Global Europe
In 2006, the European Union adopted a new trade strategy called Global Europe - competing in the world. The Global Europe strategy is designed to secure maximum access to global markets for European companies. If it is allowed to continue, millions more people will be pushed into poverty, losing their jobs and seeing their public services deteriorate.
| "Free Trade Agreements and farmers cannot live under the same sky" Choi Jae-Kwan, Korean Peasants League, July 2006 "[Global Europe is] a clear programme of measures to maximise the competitiveness of European companies ... our prosperity is directly linked to the openness of the markets we try to sell to" |
The EU is using trade negotiations to bully poorer countries into deals that severely hurt their people and wreck their chances for future development. With the WTO locked in permanent crisis, the European Union has turned its attention to deals with individual countries and regions. As well as trying to open up markets in developing countries for its agribusiness and manufacturing firms, which has already driven millions out of work, the EU is trying to open new markets to its service industries. This means further undermining weak public services in poor countries by privatising essential services like education, water and health, as well as telecommunications, construction, finance and more.
War on Want is campaigning, as part of a global movement, to stop these ‘free trade' agreements and to overturn the Global Europe strategy. We are calling on Members of the European Parliament to reject Global Europe and to force a review of the strategy. We also call on the European Commission to stop the free trade deals already underway and to end its support for these devastating trade policies.
