NAFTA Agreement vs European Union: comparison between agreements

Author: Pierre Varasi
Translated by Ilaria Oberti
04/04/2015

After years of work and projects and with the previous EEC, European Economic Community, on February 7th 1992 with the Treaty of Maastricht the European Union is official. The first ideas of such an union go back to 1800. Much more decisive for the success of this union was the Ventotene Manifesto, written in the ’40s by Italian Altiero Spinelli, Ernesto Rossi and Eugenio Colorni. Nowadays, EU is composed by 28 countries and it is even spreading: Turkey, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Albania have expressed the willing of joining the Union. The EU is the biggest free trade area, with a population around 503 million of inhabitants, and a GDP that represents more than 20% of the world GDP.

Even if in recent days it suffers from some economic and political issues, the EU is one of the most powerful union in the world; every single country of the Union, alone, would never have had the same political nor the same economic influence. Canada and United States were taking inspiration from EU when they decided also to sign an agreement between them called NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). On January 1st 1994 also Mexico joined this agreement. Today this agreement is composed by 439 million of inhabitants, almost as EU, and has the biggest GDP of the world – about 17 billion of dollars every year. The big figures don’t assure no critics against NAFTA and many would like its end or at least a change.

Between the two agreements there are a lot of similarities as well as a lot of differences. In a long term period, probably the issue that has had the most of the consequences is the decision of not having a complete economic integration between Canada, United States and Mexico. This mean both no single currency and a limited collaboration and partnership in some industries and branches. For instance, in North America it doesn’t taken into consideration an integration in employment; on the contrary European workers can travel without any kind of problem and the market is only one.

This lack has led to an increment in migration, in particular from Mexico to United States but also a bigger American “fortification” with a bigger number of people working in the border security between the two countries. EU has done the exact opposite: first of all a dissolution of the borders and secondly it gives a big amount of money in form of investments to the countries with some difficulties when they are joining the Union. The investments helped Spain in ’90s, which had a drop in emigration and a growth in immigration.

Since NAFTA had been created, the North-American economic has been grown, but just the United States are having some profits: for instance, Mexico had to suppress its agricultural subsidy system while US could keep theirs. In 2008 the economic growth of Poland, member of EU since 2004, was 5% of GDP, while the Mexican growth was 3%. The main problem was the lack of investment that could have helped Mexico to grow. This issue led to a bigger spread between the GDP of the NAFTA’s members. In 1986 the spread was about $ 17.700 while in the 2004 reached $ 24.100. The same problem happened to the migration issue. In EU the intern migration diminished heavily, while in North America a reduction happened just in the late years – although it cannot be easily linked to the effects of the free trade area.

Nowadays EU cannot be seen as an absolute success, even though temporary difficulties can be easily be passed – keep in mind that the economic crisis of 2007 started in the US and spread over EU. EU and NAFTA are two different entities with different history and aims. Although it is natural thinking that NAFTA can take examples from the experience of EU and it could reach a complete economic integration, with a possibility in reaching and surpassing the economy of EU, having as result the solution of the internal problems and inequalities. In regard EU, decisions about a possible political collaboration will be made soon, which will lead EU as the first experiment in this field – EU was the first attempt in regarding the economic collaboration.

SOURCES :

Caution: Nafta at Work (Massey, 2008)
Advantages Disadvantages And Comparisons EU And NAFTA (lawteacher.net)
www.naftanow.org

FORESTS: A PRECIOUS SOURCE OF FOOD AT RISK

April 2016
Author: Ilaria Giunti
Translation by: Matteo Gaipa

According to recent WWF researches, forests have been an essential role in our nutrition and in biodiversity: indeed 1 million people get food and resources and 80% of biodiversity is preserved by forests. Forests represent wide part of our planet, indeed 30% it is covered by them, although at the beginning of the millennium have been lost 150 million hectares; we don’t have to be scared of this data, because from 1990 to 1999 we lost only 16 million hectares a year , and from 2000 only 13 million hectares a year. This data provide us an important information, an important decrease which might be a beacon of hope for our planet.

WHAT DOES DEFORESTATION AFFECT?

Some of the most affected elements of the deforestation are soil balance, soil enrichment, prime material conservation, a balanced climate, health and food safety.

A DIVERSE PANORAMA

Even if deforestation data is decreasing , they are still worrying. Many governments are planning and activating reforestation projects, especially in Asia, for example in China, India, Vietnam, where forest areas are increased of 4 million hectares per year, with an average increase of forest surface of 2.2 million hectares per year worldwide. On the other hand, in South America countries and Africa, such as Brazil, Tanzania, Nigeria;, Burma, Bolivia and Venezuela have been registered the higher deforestation rates.

ITALY SITUATION

Italy doesn’t follow those trends, indeed from 2005 to today, according to data of the Ministry of the Environment , the forest surfacehas increased of 600 thousand hectares. This increase has interested the centre and south Italy, such as Campania, Molise, Abruzzo, Marche, Umbria, Lazio, Calabria and Basilicata. In the period 2005-2015 thanks to satellite photos it has been possible to see a progressive increase of the forest surface even though with a slower cadence than the past decades.

REFORESTATION: PRECIOUS COOPERATOR AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE

Many countries have started reforestation projects to fight against climate change consequences, such as desertification and draughts. Indeed, forests have a fundamental role for climate mitigation, because theuy absorb co2, and are among the priorities of international climate agreements.

THE GREAT GREEN WALL

This project has been created in 1978, and it is the most important reforestation project of the world; “The Great Green Wall” goal is to contain deforestation consequences made by China in the last decades. According to the last Greenpeace data, only 2% of the Chinese forests have remained untouched, more than one quarter of the Chinese territory is covered by sand and desertification is moving forward very fast. Contain the desertification, is the goal of this project the “Great Green Wall”

This project has been defined an “ecological mismatch”, because they have chose for reforestation long trunk trees, for this reason to reach the goal, 3 years ago the World Bank gave to China a 80 million dollars loan in order to plan flora in place of long trunk trees, because this reforestation choice is counter-productive; indeed, those trees don’t have any success in the arid Chinese territory.

FURTHER INFORMATION

- Wikipedia: Deforestation
- Article: FAO
- WWF: deforestation article