A European Vision for the Transatlantic and Global Economy
A few days after the 2017 State of the Union address by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on September 14, 2017, several European Commissioners traveled to New York, Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. to advance the EU’s agenda on the transatlantic and global economy. Here’s a summary of what you may have missed.
Promoting Responsible Transatlantic Data and Trade Flows
The EU is and will remain open to the world. It implements an ambitious trade agenda and supports the digitization of our economies. But the EU believes that trade, data transfer, and social media platforms also need to be subject to high standards and responsible rules.
On September 18th, European Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality Věra Jourová met with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross in Washington, D.C. for the first annual review of the Privacy Shield. Check out the video below for a 79-second run-down of the Privacy Shield:
The EU-U.S. Privacy Shield agreement ensures that American companies collecting data from European citizens and public authorities respect EU data privacy rules. And it’s working.
2,400 organizations have joined the Privacy Shield so far. Read more in this interview with Bloomberg.
In Silicon Valley, Commissioner Jourová met with industry tech leaders including Apple, Dropbox, Facebook, Google, Oculus and Work Day to discuss freedom and security in the digital world.
She also delivered a keynote speech on the future of justice on the internet at UC Berkeley. The EU’s partnership launched last year with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft to fight against illegal online hate speech shows progress and the EU published new guidelines on September 28th to make it even more efficient.
The EU also advocates for high standards and ethics when it comes to trade. European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström crossed the Atlantic to launch the Global Alliance for Torture-Free Trade in New York on September 18th.
This global initiative — a joint effort launched together with Argentina and Mongolia — aims to end the trade in goods used for torture and capital punishment, including chemicals used to execute people and the forced injections systems that go with them. More from Commissioner Malmström on BBC and DW.
“These products serve no other purpose than inflicting terrible pain and killing people. We should never permit that they are traded like any other commodity. It’s time for concrete action to shut down this despicable trade,” said Commissioner Malmström at the UN.
The EU Delegation to the U.S. will highlight the importance of this initiative at a special EU Rendez-Vous event on the occasion of the 15th World and Europe Day Against the Death Penalty on October 10th, as well as in Philadelphia on October 12th.
Advancing Fair Competition and Taxation
Several competition cases handled by the European Commission involving U.S. tech companies have made the headlines over the past few months. European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager took advantage of her visit to Washington, D.C. on September 18th to provide more insight on those cases and also call on competition enforcement to adapt to the “enormous changes” affecting our markets. At an event hosted by American Enterprise Institute, Commissioner Vestager stated that “as the competition of ideas is fundamental to a free society, competition in our markets is fundamental to a fair one.” Read her full speech here.
The European Commission is making sure large companies don’t “use their power to drive competition out”, thereby limiting consumer choice, driving up prices and undermining innovation. The EU is therefore trying to “make markets work better and more freely”. Commissioner Vestager also spoke to Bloomberg, The Financial Times and at TEDGlobal>NYC in New York.
Ensuring fairness between competitors also brings up the issue of fair taxation, particularly when it comes to the digital economy. In a speech at Georgetown Law School on September 22nd (watch here), European Commission Director-General for Taxation and Customs Stephen Quest presented the Commission’s newly released communication: “A Fair and Efficient Tax System in the European Union for the Digital Single Market.”
The Commission proposes the creation of a Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base to protect the direct and indirect tax bases of Member States and make sure that digital companies pay taxes where profits are being generated. Stephen Quest called on the “EU and US to lead by example and steer the global tax agenda in the right direction.” Commissioner Pierre Moscovici also told CNBC that the Commission couldn’t accept “tax loopholes” for tech companies (watch here).
Strengthening the Eurozone
As President Jean-Claude Juncker said in his State of the Union address, “Europe’s economy is finally bouncing back […] The EU can take credit for having brought public deficits down from 6.6% to 1.6%”. Now that the “wind has changed” on the macroeconomic outlook, the European Commission is looking to use this window of opportunity to strengthen the Eurozone.
European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs Pierre Moscovici explained how the European Commission is seeking to do so at a public event at the Brookings Institution on September 18th (read full speech here). While the Eurozone will remain “an inclusive area”, it needs to be much more integrated. This requires taking steps to correct current major macroeconomic imbalances and better coordinate economic and fiscal policies. Such steps could include the creation of a “fiscal capacity for the euro area” and a “genuine European safe asset”, as well as a reform of budgetary surveillance rules to make them “simpler, more effective and more democratic”.
More transparency within Eurogroup’s decision-making and the creation of a permanent European Minister of Economy and Finance (representing both the European Commission and the Council, like EU’s High Representative) would be ambitious but necessary institutional steps in this direction. Commissioner Moscovici also spoke to Bloomberg and at the European Institute in Columbia University in NY on September 21st (watch here).
Cutting Red Tape and Supporting Growth and Jobs in Europe and the U.S.
This week of intense EU-U.S. talks on economic, financial and trade affairs culminated in the signature of the EU-U.S. insurance and reassurance agreement. This landmark agreement aims to boost investment capacity, increase regulatory certainty, and cut red tape for businesses and insurers. Insurers will no longer need to dedicate massive amounts of collateral funding when operating on the other side of the Atlantic, which will ease transatlantic operations and generate additional funding to support jobs and growth.
