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Syria: EU the main foreign trade partner

Edited by George Haddad

Friday, 16 October 2009 13:20

Syria indicated it might not sign a partnership agreement with the European Union on October 26 as announced in Brussels last week, saying it wanted to study the deal in detail.

"The accord was frozen by the EU in 2004," Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said at a press conference with his visiting Spanish counterpart, Miguel Angel Moratinos. "The European decision not to sign surprised us and, consequently, the Syrian government wants to study all the details of the deal.

"If the government concludes its review during the Swedish presidency (of the EU, which ends on December 31) we will sign the accord. If not, we will sign it during the Spanish presidency," which begins on January 1.

On October 8, a diplomat in Brussels said the "deal is due to be signed with Syria on October 26 in Luxembourg".

The European Union (EU) is considered the main partner of Syria in the field of foreign trade where the rate of exports to the EU in 2008 hit 27 percent of Syria's exports while the imports amounted to 40 percent of its whole imports, said Economist Hayyan Suleiman.

One of the most important advantages of the partnership agreement is that it promotes the Syrian commodities at the European markets, visited by more than 600 million customers, and this could increase the demand on them, promote them and benefit from their productive capacities, Suleiman added.

Some aggregate industries depend on European products and the implementation of the agreement terms would contribute to reducing the prices of production inputs. Thus; the cost will drop and better goods would be produced at lower prices due to the fact that the low cost increases marketing ability, the economist said.

He went on saying "Competitiveness is the main source of creativity and depending on it among the local and foreign goods shows their pros and cons besides implementing the agreement would lead to improving the infrastructure and the rate of trade exchange."

Suleiman said that competitiveness was manifested through the Syrian-European negotiations on increasing the imported volume of duty-free olive oil from 10 thousand tons to 12 thousands, indicating that the Syrian products would enter the competition on the local and international level and this requires producing the best goods with low prices in addition to increasing the volume of manufactured exports.

With regard to agriculture, Syria has a surplus in various agricultural products with a huge exportation rate to the EU markets without custom duties resulting in huge benefits, said Economist Adnan Suleiman.

He added that the high-quality Syrian product is able to enter the European markets and build competitive export capacity, increasing the national purse that would improve the national economy.

A study by Damascus Chamber of Commerce and Industry showed that the Syrian-European partnership agreement would provide many attractive opportunities for the European industrial investments, particularly at the industries required by the European investors abroad for achieving export investment or at the industries with huge working staff.

The agreement would also help establish joint investments with manufacturing license that would provide an encouraging investment atmosphere and the impact on the industrial sectors would differ according to the competitiveness of each commodity.

Barcelona Conference held in Spain, 1995, practically embodied the partnership through asserting the necessity of integrity among the Mediterranean Countries and establishing a Euro-Mediterranean free trade zone by 2010.

The agreement focuses on partnership in the political, security, financial, economic, social and cultural domains.

It also supplies the local market with advanced technology, particularly in the domain of industry and it calls for the gradual ending of custom duties imposed on the commodities after dividing them into several groups given a specific period of time to end the duties.

Technical negotiations on the agreement were concluded in October 2004. However, the EU considered that political circumstances were so far not right for its signature and ratification.

The EU has such Association Agreements with all the Euro-Mediterranean partners, except Syria and Libya.

EU ambassadors, who met in Brussels last week, finalized the text on a political declaration which will be attached to the 1,500 page Association Agreement, according to EU sources.

The EU considers Syria a key factor in regional stability and as an emerging energy transit country for natural gas.

EU Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner recently said that, "engagement with Syria is absolutely in the EU's interest." "This agreement will provide Syria with positive leverage in the Middle East region," she noted.

The change in the EU approach comes after Syria last year established diplomatic relations with Lebanon and also agreed to Turkish-mediated indirect talks with Israel.

The Netherlands reportedly dropped its objection to the Agreement with Syria following the inclusion of the human rights clause. The country has been accusing Syria of gross human rights violations.

"The EU remains committed to adherence to international human rights standards and laws in its partner states and to the continuing improvement in the application thereof. Violation of human rights will therefore directly affect the application of the agreement with partner states," notes the political declaration attached to the document.

Actually, the EU has hardly any real influence in the Middle East despite its massive economic and financial aid and support to the Palestinians and to other countries in the region.

On the other hand, the Union seeks to play a more assertive global role particularly in its neighborhood, like in the Middle East.

Brussels is now realizing that its policy of isolating countries is not beneficial to the EU itself.

According to some analysts, EU leaders hope that closer European ties with Syria and increase in economic and trade cooperation will eventually lead Damascus to loosen its relations with Tehran and also curtail its support to Hizbollah and Hamas. (AFP, SANA, KUNA, EU)

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