Outward Processing, EU Enlargement and Regional Relocation in the European Textiles and Clothing Industry: Reflections on the European Commission’s Communication on ‘the Future of the Textiles and Clothing Sector in the Enlarged European Union’

Abstract

The European clothing industry faces a number of important challenges which have been at the forefront of policy thinking across the European Union and beyond. This paper provides a set of reflections on the European Commission’s recent Communication on the future of the industry in Europe in the light of pressures of liberalization, globalization and EU enlargement. Based upon ongoing research on the restructuring of the Central and East European clothing sector, the paper highlights the limits of the outward-processing model of production that has dominated east-west interactions in this sector. It also examines the uneven role of upgrading and emerging design capacity in the industry, the role and limits of clothing-industry clusters in the new member states, and considers the role of ‘countermarkets’ in the pan-European clothing-contracting system.