I won t finish without a few words on some of the specific consumer protection issues that are on the trade agenda at the moment. Let me be absolutely clear. As policymakers and citizens, we are not faced with a choice of one goal or the other . We are obliged to pursue both together . The Amsterdam Treaty provides a quasi-constitutional obligation to integrate a high level of consumer protection into all EU policies.
Trade policy is no exception.
This requirement might be interpreted to mean that consumer policy is subsidiary to policies in other fields. This would however, in my view be drawing the wrong conclusion . No EU policy, be it trade, agriculture, single market, or consumer protection, is an objective in its own right . They are all means to an end. And that end is explicitly laid out in the EU Treaty.