Economic, Industry and Trade related issues
CIRFS deals with economic, industry and trade-related issues such as for example the ones below (non-exhaustive list):
- the World Trade Organization (WTO)-related matters,
- free trade agreements and current negotiations that the EU is engaging/engaged in,
- issues related to customs,
- rules of origin,
- state-aid,
- market access issues such as the trade barriers that companies may be facing in third countries’ markets and, generally, information on duties/non-tariff barriers,
- intellectual property rights,
- anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases and developments (e.g. ongoing trade defence instruments’ modernization initiative by the European Commission; Market Economy Status for China),
- industrial policy and competitiveness issues (e.g. INDUSTRY 4.0)
- products’ safety problems
- competition rules
- Others (e.g. Brexit, Environmental Trade Agreement, etc.)
The aim of the Economics Department is not only to monitor and follow-up the latest developments on those dossiers at EU level but, more importantly, to make sure that CIRFS members’ interests and positions are well represented at EU level by means of the permanent contacts that we have with EU authorities at the European Commission, the Parliament, the Council and other EU organizations as well as with a wide variety of relevant stakeholders from the private sector.