By Kelly Fiveash for The
Register.
This story has been reproduced with permission.
According to IT trade body Comptia, changes could be made to the
Information Technology Agreement (ITA) that, if implemented, could
have far-reaching consequences for the IT industry in Europe.
It reckoned that "back-door" methods had been employed by the EC
to apply tariffs to IT goods that had previously been exempted from
such charges. Under the ITA, which was introduced by the World
Trade Organisation (WTO) in 1996, tariffs had been waived on IT
products and telecommunications equipment used by businesses.
But Peter Mandelson's Trade Commission has responded by saying
that the EC has no power to make such changes without first
consulting the 150 state members of the WTO, which includes the
US.
EU trade commission spokesman Stephen Adams, told us: "Any
change in this agreement needs the green light of all parties in
the agreement.
"Would the EC wish to expand the scope of the ITA, it would need
the consensus of all the parties involved."
He added that technology had changed significantly since the
inception of the ITA and said "convergence of technology makes it
increasingly difficult to draw a borderline between professional IT
equipment and 'final consumer' electronics".
Re-classifying products has also proved a bugbear for the trade
commission which had offered to discuss disputes within the
framework of the ITA with the US. According to Adams, "the US
declined the offer".
He also told El Reg that "the EC has proposed expanding
geographical and product coverage of the ITA during the DDA
negotiations", indicating the commission's apparent willingness to
adopt a global, rather than Euro-centric approach to shaping the IT
industry's economic future.
According to Comptia, lifting tariffs on such goods had helped
to springboard the IT industry's productivity and innovation over
the past decade.
Comptia's European public policy director Hugo Lueders told
The Register: "This is the threat, that the commission
will take the ITA, one of the pillars of the WTO, to pieces on the
grounds that products are more technologically sophisticated."
He added that "inconsistencies in trade policy" could hit small
businesses particularly hard if tariff duties were to be introduced
by the EC. The main concern being that competition would then be
opened up to off-shore rivals, pushing prices up in the European IT
marketplace.
"Small businesses would have to pay the bill, if not the
consumer," said Lueders.
Doha is the latest round of WTO talks where hot topics on trade
have included tariffs, non-tariff measures and competition.
© The Register
2007
