INDEPENDENT & TRIPARTITE
HIGH LEVEL GROUP ON
trade & ECONOMIC RESILIENCE
The High Level Group on Trade Policy Innovation was launched in 2017.
​
Free trade allows people, companies and countries to specialise in what they are good in. According to economic theory of comparative advantages as well as modern theories of international trade, nations that are open to trade freely can achieve greater efficiency. In aggregate, free trade is growth enhancing, improves the competitive landscape and enhances living standards.
​
However, long ago already Bertil Ohlin, Nobel Prize winner in Economic Science in 1977, has pointed out that global trade could lead to inequality too. His predictions, however, have been largely overlooked in the policy discourse and in the economic literature.
​
In recent years, it has become apparent that free trade created an equity-efficiency trade-off, i.e. a trade-off between higher economic performance (growth rates) and a more equal income distribution between and within countries. The challenge now is to achieve inclusive and substantial growth. The complexity of the equity-efficiency trade-off is increased by technological change, environmental challenges and rising civic resistance.
​
This HLG is chaired by Peter Altmaier, former Minister for Economy and Trade, Germany.
THE HLG FOCUSES ON
-
Trade is an enabler for sustainable economic[ng1] growth, innovation and social welfare. However, deep shifts of geopolitical and economic nature, and the loss of a Western research monopoly, require a fundamental rethinking of its methods. The coming years are likely to be at best moderately chaotic and mindsets and methods from the past will not bring results. The EU will need to search without prejudice for its autonomous operating space and resilience vis-à-vis other countries if the Member States want to preserve welfare and stability. In the absence of a global reserve currency and military might, trade as the cornerstone of partnerships will be the only instrument of geopolitics for EU countries.
-
It will require rethinking to position EU trade policy in central place of a horizontal policy framework that coordinates the vertical clusters of other policies and their extra-territorial impact, coordinated also with the EEAS. Comprehensive partnerships are an important instrument for economic diversification, innovation and competitiveness and market expansion, innovation and productivity growth, technology transfer and knowledge exchange, and indeed building a cosmopolitan mindset among citizens fit for the long term future.
-
Europe’s interest is not less trade liberalisation, but a transformation of global trade governance to deal effectively with the downsizes which can affect countries and large groups of people, ensuring that globalisation serves the people. The multilateral rules based trade system must be reformed to preserve it, in the interests of Europe and of countries striving towards the SDGs, and to be a forum to negotiate trade agreements and resolve the trade problems.
-
​ [ng1]I prefer previous version by Stefan
MEMBERS
The following people, from the European and national public sector, from corporations and from academia, gave their time and expertise to the work on trade policy management:
​
Download: HLG Trade Policy Innovation Members List​​
​
Under revision