CEOE International attends the meeting of BusinessEurope’s International Relations Commission

During the closed session, BusinessEurope members discussed progress made on the main areas the group is working on. Thus, member organisations’ perspectives and priorities were addressed on a variety of matters including: EU-US relations, the Trade and Technology Council and the Inflation Reduction Act; EU-China relations and trends in business strategies for China; assessing the impact of European sanctions arising from the invasion of Ukraine and ways to engage with Ukraine; trade negotiations with India; among other matters.

In a second part of the meeting, which featured guest speakers Australia’s ambassador to the EU, Caroline Millar, Professor at the University of St Gallen, Simon Evenett; and the Vice-President of Global Public Affairs of Pernod Ricard, Laurent Scheer; it focused on debating “Ways to support the European economy: trade diversification and Friendshoring”.

The complex international scenario that companies are currently facing was set out; one of the central debates in it lies in trying to find the difficult balance between resilience and competitiveness. Attention was drawn to the risks of the trend known as Friendshoring, which does not bear in mind the high dependence, in some cases irreplaceable, upon supply of essential products from certain economies, nor the possible changing interests whom, today, we consider allied countries.

They highlighted that governments must try to promote the creation of new markets, instead of opting for implementing coercive measures and the creation of barriers. Likewise, the strategy of diversification is presented as one of the solutions to this uncertain international context. Commercial agreements can be a good tool for achieving this objective.