BusinessEurope Headlines No. 2018-39
Better Regulation: businesses push for ambitious agenda
BusinessEurope hosted a conference on Better Regulation bringing together high-level speakers and guests from EU institutions, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), national administrations and the business community on 4 December in Brussels. BusinessEurope Director General Markus J. Beyrer, who opened the event, stressed the importance of better regulation for both businesses and citizens, linking it to the legitimacy of the EU Single Market governance. European Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans then held an introductory speech. “We’ve come a long way, but we have not yet reached the point of no return”, he said. Timmermans emphasised that better regulation is the culture change in decision-making and more work is needed to ensure that it is a lasting one. The First Vice-President also stressed that continuation of the better regulation agenda under the next Commission is key for achieving this. Two interactive panels then discussed the transparency and quality of EU decision-making and regulatory simplification, moderated by the Vice-Chairs of BusinessEurope’s Better Regulation Working Group, Christoph Bausch (BDI) and François Baur (Economiesuisse). Jens Hedström (Confederation of Swedish Enterprise), Chair of BusinessEurope’s Better Regulation Working Group, made a strong plea for the continuation of the REFIT platform under the next Commission. Martynas Barysas, BusinessEurope Director for Internal Market, highlighted that transparency in implementation is fundamental, and that better regulation thus not only relates to EU decision-making processes but also to the EU Member State level. He added that dialogue with stakeholders throughout the decision-making cycle also helps businesses to understand the objectives of rules and to better comply with them. Read our latest positions on Better Regulation here. Photos.
Contact: Basje Bender, Jonathan Gray
Our comment
EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement: a once in a generation opportunity
By Maurice Fermont, Adviser for International Relations
Comprising a third of global GDP, Japan and Europe are showing their commitment to rules-based trade at a time when protectionism surfaces around the world. You can scarcely open a newspaper without being told that the system that underpins global trade flows is under pressure. In July, the World Trade Organisation sounded the alarm over the growing number of trade restrictive measures implemented by its members at a rate of 11 per month over the past year. The United States and China, the world’s two largest economies, have levied tit-for-tat tariffs in an escalating trade conflict. And at the recent G20 summit in Argentina, there was an extraordinary consensus among leaders that the multilateral trading system is falling short of its objectives and that it must be reformed to improve its functioning.
The EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) stands out as a bold step to counter this trend and bolster cooperation on rules-based trade. It was never going to be easy to negotiate a trade agreement between two of the world’s largest economies, but our shared values, regulatory and product standards as well as food safety requirements meant that embarking on this agreement made a great deal of sense.
Trade in goods and services between Japan and the European Union (EU) amounts to more than 150 billion euro per year, and exports between our two regions is projected to increase by 34% for the EU and 29% for Japan once the agreement enters into force, while the total increase as a percentage of trade with the world is 4% for the EU and 6% for Japan. For the first time in an FTA with the EU, there is also a chapter for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which commits both sides to proactively offer information and create SME contact points to help companies who seek access to each other’s market. This should help those companies with resource constraints and for whom internationalisation can present a number of extra challenges, to maximise their benefit from our FTA.
Citizens and consumers also stand to benefit greatly from this agreement. For the EU, every 1 billion euro in trade supports 14.000 jobs across the Union. The recently published European Commission report on EU exports to the world shows that 36 million EU jobs depend on exports, a two-thirds increase from the year 2000. The more we can enlarge our common pie, the more of it we can share among ourselves. The elimination of tariffs will save consumers and importers 1 billion euro per year, and for specific products the difference is substantial. European wine will on average become 15% cheaper for the Japanese consumer, while the cost for European buyers of Japanese cars will drop by 10% over time.
The free trade agreement will level the playing field between European and Japanese companies to compete fairly, and allow them to make use of their comparative advantages and specialised knowledge to offer better products and services at cheaper prices. Additional rules on intellectual property protection, equal opportunities to bid for government contracts, and rules on how to deal with competition issues all help to create a trade-enabling framework and encourage investment in each other’s economies.
The rest of the world now looks at the European Union as a beacon of stability and rule-based order. Although the problems within the multilateral trading system also affect European companies, the EU-Japan EPA is a positive development among a set of difficult circumstances. Together with like-minded partners, the EU can shape the trade rules fit for the 21st century, to modernise the World Trade Organisation, and to take steps to defend and expand rules-based trade. This agreement is a step in this direction, and we look forward to the European Parliament’s ratification in mid-December 2018. Now more than ever, we cannot afford to hold back on our progressive trade agenda.
