EU free trade pact sparks debate on KORUS FTA
Korea Times, Seoul
EU free trade pact sparks debate on KORUS FTA
By Kang Hyun-kyung
29 June 2011
From Friday, Koreans will be able to purchase products made in 27 European Union member states at cheaper prices than before, as the free trade pact between the two takes effect.
But a similar accord signed between Korea and the United States is still pending at the legislatures of the two countries.
Some raise the possibility that the effectuation of the Korea-EU pact will inevitably push U.S. Congress to ratify the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement (KORUS FTA).
A foreign diplomat said Tuesday, “Obviously, in terms of economic arguments, commercial arguments, the United States is going to have a disadvantage.”
But the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, implied that politicians engaging in partisan politics should refrain from undermining their countries’ economic gains.
“To be honest, the problems both in the National Assembly here and the U.S. Congress are far more political than economic,” he noted.
In Korea, the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) teamed up with three other minor parties to stop the ratification of the KORUS FTA which is pending at the National Assembly Foreign Affairs Committee.
These opposition parties demanded that negotiators of the two countries need to sit down again to fix what they called “hazardous clauses” that will negatively affect the job security of farmers and service sector workers.
This week, President Lee Myung-bak had a two-hour meeting with DP leader Sohn Hak-kyu, which highlighted the deep divide between the two sides.
Lord John Kerr, an independent member of the British House of Lords and deputy chairman of oil company Royal Dutch Shell, didn’t rule out the possibility that the implementation of the Korea-EU trade pact will facilitate the ratification of the Korea-U.S. accord at the U.S. Congress.
He cited worries expressed by the U.S. commerce secretary on its negative effect on U.S. businesses to support his view.
In April, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke said that the two countries want approval by July 1.
“That’s even more incentive for us to move as quickly as we can, so that there will not be a long gap between July 1 and when the tariffs on U.S. products and services are either eliminated or lowered because we don’t want a long period of time in which products from the EU have a significant competitive advantage over U.S. goods,” he was quoted as saying.
Lord Kerr argued that all people will benefit from free trade.
“We believe in free trade and this is one of the reasons why Britain is like Korea. We both believe in free trade. We think this will be a genuine change in trade relations between Europe and Korea,” Kerr noted.
Han Seung-soo, former prime minister and chairman of the board at the Global Green Growth Institute, said protectionist U.S. trade unions are a major stumbling block to the ratification of the free trade pact.
Han added that U.S. businesses were worried about losing ground in the Korean market.
