Upgrade Listing

EXTERNAL TRADE MISSION STATEMENT The European Commission's Directorate-General for Trade helps through the EU's trade policy to secure prosperity, solidarity and security in Europe and around the globe. We support Peter Mandelson, the EU's Trade Commissioner and the whole of the European Commission in shaping a trade environment that is good for people and for business. We are committed to helping world trade and development, thereby boosting competitiveness, jobs and growth in the process. External Trade has a full agenda: negotiating bilateral and multilateral trade agreements, ensuring that the rules we agree are actually applied, and working closely with the WTO and other multilateral institutions. This allows us to tackle international trade and customs barriers, backed up where needed with EU legislation. Our aim is to meet the challenges posed by globalisation and to ensure that as many people as possible can seize the opportunities it offers. We cover all areas of activity from manufactured goods to services, intellectual property and investment. We ensure that our businesses can operate fairly in the EU and across the world and are ready to make full use of our powers to tackle unfair competition and dumping. We work closely with many other services of the Commission - both those shaping our external agenda and those making sure our internal market works - in order to deliver joined up, coherent policies that strengthen Europe's voice in the world and allow people to learn from our experience of integration. Our success in Europe is inextricably bound up with the success of our trading partners, both in the developed and developing world. For this reason, sustainable development and development policy in general are central to our overall approach. And as the EU's negotiator in most areas our success is equally dependent on our close working relationship with the other European Institutions and with the Member States.