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.

Marek Dabrowski and Luc De Wulf are Fellows at CASE (Center for Social and Economic Research) in Warsaw.

From 1990 to 2010, the 11 countries of the south-eastern Mediterranean region (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Occupied Palestinian Territory, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey, hereafter SMCs) recorded the highest growth rates in inbound world tourism. In the same period, domestic tourism in these countries also increased rapidly, which is astonishing given the security risks, natural disasters, oil prices rises and economic uncertainties in the region.

Relations between China and the West have been difficult for some time.
Recently, however, one issue in particular has made the headlines: rare earths. Vital for the production of low-carbon products such as hybrid cars and wind turbines, consumer goods and sensitive military hardware like cruise missiles and smart bombs, rare earths are indispensable for high-tech industries and emerging technologies.

The Southeast Europe (SEE) region comprises a group of countries with a common objective, and prospect, to become members of the European Union (EU). To achieve the goal of EU membership, these countries have pursued closer integration with the EU as well as with each other. In December 2006, the SEE countries, and Moldova, signed the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA), a comprehensive free trade agreement that aims to fully liberalize trade in the region as well as to achieve greater cooperation in a number of trade-related areas.

This study is a qualitative analysis of a potential free trade agreement between the EU and South Korea conducted from January to April 2007, under a contract from the Directorate General for Trade of the European Commission. The study aims to provide a basis for the negotiations that started in May 2007 between the EU and South Korea. As such, it is an in-depth examination of the extent to which EU exporters face non-tariff barriers to trade with Korea.

This paper argues that there are significant potential economic gains to be obtained from an EU-Canada Free Trade Agreement. The evolution of trade between the US and Canada following the signing of CUSFTA in 1989 offers a good illustration of how trade might increase after an EU-Canada FTA, as the patterns and levels of protection between the EU and Canada today are very similar to the protection that existed between the US and Canada in 1989.

Last year the European Union began negotiating free trade agreements (FTAs) with South Korea, India and ASEAN. These negotiations are important because they are among the EU’s first round of new generation FTAs as called for in the Global Europe: Competing in the World communiqué. They are also important because if and when the agreements are signed, they will be the EU’s first bilateral FTAs in the region.

This book examines the repercussions of the EU’s agricultural policies and its regional, bilateral and multilateral trade agreements. It presents the analyses and findings of the European Network of Agricultural and Rural Policy Research Institutes (ENARPRI), a unique collaboration of experts from across the EU. Their contributions to this volume focus on trade flows and economic development, exploring how the agreements affect the EU and the other countries and regions involved.

The ongoing negotiations between the EU and Mercosur countries to conclude a free trade agreement (FTA) have been overshadowed by the parallel WTO negotiations on the Doha Development Agenda (DDA). Potentially, this agreement could have considerable impact on European agricultural markets. Aside from the outcome of the WTO talks, any change of doctrine within the EU in the direction of placing increased emphasis on bilateral agreements would probably mean that an EU–Mercosur FTA should be concluded before too long.

The transformation of Czech agriculture since 1990 under the different stages of agricultural policy has resulted in the emergence of a strong, dual farm structure with a high share of leased land and profit-maximising (vs. family) farms. This working paper assesses the current situation concerning the multifunctional aspects of Czech farms.

This policy brief provides an overview of the magnitude and importance of food aid as a development tool, and looks at whether the efficiency problem is intrinsic to food aid, or whether it arises from donor-country policies that tend to misuse food aid – in some cases for purposes for which it is demonstrably not effective – for example to support domestic farm prices, to promote commercial agricultural exports, to maintain a viable maritime industry or even to advance geo-strategic aims.

This paper gives an overview of the channels by which the EU budget is directly or indirectly affected by the change in the external trade relations of the EU. In addition it discusses what role the EU budget can play, despite its limited size and scope, in addressing some other key challenges presented by globalisation and liberalised trade flows. The paper begins with a detailed theoretical explanation of the ways in which the EU budget is directly or indirectly affected by its revenues, structure and objectives.