Political economy of Trade reforms in Europe
22-23 january 2004 - London, FIELD
Introduction General overview from the EU perspective
Breakout discussion group
Introduction and objective of the meeting
Alice Palmer, FIELD
General overview from the EU perspective
Session 1: Access and participation of vested interest groups in EU,MEA and WTO decision-making
This session will examine the history of lobbying and identify key vested
interest groups and their strategies in the processes of trade policy reform
within the EU, the institutions supporting multilateral environmental agreements
(MEAs) and the WTO. This session will assess the power and influence that
lobby groups exert over national governments, regional and international institutions
in the pursuit of their interests, potentially at the expense of the public
interest.
Chair: Alice Palmer (FIELD)
The EU Business Lobby (power point), Dr David Coen
(University College, London)
Who
really runs EU trade policy? (power point), Tobias Reichert, WWF
Session 2: Case studies-
lessons from energy and forestry sectors
This session will explore the level of participation and influence of business
and civil society groups in the policy making process within the EU energy
and forestry sectors. It will examine the entry points to decision-making
in the WTO, interests shared between business, industry lobby groups and trade
representatives, obstacles to trade policy reform and ways to make participation
from NGOs more effective in the EU and the WTO.
Chairs: Andreas Kraemer (Ecologic) and MJ Mace
(FIELD)
Duncan Brack, RIIA
Forest Stewardship Council (power point), Anna Jenkins (Forest Stewardship Council UK)
Vested Interests in the Political Economy (power point), Mike Wriglesworth (IETA)
Alexandra Wandel (FoE Europe)
Breakout discussion group
Participants will be divided into smaller groups to
discuss questions identified in Session 2
Session 3: Trade in GMOs
and influence of interest groups
This session will examine the influence of lobby groups in trade in GMOs where
there is a growing concern over safety and the lack of stringent testing,
labelling and liability requirements. This session will explore key issues
such as: how the lobby groups manoeuvre the government's position in the EU
and in the WTO; corporate access to the European decision-making process,
to relevant MEA institutions and to the WTO; and the way reforms have progressed,
or been re-oriented, with the involvement of various interest groups.
Chairs: Konrad Von Moltke (IVM) and Alice Palmer (FIELD)
Cartagena Protocol (power point), Ruth Mackenzie (UCL)
Influencing policy at the national and international levels (power point), Sue Mayer (Genewatch)
Influence of interest
groups in developing countries: focus on Africa (power point), Yvonne
Apea (ICTSD)
Session 4: Agriculture
reform and vested interests
Achieving free trade in agricultural products has been difficult because of
the powerful vested interests that would be undermined by free trade in agricultural
goods. This session will explore issues such as: the role played by the agricultural
industry in the making of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and in maintaining
the EU's agricultural subsidy programme; the influence of the agricultural
industry lobbyists in agricultural trade policy reform; and the progress made
in agricultural negotiations at the WTO.
Chairs: ophie Thoyer, ENSAM-Economic
Jose Maria Garcia Alvarez Coque (Universidad Politecnica de Valencia)
Alice Landau (University of Geneva)
Effectiveness
of Farmers Organisations in Shaping Reform Processes (power point), Carmen
Suarez (ational Farmer's Union, UK)
Roundtable discussion
Based on the outcomes of the four sessions and reports from discussion groups,
the roundtable discussion will comment on how to make trade policy reform
more sustainable at the levels of policy design and implementation, and recommend
strategies for improving accountability of vested interest groups such as
large corporations and trade associations.