 27; Joined Cases 75/82 and 117/82 Razzouk and Beydoun v Commission, [1984] ECR 1509, paragraph 16, and Case C-13/94 P. v S. and Cornwall County Council [1996] ECR I-2143, paragraph 19; (Arnull 1990; Docksey 1991).
- 4.
Studies of the EU's trade policy have highlighted its inherent bias towards free trade and liberalisation. Proponents of the collusive delegation thesis argue this derives from the institutional arrangement whereby Member States transferred EU trade policy to the European Commission, creating a principal-agent relationship (Elsig 2007), which isolated the Commission from the protectionist impulses of domestic economic sectors (Meunier and Nicolaidis 1999; Meunier 2000). Others argue the policies result from competition amongst interest groups and effective lobbying of the European Commission and Member States (De Bieve and Dür 2005; Dür 2008). Focusing on effective lobbying, the Corporate Europe Observatory think-tank based in Brussels, (see Eberhardt and Kumar 2010) maintains that the business lobby's access to the European Commission and other institutional actors is reflected in a liberal trade policy focused on opening markets abroad for services and investment, which downplays the possible negative effects of trade liberalisation. The complex interactions between principals, agents, interest groups and the folding of foreign policy aims into trade policy have led Meunier and Nicolaidis (2006) to describe the EU as a ‘conflicted trade power’.
- 5.
In 2006 Commissioner Peter Mandelson published the ‘Global Europe’ trade policy which focuses on market opening, especially in emerging markets, pursuing comprehensive ‘deep’ trade agreements including public procurement, services, competition policy and intellectual property rights, and is driven overall by a concern with ‘competitiveness’ (Woolcock 2007) Commissioner De Gucht’s 2006 ‘Trade, Growth and World Affairs’ trade strategy follows the same lines.
- 6.
DG Trade leads the FTA negotiations with third parties, but aspects of the FAs are negotiated by officials in other Commission DGs and in the External Action Service, as the competences for those areas (e.g. development cooperation or education) lie with them. Although DG Trade takes the lead, it coordinates policies with the EU Member States and with increasingly with the European Parliament, to ensure the agreements will not be voted down once finalised.
- 7.
The EU is using ILO core conventions as a reference point for this.
- 8.
Since the early 2000s DG Trade commission’s independent studies to consider the potential effects of FTAs on the EU and partner states so as to incorporate that knowledge into the negotiations. The Civil Society Dialogue and though the Sustainability Impact Assessments stakeholders’, including social actors’, interests in the negotiations are fed-into trade policy. Critics argue civil society positions are heard but rarely make it into the actual negotiations with partners (Maes 2009). Moreover, SIAs tend to have a pro-liberalisation bias in-built as they tend to model for positive growth in trade and investment once barriers are removed, and their quantitative methodology overlooks sectors where little data is available (i.e. informal sector, and which may disproportionately affect women) (Sprecht 2009).
- 9.
In 2007 the EU launched FTA negotiations with ASEAN, but these were abandoned in 2010 and replaced with individual negotiations with the most advanced economies in ASEAN.
- 10.
‘Deep’ trade refers to the incorporation of issues in trade relations that go well-beyond traditional matters of tariffs and quotas as restrictions to trade, and include the harmonisation of partners’ phytosanitary measures and various standards, intellectual property rights, competition policy, liberalising the rules for service provision (including movement of people), and opening access to public procurement markets.
- 11.
This might happen for instance when public procurement contracts are reserved for local companies and contracts are made contingent on the thresholds for the employment of various groups.
- 12.
This is particularly relevant as the different chapter will be negotiated in detail by different officials, possibly form different Ministries. Prior to the creation of the European External Action Service in the Lisbon Treaty, the FAs were negotiated by officials from the Commission’s DG Relex, while the FTA part was negotiated by DG Trade. Although the parties’ chief negotiators have a global vision of the agreement it is unreasonable to expect them to have every single detail and possible interference of one article with issues elsewhere in the treaty.
- 13.
This was unequivocally expressed by Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht (2010) himself when he announced the launch of FTA negotiations with Singapore: ‘we are not available to do shallow FTAs.’
- 14.
During Pascal Lamy’s term as EU Trade Commissioner (1999–2004) he promoted a moratorium on new FTA negotiations to devote all efforts to supporting the WTO Doha Round. As the round faltered and it became clear by the 2005 Hong Kong Ministerial meeting that the EU’s ‘deep trade’ agenda of liberalisation would be impossible at the WTO, DG Trade, now under the stewardship of Peter Mandelson, re-directed trade policy to foster bilateral FTAs in which the EU could push for the liberalisation of sectors excluded from the WTO (see Young and Peterson 2006).
- 15.
Emerging and developing partners have criticised the EU’s and USA’s insistence on these ‘deep’ trade matters at the WTO and in FTAs. NGOs and civil society groups have also critiqued the fact that these issues would restrict future policy space, a concern that has also been raised by gender-sensitive critiques of this neoliberal trade model (Sen 2005; Shivpuri 2010).
- 16.
‘Asian values’ refer to Asian doctrines of developmentalism based on Confucian communitarian values, rejection of Western liberal democracy and foreign interference in domestic affairs. For a summary of the debates around the concept see Thompson 2001.
- 17.
From authors’ phone discussions with Korean trade official (17 March 2012).
- 18.
WTO-plus liberalisation refers to the inclusion in bilateral or plurilateral agreements of issues that are not being negotiated in the WTO Doha Round, in particular competition policy, intellectual property rights, government procurement and services. Attempts by the EU and USA to include these in the WTO negotiations were blocked by emerging states, and were withdrawn from the agenda after the collapse of negotiations at the 2003 WTO Cancún Ministerial Meeting.
- 19.
- 20.
From interviews with Asian diplomats (Brussels, 30 October 2013, 27 October 2013), see also Sen and Nair 2011.
- 21.
From authors’ discussions during research interviews with trade officials conducted in Wellington 10 December 2012; Canberra 8 October 2012; Brussels 31 October 2013. FAs represent the overarching legal framework of the relationship, and could be invoked to revoke trade preferences if the core democratic values of the FA were breached by the third party. This is unlikely to ever happen with OECD partners, which nevertheless object to the EU’s ‘everything goes into the agreement’ approach to FTAs.
- 22.
Furthermore, as McGuire and Lindeque (2010) argue, the greater economic relevance of emerging markets is also lessening the EU’s potential for exploiting the attraction of its market.
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Acknowledgements
Maria Garcia wishes to acknowledge the support of the European Union, under the outgoing Marie Curie Fellowship grant PIOF-GA-2009-254239.
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Garcia, M., Masselot, A. (2015). The Value of Gender Equality in EU-Asian Trade Policy: An Assessment of the EU’s Ability to Implement Its Own Legal Obligations. In: Björkdahl, A., Chaban, N., Leslie, J., Masselot, A. (eds) Importing EU Norms. United Nations University Series on Regionalism, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13740-7_12
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