Editor's note
International Internet Magazine. Baltic States news & analytics
Tuesday, 09.06.2026, 06:22
Common European and global issues for G-8 summit
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European Union is a full
member of the G-8, alongside other EU members, e.g. France,
The European Union is represented
in G-8 by two “presidents”, the European Council President Mr Rompuy and
Commission president Mr Barroso.
On the eve of the
summit, Mr Barroso has revealed (first, in an article and then, in an official
speech) the EU’s position concerning the summit issues.
Burning contemporary issues
The “3-Ts” agenda means
that all discussion would rotate around trade, taxation and transparency, i.e.
the issue that have been in the agenda at both the EU and the global level
recently.
First
“T”, the “external trade” is an issue which is
of interest to the
The EU will continue to move forward the multilateral
agenda where possible, e.g. the EU is fully engaged with its partners to
conclude a WTO trade facilitation agreement, which would have a huge positive
impact for developing and least developed countries.
As to the broader world economy issues, the EU
position at the summit is such that the general confidence is gradually
returning, i.e. in Europe the existential threat to the euro has been averted,
but Europe still has huge challenges to tackle, not least to promote growth and
create jobs. Therefore, the EU will proceed the course of growth-friendly
fiscal consolidation, structural reforms and targeted investment, while
ensuring that economic and monetary union is built on a rock-solid architecture
and stable financial sector.
Much has already been achieved in the EU: it has
completely overhauled the ways for coordinating the member states economic
policies in order to achieve sustainable growth on the back of sound public
finances and increased competitiveness. Thus, the EU has been making good
progress on establishing a banking union that will reduce the risk of future
banking crises with new supranational supervision and resolution mechanisms, as
well as strengthened regulation and capital requirements in line with the G-20
commitments.
As
to the “second T”, taxation issues, the EU strongly
welcomes the new willingness to join forces and cooperate more effectively to combat
tax evasion and avoidance, in
Tax evasion and avoidance costs the European Union €1
trillion every year, which is the equivalent to the EU’s next seven-year
budget; the global bill is much higher. That is money that should be available
to spend on education, skills, healthcare and infrastructure investment in both
developed and developing countries.
The EU member states are taking common actions on
exchange of information, on tax havens and on aggressive tax planning. There is
a new willingness among the states to finally agree a strengthened savings tax
and the mandates to negotiate tax agreements with partner countries. This is
complemented by new rules for stronger administrative cooperation and greater
transparency, which should come into effect soon). So in
The EU would strongly support a joint effort towards a
new multilateral standard in the context of the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development. The new EU savings tax directive can be an
important point of reference.
The
third “T” of the summit, i.e. transparency issues is
somehow connected to fairness and global efforts to combat corruption. The EU
has been a strong advocate of greater transparency in payments made to host
governments by extractive industries. With the brand new update of the EU
transparency and accounting directives, the Commission is holding governments
and companies involved in the sectors of oil, gas, mining and forestry more to
account and protect citizens around the globe from unfair distribution of their
national wealth.
The EU hopes to see the timely implementation of the EU states’ and other countries new rules aimed at encouraging global efforts to subscribe to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.
The EU is also ready to team up with individual
resource-rich countries to help them reap the full benefits of this new
transparency.
The EU stand is that transparency should also be further
enhanced on land tenure; the G-8 role is to push further the implementation of
the ground-breaking Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of
Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests endorsed by the Committee on World Food
Security in May 2012.
For the EU, agriculture and food security remains a
priority in developing cooperation as the Commission made clear in the EU Agenda
for Change. The EU provides more than half of global aid to developing world,
of which around €1 billion per year alone is dedicated to boosting agriculture
and food security. The EU is and remains the world’s most generous donor of
development assistance, also with its multi-annual aid programmes for next years.
However, hopes for the deal at the summit to boost the
world economy are “in balance”, said some experts, as
So, the negotiations are going to be interesting
enough for the
