Regional and global disciplining of officially supported export credit insurance1
Titel:
Regional and global disciplining of officially supported export credit insurance1
Auteur:
Ho, Monika Sie Dhian Werkhorst, Klaas
Verschenen in:
Journal of European public policy
Paginering:
Jaargang 2 (1995) nr. 3 pagina's 447-464
Jaar:
1995-09
Inhoud:
States have chosen various international fora to negotiate on the disciplining of state aids through export credit insurance: the GATT, European Union (EU) and the OECD. Although on a global level the violation of the strict GATT rules on export credit insurance could be ignored, on the regional EU level, market integration and competition and common commercial policies created pressures to harmonize national credit insurance policies. In the resulting regional negotiating process, intergovernmental factors have prevailed over supranational/ transnational factors. Neither transnational interest groups nor the European Parliament and the Commission have been important actors in this process. The real political issue of competition distortion between exporters of different member states has been taken care of by the member states in a special co-ordination group, set up by the Council. Although national preferences with regard to harmonizing official credit insurance policy have converged as a consequence of rising cumulative deficits on these insurance schemes in all member states and the pressure of market factors such as increasing cross-border co-operation, the harmonization process appears to be confined to transparency and harmonization of insurance techniques and limited co-operation among public insurers in the case of consortium exports. All proposals to create a European credit insurance facility or a binding, common credit insurance policy were turned down or ignored, because of the far-reaching consequences for the future policy autonomy of the member states. The question of whether the credit insurance policies should also be disciplined, i.e. whether the level of subsidy should be lowered, was not addressed, for fear of disadvantaging EU exporters against government-supported non-EU competitors. Consequently, the United Kingdom sought to turn from a regional to a more global arena.
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