Hidden Treasures: Mapping Europe’s sources of competitive advantage in doing business

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hysteresis – a structural form of unemployment which may have the effect of eventually eroding individuals’ competencies, thereby reducing further the prospect of finding a job in the near future. The contrast between the EU and the US in this respect is quite sharp. Recent work by David Autor and co-authors,92 and the debate triggered by Donald Trump blaming China for their job losses and indeed their prospects for new jobs, has revealed that the US offers little cushioning with its minimal welfare state, and only minor and selective trade adjustment programmes (rather than ALMP).93 In the EU, welfare states do cushion and for quite a long time, thereby reducing income uncertainty for workers and buying time for re-skilling and thorough job searches. However, this does not mean that all is fine in the EU because there are considerable discrepancies in social support and ALMP between member states. The EU has a European Globalisation Adjustment Fund:94 however, this Fund suffers from minimal funding and considerable eligibility questions. Eligibility is very hard to decide because usually there are several reasons why workers suffer a massive lay-off: moreover, why would globalisation be a more exceptional reason than far more crucial reasons for job losses, namely, technology and digitalisation? It remains critical for the EU to pursue ‘responsible globalisation’, both at home (via ALMP and the welfare state) and abroad (in terms of corporate governance and ‘decent work’). The latter is supported by the EU’s manifest preference to pursue ‘sustainable development’ in FTAs and, where possible, in the WTO via plurilateral agreements or other means.95

9.2

How EU trade policy and the single market hang together

There are three crucial ways the EU single market acquis and policies hang together with EU trade policies. First, there is a consistency requirement between internal and external policies. There is a common EU trade policy because independent national policies and powers would distort and/or prevent the EU single market from being fully established and functioning properly. Thus, the Treaty of Rome incorporated a customs union – no longer national tariffs, but a common external one – and implied common quotas, if any. Over time, exceptions to common quotas – namely, national quotas for selected third-


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