Policy brief

The European Union’s response to the trade crisis

The global trading system is under attack on various fronts. In this Policy Contribution, the authors examine the root causes of the current problems,

Publishing date
14 March 2019

The global trading system, a source of prosperity, is under attack on various fronts. The causes run deep and require a strategic response from the European Union and from the main trading nations. The future of the system hinges on the answer to three questions, and the scenarios associated with them:

  • Can the World Trade Organisation be reformed?
  • Is the United States’ scepticism about the system a new normal?
  • Can China undertake reforms that would make its system more compatible with the WTO?

The possible outcomes for the global trading system could be good or bad, depending on how each of these issues is resolved. Under a good set of scenarios, the EU should persist on its current course with some significant adjustments. We call this Plan A, which would aim to preserve the multilateral trading system. Under a bad set of scenarios, the EU will have to contend with a possible break-up of the multilateral trading system, requiring the formulation of a Plan B. The EU needs today to put in place its Plan B, not only to prepare for a far less favourable trading environment, but also to clarify the trade-offs implicit under Plan A. All major trading nations must recognise that the alternative to making compromises is not the status quo, but something much worse.

About the authors

  • Guntram B. Wolff

    Guntram Wolff is a Senior fellow at Bruegel. He is also a Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy. From 2022-2024, he was the Director and CEO of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) and from 2013-22 the director of Bruegel. Over his career, he has contributed to research on European political economy, climate policy, geoeconomics, macroeconomics and foreign affairs. His work was published in academic journals such as Nature, Science, Research Policy, Energy Policy, Climate Policy, Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of Banking and Finance. His co-authored book “The macroeconomics of decarbonization” is published in Cambridge University Press.

    An experienced public adviser, he has been testifying twice a year since 2013 to the informal European finance ministers’ and central bank governors’ ECOFIN Council meeting on a large variety of topics. He also regularly testifies to the European Parliament, the Bundestag and speaks to corporate boards. In 2020, Business Insider ranked him one of the 28 most influential “power players” in Europe. From 2012-16, he was a member of the French prime minister’s Conseil d’Analyse Economique. In 2018, then IMF managing director Christine Lagarde appointed him to the external advisory group on surveillance to review the Fund’s priorities. In 2021, he was appointed member and co-director to the G20 High level independent panel on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response under the co-chairs Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Lawrence H. Summers and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. From 2013-22, he was an advisor to the Mastercard Centre for Inclusive Growth. He is a member of the Bulgarian Council of Economic Analysis, the European Council on Foreign Affairs and  advisory board of Elcano.

    Guntram joined Bruegel from the European Commission, where he worked on the macroeconomics of the euro area and the reform of euro area governance. Prior to joining the Commission, he worked in the research department at the Bundesbank, which he joined after completing his PhD in economics at the University of Bonn. He also worked as an external adviser to the International Monetary Fund. He is fluent in German, English, and French. His work is regularly published and cited in leading media. 

  • Uri Dadush

    Uri Dadush is a Non-resident fellow at Bruegel, based in Washington DC, and a Research Professor at the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland where he teaches courses on trade policy and on macroeconomic analysis and policy. He is also a Non-Resident Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South in Rabat, Morocco and Principal of Economic Policy International LLC, providing consulting services to international organizations. He was a co-chair of the Trade, Investment and Globalization Task-Force of the T20 and Vice-Chair of the Global Agenda Council on Trade and Investment at the World Economic Forum.

    He was previously Director of the International Economics Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Prior to that he was Director of International Trade, Director of Economic Policy, and Director of the Development Prospects Group at the World Bank. Based previously in London, Brussels and Milan, he spent 15 years in the private sector, where he was President of the Economist Intelligence Unit, Group Vice President of Data Resources Inc., and a consultant with McKinsey and Co.

    His books include: Trade Preferences, Foreign Aid and Self-Interest; Trade Policy in Morocco: Taking Stock and Looking Forward (with Pierre Sauve' , co-editor);  WTO Accessions and Trade Multilateralism (with Chiedu Osakwe, co-editor); Juggernaut: How Emerging Markets Are Transforming Globalization (with William Shaw); Inequality in America (with Kemal Dervis and others); Currency Wars (with Vera Eidelman, co-editor); and Paradigm Lost: The Euro in Crisis. He is presently working on a book on the crisis in the world trading system.

    His columns have appeared in the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Il Sole 24 Ore, Le Monde, Liberation, L’Espresso and El Pais

    He has a BA and MA in Economics from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a PhD in Business Economics from Harvard University.

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