Portugal in the European Union: Assessing Twenty-Five Years of Integration Experience by Laura C. Ferreira-Pereira

Author:Laura C. Ferreira-Pereira [Ferreira-Pereira, Laura C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138187559
Google: 6gAnswEACAAJ
Goodreads: 26407145
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2010-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Looking into the future

With the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union a new dynamic is conferred to EU trade policy. On the one hand, more competences are transferred from Member States to the Commission, mainly in the areas of services and investment. On the other hand the Commission is more limited in its initiative powers, by the new role of the European Parliament. For the Commission, times ahead will be harder, as the Parliament will have the same information as the Member States on trade policy, and information asymmetry may not be used by the Commission to push policies forward as easily. But the EU Commission will have time to adapt to the new dynamic while the European Parliament accumulates know-how. The Member States, in turn, will have to adapt to the inputs of the Parliament as a more active actor in trade policy. That is a new challenge for a small country like Portugal, given its limited, though motivated and qualified, human resources in Brussels.

The Global Europe Strategy, of October 2006, is a strategy for opening markets in third countries, focusing on concrete problems that EU businesses face in these markets. The Strategy may allow for greater participation of Member States in EU trade policy, as it initiated a novel decentralized partnership between the Commission, Member States and business, intended to identify and overcome trade barriers abroad. Therefore, the Global Europe Strategy may open new channels for Portugal to reinforce its trade interests in third markets. The informal character of the Market Access teams, and the fact they are focused on defensive trade policy, suggests that Portugal may benefit from this Strategy particularly well. Portugal has been quite effective in integrating its interests in informal networks, and can capitalize on its past experience in future EU trade policy negotiations.

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