Confederation of Swedish Enterprise wants the EU to keep having an open trade policy. That was today communicated to the European Commission.
The European Commission has just concluded a so called trade policy review (TPR). The review serves to assist the new trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis when setting his priorities for trade in the coming years. The commission has had an open consultation with a questionnaire to receive input. Confederation of Swedish Enterprise today submitted its answers to the Commission questionnaire.
Our answers are based on the agenda we presented in October
We note that many of the questions in the questionnaire are not focused on how to increase trading opportunities but with issues related to ensuring that trade is fair and sustainable. There are many things to do in these areas, not least to address the issue of distorting subsidies and how to reach our high climate targets without losing competitiveness. However, that must not mean that we only focus on defensive measures and neglect positive measures to create trade. We miss several questions on how to increase trading opportunities.
In our answers we emphasize our opposition to forcing firms to relocate their production “home”, so called reshoring. Furthermore, we put forward several proposals on how to reform the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and how to make sure European firms can better benefit from the EUs many free trade agreements. We also discuss the trade relationship with important countries, such as the USA, China and the UK as well as the increasingly important issues related to digitization and data flows.