Changing the Balance of Trade
A Seminar on Sustainability Assessments
of EU Trade Policy,
brussels, 9-10 July 2002
Seminar Proceedings
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Changing the Balance of Trade, Seminar on Sustainability Assessment of EU Trade Policy, Brussels 9-10 July 2002
Table of Contents
PART A – Introduction and Summary 1
1. Introduction – Why a seminar on SIA? 1
2. Summary – Main messages and results 2
PART B – The Seminar 5
3. The Agenda 5
4. Participants' List 8
5. Summary of Presentations 12
PART C – RESOURCES AND DOCUMENTATION 23
6. Presentations of Invited Speakers 23
7. Joint NGO Statement on Sustainability Impact Assessments of EU Trade Policy 44
8. Internet Resources 49
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Changing the Balance of Trade, Seminar on Sustainability Assessment of EU Trade Policy, Brussels 9-10 July 2002
PART A – Introduction and Summary
1. Introduction – Why a seminar on SIA?
In the spring of 2000 the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Fundacion Futuro Latinoamericano organised a workshop in Quito, Ecuador to discuss an emerging new policy tool: Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA). The meeting gathered about 100 representatives of governments, intergovernmental bodies and NGOs to discuss the purpose, utility and policy relevance of SIAs. For decades, trade agreements have been negotiated in the dark – from a sustainable development viewpoint – with little or no analysis of their environmental, social or developmental impacts. This new tool presents an opportunity to address this weakness and a means to fill the sustainability information void in trade policy-making.
Today, SIAs and/or environmental assessment are increasingly being used by trade policy-makers to help deliver more sustainable trade policies. The mandate for the new round of negotiations agreed at Doha in 2001 contains references to environmental assessments.[1] The European Union has committed itself to conducting SIAs of all of its major trade policies and agreements, and of the current WTO negotiations.
Over the next three years, the European Commission’s Directorate General for Trade (DG Trade) will spend 10% of its budget on SIAs. It has developed a standardised methodology and the first pilot study –on the food crops sector – was completed in early 2002.[2] SIAs of Europe’s trade agreements with Mercosur countries, African Caribbean and Pacific nations, and the Gulf States are being developed, and a number of sectoral studies of the WTO negotiations are also underway. SIA is obviously a central plank of EU efforts to make its trade more sustainable, but are they making any difference?
On 9th and 10th July 2002 over 130 delegates gathered in the European Parliament in Brussels at a seminar to debate the role of Sustainability Impact Assessments in EU trade policy. The seminar was organised by WWF, the Heinrich Böll Foundation and Caroline Lucas MEP.
The aim of the seminar was to examine the current use of SIA by the EU and explore how the tool is being used to inform trade policy. In doing so, the seminar was to update delegates on the practical experience of conducting SIAs, and move the process forward by examining how to make SIAs more relevant to policy makers and exploring how to integrate them into trade policy. There were two broad objectives of the seminar:
· Awareness: The first objective was to increase awareness of SIA among the NGO community, the business sector, EU Member States, Parliamentarians, developing countries and other stakeholders.
· Policy: A second objective was to assess the policy relevance and effectiveness of SA within the EU and to identify mechanisms to further integrate SA into EU policy-making processes.
The seminar was divided into two distinct sessions reflecting these two objectives. The first session provided an update of how methodologies have developed and an insight into the practicalities of conducting an SIA. The second session focussed on the policy relevance of the EU’s programme of SIAs and explored issues such as the role of SIAs in the negotiating process, how to involve stakeholders and how to ensure that SIAs influence trade policy.
As well as presentations from DG Trade itself, delegates heard the views of DG Environment, the European Parliament, academia, non-governmental organisations, business, EU trading partners, and the World Trade Organization.
2. Summary – Main messages and results
The seminar offered a unique opportunity for a frank and open exchange of views and for discussion. Those attending included government officials from EU Member States and trading partners, Commission officials, politicians, academics, NGOs, and journalists from four continents and over 30 countries.
This summary does not constitute a consensus document and may not reflect the views and positions of all those who participated, but it does give a flavour of the debate and highlights the key issues raised during the seminar.
