European Union trade policy

Both Canada and the European Union are naturally multilateral. In the case of Canada this sentiment is because Canada is a relatively small trading country compared to the US or EU and because Canada wishes to dilute the preponderance or economic relations with the US. In the case of the EU it comes from the fact that the EU itself functions multilaterally, so the instinct to do so internationally has become very strong. During the 1980s and 1990s the EU and Canada, as members of the Quad (USA, EU, Japan and Canada) were important in driving the multilateral process that led to the Uruguay Round and to the consolidation of a rules-based multilateral trading system in the shape of the World Trade Organization (WTO). It was Canada that proposed the establishment of a genuine multilateral trade organization. This proposal in 1990 was supported by the EU and led ultimately to the creation of the WTO. In 2000 both Canada and the EU have also worked hard to promote multilateral trade within the context of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA). So Canadian and EU support for multilateralism has been more than rhetorical and there remains broad support for multilateralism in both, which gives politicians and negotiators in both scope to pursue multilateral agreements. For a number of reasons however, progress in multilateral trade negotiations within the WTO has slowed, and by 2010 came to a halt with optimism concerning the conclusion of the DDA at a continued low level, due in no small part to the domestic constraints in the US that have immobilized US trade policy. ¹ With no progress in multilateral talks, many countries, including Canada and the EU, have moved progressively to accept that preferential agreements are inevitable if not second best.