英语四级快速阅读专项练习（三）
Canada is a small （in economic terms） and open economy. The competitive future of this country has been seriously jeopardized by the uncertain future of the relative liberal international trading system. Canada therefore negotiated, and subsequently signed in 1988, a Free Trade Agreement with the United States. The negotiations and the pre-election period at that time were subject to one of the greatest debates in Canada history. The opponents of this Agreement would significantly reduce Canadian sovereignty and distinctiveness. The ado made by the opponents is probably the greatest one in the history of international economic integration. Giving their vote to the Conservatives, the Canadians, however, supported the Agreement.
There was a fear that Canada should have to harmonize a range of economic policies with the United States. If experience is a reliable guide, then this fear is not relevant. The Netherlands has a developed and costly social policy while Belgium spends little in this area. Yet, these two countries have been in a free trade area for more than a half a century without harmonizing their social policies. As for other economic policies, pressures for harmonization do exist. If tax rates differ among countries and if factors are allowed to move, then, other things being equal, factors will move to countries where the tax burden is lower. It should be noted, however, that these harmonizing pressures exist even in the situation without integration. Within, for example, a common market, apart from the agreed matters, countries will have to give each other national treatment. This means that countries can have any policy they wish, even those which are completely different from policies in the partner countrieswith just one important condition. The country should not use these policies to discriminate between partners on the basis of their nationality. International economic integration is not the enemy of diversity in many economic policies. In others, like fiscal policy of the EC, integration does not reduce the diversity of the main policy instruments. It is this that raises all sorts of problems when economies at different levels of development, facing different problems, become integrated. They ought to harmonize such policies.
If a small country accepts a long term policy of protection, as opposed to liberalization or international economic integration, it chooses a long-term deterioration in its competitive position. It is coupled with a reduction in living standard in relation to countries which do not practice protectionism and / or to the level of welfare which could have been achieved by an alternative economic strategy. Can a country preserve its sovereignty and the welfare of its citizens with a long-term trend of deterioration in the standard of living?
The expectation of a net economic gain compared to the situation without integration is the most fundamental incentive for international economic integration. Anticipated gains include an increase in the efficiency of the use of factors due to increased competition, specialization, returns to scale, increases in investment, improvements in terms of trade, reduced risk and equalization of factor prices. Integration will be beneficial when cooperation and coordination of policies takes place instead of the disintegrated exercise of power through often contradictory policies. Sovereignty is pooled, rather than given up. Small, open countries need to realize that it is much less a choice between national sovereignty and international economic integration and much more a choice between one form of interdependence and another. If one's aim is to increase the competitiveness of a small country and secure widest markets for its goods and services in the future, then international economic integration is a serious alternative to the national freedom to implement and continue with bad economic policies.
1. International economic integration is based on the tastes and traditions of all countries.
2. International economic integration is a process and a means by which a group of countries strives to increase its level of welfare.
3. From a technical point of view, international economic integration is an unlimited process.
4. The decision about entering into any other type of integration is in fact political factor.
5. International economic integration can reduce the competitive future of all countries throughout the world.
6. Canada has a developed and costly social policy while the Netherlands spends little in this area.