First glance

Updated assessment: Memo to the commissioner responsible for trade

Publishing date
30 January 2025
Trade

Published alongside Heather Grabbe and Jeromin Zettelmeyer's paper, 'Not yet Trump-proof: an evaluation of the European Commission’s emerging policy platform'. 

The following text provides a follow-up to the memo to the commissioner responsible for trade, originally published on 4th September 2024. All Memos to the European Union leadership were collected in the book, 'Unite, defend, grow'.

The 2019-2024 European Commission rightly made ‘open strategic autonomy’ the centrepiece of its geopolitical strategy. The term ‘strategic autonomy’ was meant to capture resilience and self-reliance where necessary. ‘Open’ was the counterbalancing factor suggesting that open-trade policies must continue to be the bedrock of the European Union approach. The two components of the strategy can and should be married together.

Pursuing open strategic autonomy is the appropriate insurance policy to avoid sliding towards protectionism. The EU should continue to be the champion of multilateralism and be ready to build coalitions in support of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and its reform. The US administration is unwilling to play this role and China is incapable of doing so, so the EU must be the voice of reason at a time when global cooperation is needed more than at any time in recent history, including to fight climate change.

What changes as a result of Trump? Trump has threatened to double down on the tariffs against China and the rest of the world. His new administration might increase US tariffs to 60 percent on potentially all imports from China, and to 10 percent to 20 percent on potentially all imports from other trading partners, including the EU. This new violation by the US of its WTO commitments would not only negatively affect EU exports but would also undermine the rules-based multilateral trading system.

The European Commission’s approach. In the 2024-2029 Commission, the Trade Commissioner is also responsible for ‘economic security’. This begs the question of whether and how economic security and trade openness will go together. Hints are given in the instruction to Maroš Šefčovič, the Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security, that he should design and implement an EU trade policy that “focuses on the core objectives of competitiveness, security and sustainability” and will “ensure Europe leads and improve[s] rules-based trade, notably through a reformed and strengthened World Trade Organization [sic] and through its own network of trade agreements” 1 Mission letter from Ursula von der Leyen to Maroš Šefčovič, Commissioner-designate for Trade and Economic Security, 17 September 2024, . . Šefčovič is also called on to develop an economic security doctrine, which should better clarify the relationship between promoting, partnering and protecting economic security.

Assessment and updated recommendations. The Commission’s renewed commitment to rules-based trade and the centrality of the multilateral WTO is highly welcome, especially in view of the threatening declarations by President Trump. It is equally positive that the Commission intends to pursue and finalise new regional and bilateral trade agreements with partners worldwide, a measure that will also help the EU navigate better the more dangerous world announced by Trump. It is crucial that the EU signs and ratifies the EU-Mercosur agreement 2 See European Commission press release of 6 December 2024, ‘EU and Mercosur reach political agreement on groundbreaking partnership’, . . A third course of EU action in response to Trump’s tariff threat is to be ready to engage in discussions with the US to seek to avoid the risk of tariffs, and to retaliate if necessary.

The increased shift of EU trade policy from a single objective – economic efficiency – to multiple objectives – competitiveness, security and sustainability – which started during the 2019-2024 Commission, is bound to continue, and will probably be reinforced. This shift has already created and will likely create more trade-offs, which will need to be made explicit and quantified in order to guide political choices. But whatever choices are made, they should respect multilateral rules.

About the authors

  • Ignacio Ҳí Bercero

    Ignacio Ҳí Bercero joined Bruegel as a Non-resident fellow in September 2024.

    Active at the European Commission since 1987, he participated in the Uruguay Round negotiations and was subsequently posted in the EU Delegation to the United Nations in New York. Upon his return to Brussels he worked in the preparation of what eventually became the Doha Development agenda and was head of unit for legal affairs and WTO dispute settment. 

    From 2005 until 2011 he was Director responsible for the areas of Sustainable Development, Bilateral Trade Relations (South Asia, South-East Asia, Korea, Russia and ex-CIS countries, EuroMed and the Middle East). He was also the Chief Negotiator for the EU-Korea and EU-India Free Trade Agreements. From 2012 he was responsible for overseeing EU activities in the field of Neighbouring countries, US and Canada and was Chief negotiator for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

    Mr Ҳí Bercero has written several papers and publications on WTO matters, including WTO reform, Dispute Settlement, Competition Policy and Regulatory Cooperation

    In 2020 he has completed a Fellowship at Saint Anthony’s College Oxford where his research focused on WTO reform. Since 2021 he is Visiting Professor in the Department of Political Science of the University College London and Visiting Senior Fellow at LSE Ideas, London School of Economics and Political Science.

    Mr Ҳí Bercero holds a Law Degree from the Law Faculty of Universidad Complutense, Madrid and a Master of Laws Degree (with Distinction) from University College, London.

  • Petros C. Mavroidis

    Petros C. Mavroidis is a Non-resident fellow at Bruegel and a Professor of Law at Columbia University. He is a member of the Institut de droit international and has acted as chief reporter (along with Henrik Horn) for the American Law Institute study “Principles of International Trade: the WTO”. He has previously taught at EUI (Florence), Princeton, and ULB (Brussels), and has been employed by the WTO where he is now advising developing countries.

  • André Sapir

    André Sapir, a Belgian citizen, is a Senior fellow at Bruegel. He is also University Professor at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and Research fellow of the London-based Centre for Economic Policy Research.

    Between 1990 and 2004, he worked for the European Commission, first as Economic Advisor to the Director-General for Economic and Financial Affairs, and then as Principal Economic Advisor to President Prodi, also heading his Economic Advisory Group. In 2004, he published 'An Agenda for a Growing Europe', a report to the president of the Commission by a group of independent experts that is known as the Sapir report. After leaving the Commission, he first served as External Member of President Barroso’s Economic Advisory Group and then as Member of the General Board (and Chair of the Advisory Scientific Committee) of the European Systemic Risk Board based at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt.

    André has written extensively on European integration, international trade and globalisation. He holds a PhD in economics from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where he worked under the supervision of Béla Balassa. He was elected Member of the Academia Europaea and of the Royal Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts.

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