Contact: Maurice Fermont
EU-Africa Business Summit scaling up economic opportunities
“There has been a shift in the way policymakers and businesses see Africa. Instead of talking only about challenges and aid, we are now looking more into expanding economic ties by developing trade and investment opportunities”, said Thérèse de Liedekerke, BusinessEurope Deputy Director General at the EU-Africa Business Summit “Realising the investment opportunities of Africa”, on 30 November in Marrakech. During the event, participants stressed the key role of the private sector in making the necessary investments and creating quality jobs for Africa’s young and dynamic population. “Yet, the private sector can only scale up investment in areas critical to sustainable development if the right policy environment is in place. Improving the business and investment climate and the availability of finance, reducing the investment risk and creating conditions for African countries to move up the value chain will thus be key”, de Liedekerke highlighted. Morocco and its business community are very keen to be the entry point to Africa and to help promote closer ties between the continent and Europe.
Contact: Benedikt Wiedenhofer
Future challenges of EU consumer policy
In the last years the EU has adopted or proposed a substantial number of new rules and requirements applicable to businesses in their contracts with consumers. The impacts of some of these measures are still uncertain and proposals under discussion are reintroducing minimum harmonisation which is a well-known cause of legal fragmentation, one of the biggest barriers to cross-border trade. EU Consumer Policy should be reoriented to serve, in addition to consumer protection, as an enabler for entrepreneurship in the internal market. Only then will it be able to meet the challenges ahead around new technologies, new business models and sustainability. These messages were expressed by Pedro Oliveira, Businesseurope Legal Director at the European Commission Consumer Summit that took place on 28 November in Brussels.
Contact: Pedro Oliveira
Progressing on labour markets reforms in Central and Eastern countries
Social partners’ role in implementing labour market reforms as part of the European semester is increasingly important. It is essential that national employers federations work together to identify and raise awareness of the EU institutions on how to ensure effective involvement of social partners in the labour markets reform process. A key requirement in a number of EU Member States is to strengthen capacity building support to social partners to help them deal with more frequent and complex demands from the EU institutions and improve their work on implementing EU social dialogue instruments. These were the key messages by Maxime Cerutti, Social Affairs Director, at the final conference of the CEELAB project on 5 December in Budapest, Hungary. The aim of the CEELAB project was to analyse the impact of the social partners on labour market reforms as well as their involvement in the European semester process in Central and Eastern EU countries such as Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, and Croatia and in Montenegro, a candidate country.
Contact: Anna Kwiatkiewicz-Mory
Strengthening EU-Taiwan investment relations
“Bilateral trade and investment relations between the EU and Taiwan are important and have the potential to grow further”, said Sofia Bournou, BusinessEurope Senior Adviser for International Relations during a seminar organised on 5 December by the European Institute for Asian Studies. Taiwan is a vibrant economy, with dynamic information and communications technology (ICT) and services sectors in particular. Both sides have also expressed their willingness to negotiate a Bilateral Investment Agreement. Bournou added that “BusinessEurope supports this prospect and would like to see an ambitious and balanced outcome, encompassing provisions to open markets and protect investments while at the same time ensuring that this takes place in a sustainable manner”.
Contact: Maurice Fermont, Sofia Bournou
How to boost trade and investment with the Caribbean
“The Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) between the EU and the Caribbean offers many opportunities for its members to expand trade and investment relations and strengthen regional integration and supply chains. We now need to discuss how to better exploit these opportunities to boost trade, investment and sustainable development for all”, said Benedikt Wiedenhofer, BusinessEurope Adviser for International Relations, at the yearly meeting of the Joint Consultative Committee under the EU-CARIFORUM EPA, in Castries, St. Lucia, on 3 and 4 December. The event brought together civil society representatives from the EU and the Caribbean member countries of the EPA. Wiedenhofer added that “the negotiations of the Post-Cotonou Partnership Agreement (EU and 78 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries) also present an opportunity to look into ways to better implement the EU’s Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs)”.
Contact: Benedikt Wiedenhofer
Letter on Digital Taxation to the Austrian Presidency
Ahead of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) discussion on 4 December on digital taxation, BusinessEurope sent a letter to the Austrian presidency, setting out its concerns on the European Commission’s proposal for a Digital Services Tax. The letter argues that while we welcome the European Commission’s efforts to contribute to finding a global solution to issues around digital taxation, we are concerned that the Digital Services Tax proposal breaks with the international convention of taxing company profits, not revenue, and thus risks increasing double taxation of companies as well as damaging competitiveness, jobs and investment in the EU. In addition, the Commission’s argument that digital companies have an average effective tax rate that is half of the traditional economy in the EU does not stand up to scrutiny.
Contact: Pieter Baert
Calendar
- 2-14 December: Katowice Climate Change Conference COP 24
- 11 December: launch of BusinessEurope paper Ambition for Europe in 2030
- 11 December: Brexit vote House of Commons
- 12 December: EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement - European Parliament ratification
- 13-14 December: European Council / Euro Summit
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