Assessing the EC Trade Policy in Goods

The EC should position itself as a WTO Member with a long term view of the world trade regime. Assuming responsibility for the future relevance of the world trading system is a sign of leadership. Europe implicitly assumes that future rounds of trade negotiations will follow after a successful Doha Round. Those future rounds will address the unfinished business left by (perhaps) a more modest but a “clean” Doha outcome much more easily than if they inherit a Doha package more ambitious for some products, but riddled with more distortive exceptions on many products. In short, the ECs long term strategy should be to promote a series of WTO Rounds of liberalization as a slow but nonetheless perennial “peeling of the protectionist onion”.