EU needs 'new markets' and 'trade agreements': Commission Executive Vice-President Séjourné

Talking Europe

We speak to French EU Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné, a close associate of President Macron, and one of the Commission’s six Executive Vice-Presidents. He in in charge of a key portfolio: Prosperity and Industrial Strategy. Before his appointment to the post he was France’s foreign minister, an MEP, and leader of the centrist Renew group in the European Parliament. On May 21, Stéphane Séjourné presented a strategy for boosting the EU’s single market, something that he argues is critical for growth and prosperity in the European Union.

Séjourné maintains that global uncertainty makes it more urgent for the EU to strengthen its single market, simplify and harmonise its internal regulations, and find new trade partners around the world. “We need to find new markets, and that means new trade agreements,” he says. “I know that it's not popular in France to talk about trade agreements, but in the current political climate, if we want to reduce our dependence on China, if we want to protect ourselves from a future American market that could close, we absolutely must find new outlets. And at a time when the Americans are making very radical choices, we also need to be very clear about our own European regulations.”

Central to that global uncertainty is, of course, President Trump’s ever-changing approach to tariffs. On May 23, he threatened a 50 percent tax on all imports from the European Union.

“I don’t think we should have a doctrine. You shouldn’t be choosing one option or another,” Séjourné opines. “I'm in favour of not making any definitive proposals until we have an American proposal on the table. And a clearly defined framework for new trade cooperation with the United States. Some sectors will require full reciprocity in terms of tariffs. This is the case for aerospace, for example. If there is a 10 percent tariff on Airbus, there should be a 10 percent tariff on Boeing. But for other sectors, it is not in our interests, our European interests, to reciprocate. I think Europe has pursued these negotiations well. It hasn’t made as much noise as the US, but it has been united. “

Given the international context, Séjourné insists that the EU’s internal market should become a safe haven for European companies. But he says there are still too many barriers. “For a French company, to go to Germany or Italy, to market its products, to ‘go European throughout’ the internal market, is something of an administrative and bureaucratic nightmare,” he says. “Firstly, because you need to have a subsidiary, to adapt to European law, to adapt to national law, to look at the regulatory differences, and also to look at the differences in the way goods are marketed. We have put in place a number of measures to simplify and harmonise all the regulations.”

‘Simplification’ is also the watchword when it comes to corporate due diligence reporting. Séjourné is adamant that this streamlining is not, as some NGOs have said, a dismantling of the Green Deal or of environmental standards. “Under the CSDDD, (the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive) the subcontractor of the subcontractor of the subcontractor also has to be checked by your European company, otherwise you could be liable before the European courts. This raised various problems of legal uncertainty. We put forward a proposal at the start of this EU mandate to stop this legislation and start again from scratch. Now, there is a discussion about overhauling these texts, and Germany and France have made a proposal to abolish them. To do that, we still need a majority, because it's a matter of co-decision between the European Parliament and the Council.”

We discuss the electric car market, a central plank of Séjourné’s industrial strategy. “European manufacturers currently have a problem with vehicle orders,” Séjourné explains. “There are no electric vehicles on the second-hand market today, and we are unable to offer – not only to French consumers, but to all Europeans – cheap vehicles with a life expectancy of two, three or four years, which in reality represent 80 percent of the market in many countries.”

He goes on: “Ending the sale of internal combustion cars (scheduled for 2035) has to be combined with a genuine European purchasing strategy. And we need to boost that strategy, particularly when it comes to sales of electric vehicles, with an increased demand for business vehicle fleets.”

Circling back to the Trump administration, Séjourné says he sees an opportunity for attracting American talent to Europe. “We are committed to increasing our international attractiveness, since there are prospects for bringing in incredible talent, particularly from the other side of the Atlantic, who have found themselves with no money for research. These people are often very experienced, and they could make an enormous contribution to the European economy and to applied research for our industries.