Security and Prosperity
Recent in Lisbon, European leaders sealed a political deal that will further tighten the central powers of the European Union and take the continent one more step towards what the Rome Treaties enunciated as „an ever closer union.”
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Europeans get enough integration and supra-nationalism at home not to worry about what others are doing. Still, there are other parts in the world where countries are trying new forms of cooperation and one that should be of particular interest is the so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) among the United States, Canada and Mexico. This partnership has been slow in coming but follows the successful conclusion of the NAFTA free trade accord of 1994 which more than quadrupled trade between Canada and the United States. The partnership talks show some interesting features and reveal that North America has learned more from Europe than the old continent might suspect.
At $1.5 billion a day, Canada-United States cross-border trade is as big as the entire EU-US trade relationship. This trade has suffered in the last years from what one politician called „the tyranny of small differences”, as a result of different national product and government regulations as well as a myriad of new security regulations at the border since the 9/11 attacks . The SPP launched in 2005 aims to reduce non-tariff barriers to trade, find harmonization in standards and regulations, and establish coordinated security policies, including border crossing procedures.
The leaders meet once a year to set overall goals, while technocrats with advice from business leaders hammer away at common standards and policies. The SPP can be called a ’smart’ way of generating economic benefits without taking away the national rights and politics from the citizens.
The SPP is ’smart’ for various reasons: First, it avoids the problem of negotiating and ratifying another treaty which is always difficult in the US Congress. Second, the SPP reflects the fact that trade and security should be linked to streamline low risk movement while working together to identify high-risk traffic. Third, though all three North American countries are involved, the partnership allows Canada and the US to work together on a faster pace inside the triangle. Fourth, it draws the right lessons from the European experience. It avoids supra-national political structures while copying the idea of creating a single market for goods and services which the Europeans started in the 1980s.
The partnership allows practical progress exactly where it matters for Canada. For example, officials are looking for ways to set up a single security and customs inspection for Asian containers that arrive in Canadian ports, but are bound for US cities. Also, they are coordinating preventive measures so that a food or disease problem does not automatically close the border. SPP tries to find innovative ways to reduce truck line ups on the Ontario-Michigan border and other busy crossings. Another area of work is finding compatible pipeline and environmental standards so Canada’s oil and gas exports can continue to grow. Negotiators are finding ways to limit costly rules of origin paperwork that exporters have to submit when part of the product is not made in North America.
The SPP represents Margaret Thatcher’s model of integration. North Americans like Europeans want to reap the benefits of free trade and a common market. But unlike Europe, Canadians, Americans and Mexicans do not want to give up their sovereign national political systems. The SPP aims for common standards and maximum consultation without creating supra-national institutions. Instead, each country will implement and arbitrate the common rules in its own sphere.
The author is professor of international relations at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
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