· Awareness: SIA is a new tool and despite the recent flurry of interest in it, the seminar revealed that the level of awareness of SIA is still very low among policy-makers and stakeholders alike. Developing countries and EU trading partners in particular were poorly informed about the tool and were unclear about its conduct and role in policy-making.
Delegates from non-EU states were unaware of the EU SIA programme and of the commitment to conduct SIAs for all major trade agreements. Many expressed the view that the Commission should do more to inform its trading partners of the SIA programme.
· The role of SIA: There was general agreement that SIAs are potentially important tools to help decision-makers, but some delegates expressed a concern that they might end up setting policy rather than informing policy. The point was made that SIA findings should not be binding and that ultimately policy-makers make the decisions – SIAs merely aid them in this process. However, a counterpoint was made that policy-makers should take the results of SIAs seriously and must use them if they are to remain credible.
· Trust and transparency: Many delegates remained to be convinced of the value of SIAs. Some questioned the EU’s motivation in conducting SIAs and saw the move as a cynical attempt to justify protectionist measures under the mantle of sustainable development. This echoes the conclusions of the Quito meeting in 2000 where building trust was seen as fundamental to the success of SIAs.[3]
The Commission has a lot of work to do to convince its trading partners and other stakeholders that it is honest in its motivation to conduct SIAs. Increased transparency and an inclusive approach were perceived as essential. The EU trade policy-making process was criticised as being opaque and it is difficult to see how SIAs are influencing negotiations. Prior to the seminar 21 NGOs signed a joint statement calling on the EC to open up and be more transparent and inclusive in formulating trade policy – see part C.
· Stakeholders: The role of stakeholders in the process was also widely debated. It was generally agreed that involvement of stakeholders is valuable in increasing transparency of the process, but there were complaints that, under the current EC approach, the opportunities for stakeholder involvement are limited.
The lack of involvement of the EU’s trading partners in the process was singled out for particular criticism. SIAs should be made available to trading partners so that they can use the results themselves.
Stakeholders were also identified as a valuable source of information and thus their full involvement from an early stage should result in a more robust study. Conversely, the exclusion of stakeholders makes it particularly difficult to assess the impacts of trade policies at a local level. The involvement of local stakeholders is likely to increase the effectiveness and applicability of the resulting policy measures.
The involvement of stakeholders also presents an opportunity for the voices of vulnerable and marginal groups of society to be heard and expose distributional effects of policies which normally remain hidden. However, some delegates complained that the EC SIAs conducted to date have failed in this respect and in particular have neglected gender issues.
· Capacity building: SIAs can be highly complex and specialised pieces of work requiring high levels of technical expertise. The view was expressed that many countries – especially those in the south – will not have the capacity to conduct their own studies. However, some delegates voiced the opposite viewpoint and pointed out that a wealth of technical expertise resides in developing countries. In this respect, four case studies presented on day 1 were conducted by experts in their own countries.
Stakeholder involvement is an effective means of building capacity and raising awareness of the tool. Unfortunately, the technical and resource intensive nature of SIAs means that the capacity of civil society to engage fully in the process is limited. Efforts should be made to increase capacity in civil society to take part in the process. Partnerships with International organisations such as UNEP were suggested as a means to increase capacity.
· Timing: There was agreement that SIAs should begin at an early stage in order to inform negotiating positions. SIAs conducted at a late stage can only hope to have a limited effect on trade policy and their scope will tend to be restricted to identifying mitigation and enhancement measures..
· Policy infrastructure: SIAs should be fully integrated into the policy-making process, and governments should develop appropriate systems and infrastructure to facilitate this. There must be high-level commitment to, and involvement in, the SIA process. Unless senior personnel are committed to the process, SIA will remain at the periphery of policy-making and rarely go beyond the officials managing the consultants who conduct the research.
SIAs present an opportunity to join-up policies. It is a cross-cutting tool which has the potential to highlight policy conflicts and synergies. It should be used to promote the overall coherence of the EU’s external objectives in the fields of trade, poverty alleviation, human rights and environmental protection.
