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Mike Moore's speeches
Renato Ruggiero's speeches,
1995-99
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"As
successive rounds of trade negotiations have increasingly limited the scope for
governmental measures that restrict or distort the conditions of international
competition, attention inevitably is more focused on private sector measures which have a
similar effect but are not subject to international rules. "The WTO has become more
involved in internal government policies that affect trade. In particular, it is concerned
not just with the treatment of goods originating in the territories of its Members but
with the treatment of foreign companies operating within its Members. If the international
community seeks to negotiate rules that require countries to give rights to foreign
companies, it is almost inevitable that the issue of international cooperation to deal
with possible abuses of those rights will also arise. Indeed, Article 9 of the WTO
Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures explicitly makes this link when it foresees
before the end of the century consideration of the negotiation of provisions on investment
policy and competition policy. "In fact the link
between trade and competition policy is already under discussion by WTO member governments
in the basic telecommunications negotiations. How to ensure that dominant suppliers do not
restrict access or distort conditions of competition is a key element in these
negotiations. The issues relate to access for suppliers to physical networks, including
the cost of such access and the provision of information necessary to ensure technical
compatibility; and also competition safeguards in respect of the risk of
cross-subsidization by dominant suppliers and their tying access to other requirements.
These matters are already actively under negotiation. One of the issues in this connection
is whether the best approach to dealing with these matters is through international rules
on regulatory requirements specific to the telecommunications sector or through the
applicability of more general competition law principles relevant to positions of market
dominance."
Mr. Ruggiero
highlighted examples of the possible impact of competition policy on trade, such as the
treatment of export cartels, which are generally exempted from the scope of competition
legislation in most countries. "It is often suggested that nations should agree to
fully apply their competition laws to export cartels in order to avoid adverse effects of
such cartels on trading interests of other nations. Another example of possible use of
competition policy for industrial policy reasons is the area of merger control policies.
From a trade policy perspective, concerns may arise especially where merger control is
used as an instrument to strengthen the competitive position of domestic or transnational
firms in international markets at the expense of trading partners. Finally, there may also
be an industrial policy dimension of the application of competition policy to cooperative
research and development ventures, in particular where ventures involving only domestic
firms are treated more leniently than ventures involving foreign-owned or controlled
firms."
Mr. Ruggiero
cautioned that in the absence of a process for an overall examination of the links between
trade policy and competition policy, there was a risk that these issues would be handled
case by case in an ad hoc, pragmatic way, without necessarily forming part of a coherent
vision of how trade policy and competition policy should be mutually supportive.
"There
is thus an urgent need for a dispassionate analysis at the multilateral level of the
overall links between competition policy and trade policy, notably to identify the
problems that may require action and the options for such action."
In
conclusion, Mr. Ruggiero said that it was both timely and appropriate to address
competition policy in the framework of the multilateral system. "But it is equally
clear that there is a great deal of preparatory work that must be done, both in order to
clarify the issues and to build the necessary consensus for taking them up in the
WTO." |
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