Mandelson 'confident' of trade resolution

Tuesday, 6 September 2005 12:00 AM

EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson has said he is "confident" European member states will approve a deal to resolve the Chinese imports debacle.

The agreement struck yesterday would release the 80 million clothing items currently blocked from entering the EU, with half counting against next year's quotas.

Divisions among EU member states over the imposition of quotas in the first place have led to concerns that the deal will not be approved, but today Mr Mandelson said he believed member states would give a "warm welcome" to the agreement.

"That may not be universal, but I hope that they will consider on its merits what I've agreed, partly because it's good for Europe and good for China," he told Today.

While welcoming the resolution of the stalemate, CBI director general Digby Jones warned the deal would only delay the problem until next year, when half of the quota will already be used up.

"The real answer is to allow access to the EU for goods produced in China and for EU producers to adapt to the competitive challenge this presents. Quotas, agreed or otherwise, are not the way for the developed world to deal with globalisation," he said.

But this morning Mr Mandelson rejected this claim, saying: "People will know very clearly what restrictions will be in place next year. They allow for considerable additional growth next year on top of what has been agreed this year.

"So it's not as if we're shutting out Chinese goods and we're going to keep a sort of blockade in place over the next two and a half years; the opposite is the case. We're allowing very generous growth of Chinese imports to Europe and those imports will grow next year."

The charge that the British government should never have backed a quota system in the first place was echoed by the Conservatives, with shadow trade secretary David Willetts saying the situation it created was "absurd".

"The British government backed the original quotas instead of making the case for free trade. They cared more about the interests of Italian and French producers than British consumers, many of them low-income families," he said.

"It is no good the prime minister making grand speeches to the European parliament about the need for open markets and then backing cosy protectionist deals."

However, Mr Mandelson insisted Europe "has the most open markets of anywhere in the world", taking in 75 per cent of agricultural produce from developing countries.

"Having said that, we must be eternally vigilant and what I say to member states is that in the face of these seismic changes that are taking place in the world and the dramatic changes that are taking place in trade flows in the world, don't please think that you can shelter from those changes by constructing some imaginary Maginot Line; you'll find the Maginot Line does not provide you with the defence that you imagine it will," he added.

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