Sweden to propose EU membership of Pacific rim free trade group CPTPP
The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) is a free trade accord sealed in 2018 between 11 countries - Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. Britain joined last year and China also hopes to join.
"If the EU and the CPTPP as trade groups link together it would create the biggest free-trade area in the whole world," Sweden's Minister for Foreign Trade, Benjamin Dousa, told Reuters by phone from Japan.
"At a time when the U.S. is closing itself off more and more and becoming inward-looking there are good opportunities for Europe to open itself up... to investment and trade," he said.
Trump's tariff blitz has upended decades of trade practice, shaken faith in traditional alliances and raised fears of a global recession.
Dousa, who is currently on a trade trip to several Asian countries, said Sweden would make its proposal on joining the CPTPP at a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Thursday in Brussels.
Export-dependent Sweden is one of the strongest supporters of free trade inside the 27-nation EU, though Dousa said he expected some member states to be less keen on a CPTPP deal.
"We are ready to take up the fight with countries like France," he said. France has traditionally been more protectionist-minded, especially regarding agricultural produce.
While negotiations could take some time, Dousa said it might be possible to conduct negotiations sector-by-sector and industry-by-industry, meaning concrete agreements could be in place relatively quickly.
"This is existential for Sweden. If we want to be able to afford our healthcare, schools and social services here in Sweden... our exporters must have more markets to sell to," said Dousa.
The EU already has or is negotiating bilateral agreements with almost all CPTPP members.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
8 minutes ago
- The Independent
Putin's envoy Dmitriev meets a bear in Alaska before US-Russia summit
Vladimir Putin 's envoy Kirill Dmitriev met a bear in Alaska ahead of upcoming crunch talks on ending the Russia - Ukraine war. Sharing footage of the interaction on social media on Friday (15 August), the economic adviser to the Russian president can be seen walking towards the mammal which is standing by a lake. "Met a bear in Alaska before the US -Russia Summit," Dmitriev wrote, alongside a teddy bear emoji. 'Hopefully a good sign.' Putin also made a pit-stop ahead of the 'high stakes' meeting in Anchorage with Donald Trump, with a trip to a fish factory in a far-eastern Russian town of Magadan.
The Independent
8 minutes ago
- The Independent
The hard work on a peace deal has only just begun
Despite the excitement about the first US-Russia summit since 2021 – and the first between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin for seven years – the meeting in Alaska was never going to produce a 'deal' in the sense of a detailed treaty addressing claims of sovereignty, borders, security guarantees, prisoners, kidnapped civilians, mineral rights and much else. That will, eventually, be required to secure something like sustainable peace in the region, albeit with the constant and well-founded suspicion that Putin is less than a man of his word – even if it is given to President Trump. As Volodymyr Zelensky has said on occasion, 'All wars end with negotiations. It's not the soldiers in the trenches who decide when.' If Ukraine is not to be allowed into the negotiations, there can be no deal and no peace, even if a ceasefire holds. The exclusion of President Zelensky from participating at this early stage is perhaps intended, at least on the part of President Trump, as a way to get the process moving. For Putin, it is more calculated – highlighting the superiority of his position, as leader of a superpower supposedly co-equal to the United States, over that of the president of Ukraine. Partly for reasons to do with his own imperialist ideology, and partly for tactical purposes, Putin doesn't accept that Ukraine has a right to exist as an independent democratic nation. Also, he cynically disputes Mr Zelensky's position as Ukraine's president, because his term of office has expired and there have been no new elections. This, of course, is because no free elections can be held in Ukrainian territory occupied by Putin's forces, and a state of martial law currently prevails. For a change – and with some useful pressure being applied by Ukraine's European allies – Mr Trump doesn't agree with the Russians on this, and wants bilateral (or trilateral) talks to include Mr Zelensky, and quickly. The US president tacitly acknowledges that even he, self-declared master of the art of the deal, can't confidently redraw the borders of, say, the Kherson oblast, much less find Mariupol on a map, and that his officials shouldn't have to do so as proxies for the Ukrainian government. Mr Zelensky and his team will have to be involved. President Zelensky is right to demand a seat at the table, and he is also right to say that no final deal can be agreed without a referendum, as is required by the constitution of Ukraine. It is not for him to sign away millions of his citizens to a foreign power. How such a vote could be conducted in occupied territory, or whether it would only apply to 'free Ukraine', is just one of the major details that will need to be settled before this war can be declared over. As many governments have found before – including the British government during Brexit – it is axiomatic in treaty-making that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. This is also a moment for political imagination and diplomatic innovation. If Ukraine agrees not to join the EU or Nato, could it have some kind of associate status? How could the presence of private and federal US