Why the EU Can't Negotiate Trade Deals (at the moment)

The European Union has one of the largest network of trade agreements in the world; but with Australia, South America, India, and Indonesia facing stumbling blocks, we're taking a look at why the EU is so bad at making trade deals.

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00:00 - Introduction
00:42 - How Trade Deals Are Made
01:17 - Consensus is Difficult
03:31 - Non-trade Challenges
05:22 - Global Trends
06:53 - Sponsored Content

[FernandoGomez-hgrn]

An interesting aspect of a trade deal is when a provision in it contradicts articles in other treaties. Back a few years ago when EU and Mexico were negotiating their deal upgrade, there was a point of contention about the cheese, because France and Spain wanted to force Mexico to block companies from using cheese-like tags in their product. For example, a Manchego cheese can only be produced in La Mancha, Spain, but a Manchego-like cheese (labeled as "queso tipo Manchego") can be produced anywhere. When the Mexican authorities started to consult internally to see if they could accommodate that request, American companies (many of which were producers of these cheese-like products) quickly complained that such a thing would violate NAFTA an would seek compensation. After that, Mexico rejected the EU proposition, as they valued NAFTA deal more than any potential EU deal.

I wonder how much this type of scenarios can affect trading deals in the future. As nations move to create greater blocks (NAFTA, Mercosur, EU, TPP, etc.), will the chances of making deals outside one nation's own block decrease?

[anthonyk]

EU seems to want to be able to trade their products to other countries without having to buy products from those countries. Like with the US France and Germany who complains about protectionism but master in it themselves.

[jured]

"We are better than everyone else - be more like us"

An European mindset older than time itself.

Of course, times have changed and Europe is yet to realize this fact. Especially the fact that its values effectively suck and that its economy is no longer the big boy of the world, but more of an afterthought.

[davidblair]

It all comes down to that stupid veto. That really should have been foreseen. The U.S. had a unanimity requirement in its first iteration (Articles of Confederation). It left the federal government completely nonfunctional: unable to levy taxes or tariffs, unable to pay its troops, unable to enforce its own laws. Poland had a tradition of _librum veto_ for over two centuries. It left the Sejm paralyzed for decades even as Poland’s neighbors carved her up. A requirement for unanimity has never worked in the past, and it wasn’t going to work this time, either. Time to ditch it and try qualified majority.

[nobodyu]

Eu wants zero tariff from india and wants to implement 25 to 40 % tariff indirectly using mechanism like EUDR and CBAM . THATS THE MAIN REASON . EU needs to be reasonable and drop EUDR and CBAM if they ever want a trade deal with india .

[JosephSolisAlcaydeAlberici]

Because some of them like France knew that signing a free trade agreement with the Mercosur would make their subsidized agricultural sector obsolete.

[gb]

Wow man. This channel is so incredibly well done.

[SuccessMindset]

Trade wars are an issue internationally

[mlpf]

The EU and Mercosur share a land border with each other, and yet the graphic at 1:36 miserably failed to show that.

Can TLDR aboid such an obvious mistake again?

[seanlander]

The Europeans have inflicted a punitive trade embargo on Australia for generations. Even in the face of war with Russia they refuse to replace imports of Russian food with Australian. That says it all.

[harrisonbergeron]

they're good at providing cheap labour for big business though.

[felipequaresma]

About the mercosur deal apperantly president Lula is extremely optimistic specially after a tank a few weeks back with Ursula witch indicated that it might happen this november.
Not sure if its gonna happen though in my opinion but one can wait

[northboy]

Becuse they cannot get a consensus of approval done on ANY FRICKING ISSUE!

[AndersonPEM]

Protectionism of its own farming and a lot of other segments

[thepax]

Once again, the EU, in its effort to appease everyone... pleases no one and manages to paralyze itself 🤷🏻‍♀️

[getnohappy]

Finland and Sweden have the measure of it, back to basics. Problem is the EU itself (only around officially since 1993) and millennial voters mistook the absolute dominance of the USA during our formative years for the global acceptance of our views. Countries can just go elsewhere now (i.e., China, but also regional stars like Turkey or India), so high minded grandstanding is no longer a zero-cost enterprise.

[MortenHandrup]

Just weeks after this video was posted it's content has been made irrelevant by the EU-Mercosur trade deal agreement concerning 800 million people, and all the comments below about EU's inability and incompetence have been ridiculed and proven wrong.

[ivicaanic]

overall it is clear sign of EU decline on world stage

[tieszenEwanich]

Man merkt, wie viel Arbeit hier drin steckt

[nihadasgerli]

Environmental problems can be solved with help of EU and member countries which they can negotiate with other countries and include in the final agreement. You can not expect other countries to do these without any help. But EU needs to be consistent clear and focus on trade rather than adding billions of requirements which hard to follow