Peter Mandelson, the EU’s trade commissioner, has announced a review of anti-dumping measures. These seek to protect Europeans from imports that the Commission deems unfairly cheap. Personally, I think low-cost foreign products are one of the boons of globalisation – allowing the pound in your pocket to stretch further – as well as being particularly pro-poor, since the dirt-cheap basic goods that the likes of China produce allow poorer people to enjoy a much higher standard of living. Unfortunately, Mandelson is not questioning the flawed protectionist premise behind anti-dumping duties. He just wants to mitigate the harm they do to European companies with investments abroad.
Europe
No-voters score own goal against Europe
Tony Blair must be thanking his lucky stars. The British prime minister never wanted to fight a referendum campaign on the European Union constitutional treaty that he stood a good chance of losing. Now, thanks to the No votes in France and the Netherlands, it looks like he will be spared the ordeal. When, in April 2004, he caved in to demands for a referendum, it looked like a gamble that would take Europe off the agenda in this year’s election but potentially destroy his premiership shortly thereafter. Now it looks like a stroke of genius. But even so, Mr Blair, and more importantly Britain, will not escape unscathed from the aftermath of the No votes.
Europe’s no basket case
“Shock! Horror! Cato Institute declares American capitalism superior to European social democracy.” That was my cynical initial reaction to Cowboy Capitalism: European Myths, American Reality, a new book published by the free-market Washington, DC-based think-tank that comes recommended by the usual right-wing suspects: Milton Friedman, James Buchanan and Henry Paulson, the boss of Goldman Sachs.
Disaster relief
It goes without saying that George W. Bush is not loved in Europe. Even before the Iraq war raised animosity toward him to fever pitch, the perceived stupidity, ignorance, and arrogance of the "Texan cowboy" had gone down badly across the Atlantic. His evangelical Christian beliefs do not sit well with mostly secular Europeans. His assertion of U.S. exceptionalism sticks in the craw. His contemptuous dismissal of the United Nations has angered even those Europeans who normally favor a strong alliance with the United States. So two days after the presidential election, when the Daily Mirror ran a front page picture of Bush next to the headline, "How can 59,054,087 people be so dumb?," it was widely assumed that the paper was reflecting popular sentiment in this part of the world.
Europe’s mighty economy
The bubble may have burst, but the hubris lives on. Despite Bush administration concerns, expressed at the G-8 summit of leading industrialized countries this week, that economic weakness is spreading throughout the globe, Americans still routinely boast that their economy beats the socks off the rest of the world. Japan? A write-off. Europe? A basket case. China? A threat, perhaps, but still a distant one. While others stumble along, the United States races ahead. After all, President Bush never ceases to reassure Americans that "the U.S. economy is the strongest and most resilient economy in the world."
German success story that scuppers the Europhobes’ case
Britain was once the "sick man" of Europe. Now, allegedly, Germany is. Its economy lies stagnant. Its dole queues stretch to more than four million people. Deflation looms. Britain beware, cry foes of the euro, tying our destiny to the fallen German giant would drag us down too.
The high cost of resisting the Euro
The government must soon decide. It has pledged to deliver its verdict within six months. As judgment day nears, a consensus is forming. Not yet, the Treasury will opine. Naysayers marshal a battery of arguments. The euro economy is floundering. It can only aspire to Britain’s superior monetary and fiscal arrangements. Why jeopardise the UK’s hard-won economic success by hitching ourselves to such a dodgy venture?
The trouble with sterling
The British government says it will only join a successful single currency. With three and a half years’ experience of the euro in operation, we can now make that judgment. On the issue of trade the answer is clear: Britain is paying a high price for keeping the pound.
One world? Don’t blame globalisation
Europe is finally reforming. Governments are starting to liberalize.
European Union leaders have pledged to nurture the new economy.
Germany’s parliament has approved radical tax reform. France’s finance
minister is talking about tax cuts too. Amazing. But is globalization
forcing their hands?