Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 29 January 2019
271. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation the extent to which the international community can be influenced to avoid trade wars which can result in major inequality; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [4405/19]
View answerIreland is a small, open, export-driven economy and, as such, Free Trade and Free Trade Agreements are vitally important to its ability to develop and prosper. We can see from both our membership of the EU and successful economic strategy, that Ireland has benefited hugely from an open and fair, trading environment. Free trade has increased our collective prosperity, facilitated job creation and has allowed the Irish Government to develop and continue to invest in and support its key strategic objectives, including my Department's Innovation 2020, Enterprise 2025, and the Future Jobs Initiative. These strategies are designed to secure Ireland's economy into the future and an underlying tenant of that overarching objective is our ability to trade globally in an unrestricted and fair way.
Restrictions on foreign trade often results in poorer economic prospects for all trading countries. Restrictions on trade can also have very negative impacts on countries that are less developed, as their access to markets in which to sell their goods and thus generate wealth is unfairly constrained. Consumers here can also feel the impacts on trade restrictions when goods coming into the country are levied with tariffs, making them expensive and unaffordable.
The ability to trade freely is therefore important for our consumers and for driving global economic growth. Free Trade also drives enhanced efficiency, increases innovation, and creates greater fairness. Over time, Free Trade results in higher wages, the ability to invest in infrastructure, and builds a dynamic economy that can create new jobs and opportunities.
Ireland, through its membership of the EU, exerts a great deal of influence in relation to trade and the development of a sustainable trade model through the agreed structures of the WTO.
Within the EU, Ireland works actively with other Member States to ensure that our concerns regarding the impacts of restrictions to free and open trade - which can have a disproportionate effect on small, open economies like ours - are heard at EU level. The EU itself is proactive in trying to address issues at International Level regarding restrictions to free trade.
Of course, International Trade Policy is a competence of the European Commission under the EU Treaties and defined as the Common Commercial Policy. Under this architecture, the Commission makes legislative proposals and leads on international trade negotiations and the Member States approve negotiating directives (mandates) and engage with the Commission on the substance of all trade proposals through various Committees, including the Trade Policy Committee, and at Ministerial level through the Trade Council. Equally, Member States, at Council level, approve or reject the terms of Free Trade Agreements when negotiated. The European Union has in place free trade agreements with Korea and Canada as well as having successfully concluded trade negotiations with Japan Singapore, Vietnam and Mexico and has active negotiations with Mercosur, Chile, Australia and New Zealand. These agreements, on terms that are mutually beneficial to all parties, assist with liberalising trade, removing barriers and de-escalating possible trade tensions.
The European Union proactively engages with 3rd countries to de-escalate trade disputes as can be witnessed in the EU's current engagement with the US over its recently applied tariffs on Steel imports.
The EU has robust measures in place to respond to trade disputes, and officials from my Department are effectively engaged in both Brussels and elsewhere in resolving trade disputes in a fair and transparent manner.
In a broader context, Ireland fully supports the multilateral, rules-based, global trading system, embodied by the WTO, of which it is a member through the EU. An effective WTO system is an essential element of a fully functioning rules-based, free trade system.
A key pillar of the WTO is its mechanisms for resolving trade disputes. Its dispute settlement system is central to ensuring that global trade is fair, and rules-based. It is important that members of the WTO abide by the agreed procedures laid down in the legal texts and due respect is given to the judgments made on cases brought before the adjudicating body of the WTO.
Of course, over time, the functioning of any organisation must be reviewed and renewed to embed what is working well and to update what functions less well. In that regard, Ireland fully supports the European Union's position regarding the need for the WTO to urgently pursue an ambitious reform agenda to address structural problems which for some Member Countries inhibit the WTO from progressing further agreements and potentially limiting its ability to fairly arbitrate trade disputes.
To this end, Ireland has welcomed the ongoing trilateral engagement between the EU, the United States and Japan as a way of seeking to develop constructive proposals to address essential aspects of WTO reform. We have also supported the EU's engagement with the recent Canadian initiative on WTO reform and the communique issued by the EU and several partner countries at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, which aims to further these endeavours. Of course, the EU remains in dialogue with many other WTO members as well.
We remain fully supportive of the EU efforts to lead on WTO Reform and believe the Commission's proposals are key in driving this process forward.
Ireland, through the EU, will continue to work in proposing solutions and responding constructively to proposals from others so that we can improve the WTO's functioning in the delivery of a fair, rules-based, multilateral system in an effort to limit expensive and needless trade wars between important trading partners.
