Is world free trade a'coming?

At last some positive news from Brussels.

 

And not just positive, but positively exciting; not just a game-changer but  a world economic game-changer.

 

The EU has given the go-ahead to negotiate a free-trade zone with the US which will create the largest trading bloc in the world.

 

The implications are breathtaking.

 

Here is the report from my EU source (but not reported elsewhere at this time, as far as I can see).

‘The European Union's national leaders today said that they would like to establish a free-trade zone with the United States, a deal that would be the biggest in the world.

The leaders used their summit, otherwise dominated by discussion about the Union's long-term budget, to state their “support for a comprehensive trade agreement” with the US and emphasised that negotiators should “pay particular attention to achieve greater transatlantic regulatory convergence”.

The message was underscored by José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission's president. “We need to move forward,” he said after the summit, adding that opening up trade would be a “powerful leverage for modernisation of our economies”.

The statement may dispel US concerns about the resolve of the EU to enter what would be highly complex talks. The US's own resolve could become clearer on 12 February when US President Barack Obama will give his State of the Union speech. He may choose to go one step further than his deputy, Joe Biden, who said on Saturday (2 February) that agreement on starting talks is “within our reach”.

The possibility of talks has received the strong backing of business lobbies on both sides of the Atlantic.

The EU's leaders highlighted the EU's other trade ambitions, saying that the EU expects a trade deal to be agreed with Canada “very shortly” and the EU is determined to follow up a deal agreed with Singapore in December with a similar liberalisation of trade with other Asian countries. Barroso also said that negotiations with Japan will start “soon”. EU negotiators won a mandate from the EU's member states in November’.

The US is also far advanced in negotiations about the creation of a US-Pacific free trade zone. This might also absorb ASEAN.

The implications are mind-boggling.

The various proposals would create an economic community of massive size. The effect on international business and industry would be electrifying; no tariff barriers to distort standards of living; a huge boost for globalization that has already brought millions out of grinding poverty; the free movement of goods and services, and the myriad of benefits that would flow from the liberalisation of trade.

It would bring the benefits that we expected from the EEC, but world-wide and without the sclerotic oversight of the EU.

Domestically, the impact of this move could be electrifying.

If this moves ahead in the next three years to show a likelihood at coming to pass, Dave’s referendum must be redundant.

The thought of Britain being excluded from the most important economic development – revolution, in fact – in the last 40 years is , well, unthinkable.

Truly we live in interesting times!