Phil HOGAN, Commissioner-designate for Trade is heard by the Committee on International Trade (INTA) of the European Parliament in Brussels to test his general competences, European commitment and specific expertise related to his portfolio. Statements by Christophe HANSEN (EPP, LU), Phil HOGAN, Commissioner-designate for Trade, Kathleen VAN BREMPT (S&D, BE) and Markus BUCHHEIT (ID, DE).

Committee on International Trade

VAN BREMPT, Kathleen (S&D, BE)

hearing

HOGAN, Phil (IE, EC)

hearing of Commissioners

HANSEN, Christophe (EPP, LU)

BUCHHEIT, Markus (ID, DE)

2019 Commissioners' hearings (T)

hearing of Phil HOGAN 2019 (T)

Hearing of Phil HOGAN, Commissioner-designate, Trade: extracts from the hearing

SOUNDBITE (English), Christophe HANSEN (EPP, LU), How are you going to reset the transatlantic relationship?

SOUNDBITE (English), Phil HOGAN, Commissioner-designate, Trade, The EU US relationship remains the largest and deepest economic relationship in the world. We already have a foundation for re-engagement. It was the successful meeting of President Juncker and President Trump in July 2018. But unfortunately we have not seen much movement on that agenda since then. S o President elect Von der Leyen has a clear objective. That she has asked me to engage in is to build on this positive agenda of 2018 and to try my best politically to persuade the United States to work towards a positive, balanced and a more mutually beneficial partnership with the United States.

SOUNDBITE (English), Christophe HANSEN (EPP, LU), Either today or tomorrow tomorrow we expect the WTO reading worrying on the Airbus case as so we have seen the provisional list of the sectors that will be focused by the US namely wine olives cheese etc.. So they are focusing on targeting the member states where they are suppliers of of Airbus. So I feel that there is a will behind to break the unity amongst member states. Do you see that as well. And how can we avoid this.

SOUNDBITE (English), Phil HOGAN, Commissioner-designate, Trade, The Commissioner Malmstrom has put forward a possible solution to dealing with the Airbus case in the WTO and to ensure that Airbus comes into full compliance. As you know there is another case in the WTO that affects the United States of America which is Boeing. Which the decision is to made in some months time. So it doesn't make sense that when we have as the European Union put forward constructive solutions to the problem that is before us that the United States would retaliate in some particular way seeing that they are going to have to deal with the issue if it goes badly wrong for them on Boeing. So we have tried to engage with the United States on this but today we have not found them in a position to do so.

SOUNDBITE (English), Kathleen VAN BREMPT (S&amp;D, BE), If you look what's happened in Brazil this summer and we had the discussion on that already and the Mercosur agreement some of people see that the Mercosur, if it would be in place today,it would safeguard the Amazon. So would you agree on this that the pre-ratification approach?

SOUNDBITE (English), Phil HOGAN, Commissioner-designate, Trade, If we didn't have a trade policy and a trade agreement we wouldn't be in a position to put some leverage on the Mercosur countries including Brazil to be able to deal with these issues. All of us are appalled at what we see in the Amazon. But we don't have the tools at the moment outside of the European Union to deal with them effectively without actually some leverage to trade policy.

SOUNDBITE (German), Markus BUCHHEIT (ID, DE), With regards to the Mercursor agreement how are you going to deal with that if the New Impact Assessment shows that there are real concerns for farmers.

SOUNDBITE (English), Phil HOGAN, Commissioner-designate, Trade, Mercosur agreement is certainly one where we are going to do a sustainable impact assessment and economic analysis and these will all be available and we're going to do a cumulative impact assessment in 2020 as well to see what are all the trade deals including Mercosur meaning for farmers in terms of their business and their and their vulnerabilities in particular commodity areas. So by keeping tariff rate quarters as low as we possibly could. On beef, on sugar, on ethanol, on poultry. I think that we have reached a balanced outcome.