Europe to overhaul trade policy

The EU wants new relationships with top Asian economies

The EU is seeking a series of free trade agreements with fast-growing Asian countries as part of a radical overhaul of its trade policy.

Brussels wants its strategy to focus more closely on boosting European competitiveness by improving access to expanding, lucrative markets.

The EU will also consult on reforms to punitive trade protection measures such as anti-dumping sanctions.

Policymakers are worried that Europe is falling behind its major competitors.

'Fair deal'

The robust performance of the US economy and the growth of China and India have thrown into sharp relief Europe's patchy economic record of recent years.

The Commission now plans to put improved competitiveness and job creation at the heart of its trade policy, criticised in the past for being too inward-looking.

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Brussels said its new strategy would strike a balance between helping to develop new markets, ensuring fair competition for European firms abroad and ensuring open access to its own markets.

"A changing global economy needs a new trade policy," said Peter Mandelson, the EU's Trade Commissioner.

"An open market is not just a lowered tariff. It is a market in which European companies get a fair deal, with freedom to compete and legal protection when they do."

Brussels is to pursue a series of bilateral trade agreements with countries offering the greatest commercial potential for European firms.

Although the Commission did not give specific details, it said it would focus on the "emerging markets of Asia", thought likely to include India and South Korea.

Reviewing sanctions

While seeking to push through these agreements, Brussels said it was "totally committed" to reviving currently stalled global trade talks.

It also pledged to toughen up its anti-counterfeiting laws and to develop a new strategy for trade co-operation with China.

It also promised to review existing sanctions such as anti-dumping measures which critics say are too protectionist.

"The EU economic interests are global and highly complex," the Commission said in a statement.

"We need to be sure that our trade defence instruments and our use of them take account of these new realities."