Good inter-service co-operation is critical for the effective delivery of mitigation and enhancement measures will require a close degree of co-operation between different ministries, and DGs. Those involved in the ‘on-the-ground’ delivery of policies should be closely involved in the SIA process from setting the terms of reference through to the formulation of mitigation and enhancement measures.
· SIAs must be seen to be making a difference: Another concern was that there is little evidence that SIAs being conducted by the Commission are influencing EU negotiating positions at the WTO or in bilateral agreements. There is a real risk that stakeholders will cease to engage in the process if they are not convinced SIAs will lead to trade-related policies and measures that mitigate the negative impacts of trade liberalisation, and ensure a more equitable and sustainable distribution of its positive. It is essential for the credibility of the tool that SIAs make a difference to trade policy and crucially are seen to be making a difference.
PART B – The Seminar
3. The Agenda
Changing the Balance of Trade
A Seminar on Sustainability Assessments of EU Trade Policy
European Parliament
Eastman Building, Rue Belliard 135
Brussels
Tuesday 9th July – Sustainability Assessments in Practice
9:30 Registration
10:00 Session 1 – Sustainability Assessments in EU Policy-Making
Chair: Tony Long, WWF
The session will frame the debate in the light of the conclusions of the Gothenburg Summit which require all major EU policies to be subject to a sustainability assessment. It will explore what this commitment means for EU policy-making and how they expect SAs to contribute to more sustainable policies.
· David Wilkinson, Institute for European Environmental Policy
· Margot Wallström, Environment Commissioner
· Enrique Barón Crespo MEP, President of the PES Group in the European Parliament
11:30 Press Conference with Margot Wallström, Enrique Barón Crespo MEP,
and Tony Long, WWF
Coffee Break
12:00 Session 2 – Practical Application of Sustainability Assessments to Trade
Chair: Juan-Rodrigo Walsh, FARN
This session will examine how Sustainability Assessments (SA) are being used today. It will feature a series of case studies illustrating different aspects of the use of SA. They will highlight experience in specific sectors, commodities, and regions.
· Karim Dahou, Coordinator of Enda Prospectives-Policies Dialogues: EU Senegal fishing agreements
· Hanan Awwad, Friends of the Earth Middle East, Jordan: Environmental implications of the Mediterranean Free Trade Zone
13:30 Lunch
14:30 Session 3 – Practical Application of Sustainability Assessments to Trade (cont.)
· Alvaro Luchiezi, WWF Brazil: Sustainability Assessment of the Brazilian soy sector
· Karin Ulmer, APRODEV: Sustainability assessment and Millennium Development Goals - an ACP case study
15:30 Coffee Break
15:50 Session 4 – Advances in the methodology for Sustainability Assessments
Chair: Keith Tyrell, WWF
· Prof. Colin Kirkpatrick, University of Manchester IDPM: Update of the EU methodology being developed by Manchester University and proposed for the assessment of the new round of negotiations agreed at Doha
· Aaron Maltais, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI): Sustainability Impact Assessment of WTO negotiations in the major food crops sector
16:50 Discussion
Wednesday 10th July - High Level Discussion on Sustainability Assessments in the EU
9:00 Summary of day 1
9:15 Session 1 – Stakeholder perspectives on Sustainability Assessment of Trade
Policies and Agreements
Chair: Keith Tyrell, WWF
This session will examine different stakeholders expectations of SA. It will discuss the problems of addressing the social, economic and environmental pillars of sustainability in one tool and explore how to improve the approach.
· Silke Steinhilber, Network Women in Development Europe (WIDE)
The gender perspective
· Claude Fussler, World Business Council for Sustainable Development:
The business perspective
· Marie-Cecile Thirion, SOLAGRAL: The development perspective
· Reinhard Quick, UNICE: The European business perspective
11:00 Coffee Break
11:20 Session 2 – Sustainability Assessment as a tool in international trade negotiations
Chair: Caroline Lucas, MEP
How can we ensure that SAs are relevant to policy-makers? What are the mechanisms for integrating SAs into the policy-making process? This session will focus on the role of SAs in trade negotiations and will explore how to ensure that the output is relevant and how to integrate it into the policy-making process.