A new trade strategy for Europe? No, it's more of the same forced liberalisation we've seen for 40 years

WDM has been campaigning on trade issues for most of its 40 year history and throughout this whole period the same thread has persisted: Rich countries forcing developing countries to open their markets to enable big business to line its pockets - at the expense of the poorest people in the world.

And so on Tuesday, when the European Union announced its new trade policy, Trade, Growth and World Affairs we weren’t at all surprised when we saw the same thread running through this ‘new’ strategy.

Earlier this year, the EU announced that it would be reviewing its ‘Global Europe’ strategy – the strategy devised by Peter Mandelson to target developing countries for trade deals. These trade deals massively favour Europe, enabling European businesses to make more profits, while people in developing countries lose jobs, livelihoods and industries. And this week, the new trade strategy, unveiled, after seven months of consultation, looks set to do pretty much the same thing.

The strategy wants to see the Doha round of the highly flawed and discredited World Trade Organisation (WTO) concluded by 2011. It also wants to finish the negotiations over trade deals between Europe and particular countries that are already underway.

For example, the European Union has been trying to secure a trade deal with India since 2007 and will be giving the negotiations a final push next month. It is estimated that nearly three quarters of India’s population live on less than a dollar a day and a trade deal with Europe would expose Indian farmers, fisherfolk, street vendors and small businesses to crushing competition from European businesses. This would lead to massive job and livelihood losses, not to mention the social impact of losing a vital source of government income from import taxes which could be used for essential services like health and education. India’s ability to provide affordable medicines for the treatment of AIDS, malaria and cancer is also at risk as the EU want to see an extension and enforcement of intellectual property rights.

The review of ‘Global Europe’ was driven out of the need to respond to the global economic crisis over the last few years, and yet the continuing push for bilateral deals and a conclusion to the WTO round demonstrate not only that the EU has not changed direction in response to the crisis, but - even worse - that it is in denial about the fact that the liberalisation of trade and financial services in particular were largely responsible for the crisis in the first place.