National champions are important to economies, but they are not perfect. They bring possible issues to both the state, or nation, itself and the organization to which the state or nation belongs (such as the European Union). In order to combat the issues, these organizations of countries come together to create agreements and treaties that will hopefully protect their state. These treaties and agreements are extremely important, but they are not the only devices that can be used to influence the possibility of creating or promoting state-backed monopolies, or national champions. For example, we have the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). To start with the WTO, the organization was established with the idea of reducing trade barriers and creating binding rules for international trade for all member state. This promotes competition and helps many economies. However, this is not perfect as it too has its issues. For instance, technical regulations, standards and sanitary measures may create significant barriers to trade and may be abused to protect domestic products from competition. Because of that, there were two agreements that surfaced, which is the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). From the GATT, we get three basic principles that prevent trade barriers. These are: the most favored nation treatment, the non-discrimination principle, and the limitation of protective measures as regards tariffs. The second principle, that deals with non-discrimination, does not only apply to state-owned enterprises. It also includes those to which the state grants special or exclusive rights. If the only enterprises that were to follow the non-discrimination principle, it would be useless. As of the date that the chapter was written, the WTO agreements do not include any exclusive rules or regulations concerning antitrust law. Although the WTO can be used to possibly influence the creation of state-backed monopolies and national champions, the provisions of WTO law, GATT and GATS are mostly NOT suitable to deal with state-backed monopolies. A “common approach” is recommended to deal with national champions. There are also agreements that are between certain countries and organizations of nations. One of these is the CETA agreement. CETA is an agreement between the EU and Canada that creates common trade objectives. This agreement removes the duties of customs between the countries, and it also bring about very strict control of sustainability strategies. This encourages and brings a high level of transparency, of which is crucial to maintaining trust of the people. Much like the WTO through GATT, agreements like CETA and NAFTA are nor very effective against the creation of national champions and state-backed monopolies.
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