The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership: A long hard road to multilateralism? EPC Commentary, 26 September 2014

The seventh round of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations between the European Union and the United States will take place in Washington on 29 September. If concluded successfully, the TTIP would become the world’s largest free trade pact. The EU and the US account for nearly half of the world’s GDP and 30% of world trade with exchanges of goods and services worth around €723 billion a year and €1.8 billion a day. The Partnership, unprecedented in its scope and ambition, has generated great expectations which will be hard to meet in reality. It could however have a beneficial effect on trade multilateralism, provided that it is the result of an open negotiating process.

Coltan from Central Africa, International Trade and Implications for Any Certification. Bruges European Economic Policy (BEEP) 23/2012

The exploitation of coltan in Central Africa can be considered a case of conflict minerals due to its nature. Many international organizations and bodies, national governments and private sector organizations seek to address this conflict, in particular via transparency, certification and accountability along the material supply chain. This paper analyses the international trade dimension of coltan and gives evidence on the dimension of illicit trade of coltan. The authors start from the hypothesis that illicit trade of coltan sooner or later will enter the market and will be reflected in the statistics. The paper is structured in the following manner: first, a short section gives a profile of coltan production and markets; second, an overview of the mining situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and related actors. The third section addresses mechanisms, actors and measurement issues involved in the international trade of coltan. The final part draws lessons for certification and conflict analysis and offers some guidance for future research. The paper identifies two main possible gateways to trace illegal trade in coltan: the neighbouring countries, especially Rwanda, and the importing countries for downstream production, in particular China. Our estimation is that the value of such illicit trade comes close to $ 27 million annually (2009), roughly one fifth of the world market volume for tantalum production. With regard to any certification the paper concludes that this will become challenging for business and policy: (a) Central Africa currently is the largest supplier of coltan on the world market, many actors profit from the current situation and possess abilities to hide responsibility; (b) China will need to accept more responsibility, a first step would be the acceptance of the OECD guidelines on due diligence; (c) better regional governance in Central Africa comprises of resource taxation, a resource fund and fiscal coordination. An international task force may provide more robust data, however more research will also be needed.

Economic Development, Trade and Investment in Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Countries: An Agenda towards a Sustainable Transition. MEDPRO Policy Paper No. 4, February 2013

This policy paper spells out the policy recommendations that emerge from a series of detailed studies undertaken for MEDPRO Work Package 5 on “Economic development, trade and investment” and presents detailed recommendations for the SEMCs and the EU in the areas of macroeconomic management, trade, investment, private sector development and privatisation, and sectoral policies.