personnel in the rare-earth and minerals mining areas help to maintain order? More radical proposals could also be tabled. If neither the US nor Europe is prepared to back Ukraine unconditionally, then some unpalatable options must be contemplated. Successive British prime ministers, for example, had the attitude that 'Ukraine can win, Ukraine must win, Ukraine will win.' That mantra is not heard now. So other alternatives – and this, shamefully, does mean appeasement – have to be explored. The eastern provinces of Ukraine, in certain circumstances, might not have to be returned to Ukraine or absorbed into the Russian Federation if a different status as a neutral 'buffer' region could be established. The Donbas and other areas would be controlled neither by Moscow nor by Kyiv, demilitarised, and 'Finlandised', in the way that Finland was during the Cold War and until last year. Citizens might be free to choose their citizenship, or opt for both, and the various cultures, religions and language rights would be respected. In quieter times, the peoples there could be asked in an internationally supervised referendum whether they wished to join Ukraine, or Russia, or to stay independent. That would surely be preferable to simply freezing the border along the present front line. The histories of Korea since 1950, and Cyprus since 1974, shows how unstable, if long-lived, such a non-solution can turn out to be. Both Ukraine and Russia feel that their security is threatened in some way – whether sincerely or not, and whether or not the notion is justified – and the wider international community will have to be involved in providing what Sir Keir Starmer calls a 'reassurance force' in Ukraine. President Trump, an avowed 'America First' isolationist, is allergic to joining such a force – but if 'his' deal is ever going to stick, it is difficult to see how it can do so without the United States offering some kind of pledge to Ukraine to defend any new de facto, or de jure, frontiers with Russia. Sadly, the 'coalition of the willing' assembled by Sir Keir and Emmanuel Macron seems to be more like an alliance of the unwilling when it comes to fighting for Ukraine. Europe also wants a seat at the top table, but past proposals brokered by France and Germany have proved unsuccessful. If Europe wants to have a say in any settlement, it will need to earn it through military and economic commitment. Indeed, it will be essential, given America's express desire to wind down its presence on the continent and its role in Nato. A quadrilateral structure for a long period of detailed peace-conference work, in some suitable neutral location, should comprise teams from Ukraine, Russia and the US along with a joint European presence. The real hard work on the peace deal has only just begun. As someone once put it, the Ukrainian peace process is, at best, only at the 'end of the beginning' stage.
The Independent
8 minutes ago
- The Independent
Putin team trolls its way to Ukraine summit with Trump as it serves ‘Chicken Kyiv' for in-flight meal
Russian President Vladimir Putin's team trolled Ukraine on the eve of the summit with President Donald Trump by serving 'chicken Kyiv' to journalists on the flight to Alaska. as Trump posted a blunt two-word warning on Truth Social: 'HIGH STAKES!!!' On the state-chartered flight to the talks, Russian media were served 'chicken Kyiv cutlets' according to the editor-in-chief of Russia Today, Margarita Simonyan. 'Perhaps this is a good sign for the upcoming negotiations,' quipped RT reporter Egor Piskunov. Other Russian propagandists jumped on the menu choice. 'This is apparently a hint that the Russian army is making chicken Kyiv cutlets out of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Putin and Trump should make a chicken Kyiv out of Zelensky,' pro-Putin commentator Sergei Markov said. He added that 'both journalists in Russia and Putin and Lavrov have a good sense of humor.' In another instance where Russia appeared to mock Ukraine ahead of the talks, Putin's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov arrived donning a USSR sweatshirt as he touched down in Anchorage. 'With chicken Kyiv and Lavrov's choice of attire, I think we're seeing some early confirmation that the Russians know what kind of signals they want to send,' Doug Klain, policy analyst for the U.S. non-profit Razom, which delivers humanitarian aid to Ukraine, told The Independent. Others on social media accused Russia of playing 'mind games' with the tactics. 'Seeing all the symbolism Russians enjoy presenting ahead of Alaska summit like USSR sweatshirts and serving chicken Kyiv - it sends only one message,' said one user of a pro-Ukraine account on X. 'They've come to Alaska to mock USA, Europe & Ukraine and to have fun at everyone's cost.' 'Russian state level trolling is a whole different ballgame,' wrote another. Lavrov's sweatshirt read 'CCCP',' an abbreviation of the Russian-language cognate of USSR. It appeared to be a tongue in cheek reference to how critics of Putin have alleged the Russian leader wants to rebuild Soviet Russia. Statues of former General Secretary of the USSR Joseph Stalin have reappeared in Russia, with a monument to the dictator being unveiled in Moscow's subway station earlier this year. 'The Russians hyped up this meeting by spotlighting their prior ownership of Alaska and Lavrov arrived wearing a USSR shirt—the previous chapter of the Russian imperial project Putin is continuing today,' Klain said. 'While the Russians loved looking back on their past holdings like Alaska, it's a timely reminder that the world changes.' The meeting between Trump and Putin will mark the first time the pair have met in person since 2018. Trump vowed that the Russian president is 'not going to mess around' with him as he looks to secure a ceasefire deal.
