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		EU trade policy ‘biased against Britain’ Thursday, 19th January 2006 East Midlands Conservative MEP, Roger Helmer has found new evidence that the EU’s trade policy is fundamentally biased against Britain. In the lead article of January’s edition of the European Journal, Mr Helmer writes that the EU's trade policy, and particularly its extensive network of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), is radically biased against Britain and British trade interests, particularly those in the ‘Anglosphere’ – the English-speaking countries which are former British colonies, or members of the Commonwealth. Currently the EU has Free Trade Associations (FTAs) in place with some 12 countries, and is negotiating FTAs with some 100 countries more. However, the EU does not have any form of preferential trade agreement in place or under negotiation with the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore, Britain’s natural English-speaking trade allies. While these countries account for only some 10% of trade from continental Europe, they are for historical reasons much more important for the UK, representing over 20% of our merchandise trade and 30% of services exports. Mr Helmer argues that EU trade policy is therefore systematically biased against the UK and against British exporters. He has called on the Commission to explain this dramatic bias in EU trade policy. Read the article