The European Union S Trade Policies And Their Economic Effects

This book retraces the Communities external liberalisation efforts, and discusses, where relevant, the repercussions of internal liberalisation on foreign competitors.

I. Progress Towards Freer Trade: An Overview -- Internal integration improves access of third countries -- An expanding network of regional trade arrangements -- Multilateral liberalisation has kept momentum -- II. The Currrent Trade Regime in International Comparison -- -Tariff barriers are losing in importance -- Greater transparency of non-tariff barriers -- Agricultural protection remains high -- Services are undergoing major liberalisation and e-commerce takes off -- Cross-border competition issues receive more attention -- Harmonisation of standards: a response to increasing technical barriers to trade -- The EU's market access strategy -- III. Economic Effects of Trade Liberalisation -- -Eyeballing trade indicators -- Trade creation and trade diversion -- Investment and trade liberalisation -- Trade and growth -- Trade and employment -- IV. The Future Agenda -- -Cooperation on trade-related issues -- Deepening regional integration -- The multilateral agenda -- Notes -- Glossary of terms and acronyms -- Bibliography -- Annex I. The Institutional Framework and Treaty Provisions -- Annex II. Trade and Growth in the European Union.

Contemporary trade policy is increasingly framed in geo-strategic terms. But how much of that rhetoric is reflected in actual policy choices by the EU or its trading partners? This book provides a first systematic study of the broader international context in which EU trade agreements are conceived, negotiated, and designed. Building on a refined conceptualisation of geo-economics, the book develops a cogent framework that combines insights from scholarship on the design of free trade agreements with ideas from foreign policy analysis. Empirically, the analysis focuses on the relations between the EU and the Asia-Pacific. Following the United States’ pivot to Asia and the EU’s Global Europe strategy, China’s backyard has become the main arena in which global powers’ geo-economic strategies overlap. Building on a series of case-studies, combining the perspectives from the EU and its trading partners, the book shows that the rhetoric of geo-economic competition is yet to catch up with the actual negotiation and design of free trade agreements. This volume will be of great interest to scholars, students and practitioners who want to gain a holistic understanding of contemporary trade negotiations.

This comprehensive and clearly written textbook offers a long-awaited introduction to the trade policy of the European Union, the world's largest trading entity. Gstöhl and De Bièvre provide a comprehensive assessment of the common commercial policy, its relationship with other policies, like development policy, and of the EU's multi-level policy-making and international bargaining in this area. As well as providing a broad overview of the nature and development of the EU's trade policy, the authors analyse how relevant institutions and decision-making processes are organized and how this set-up fosters particular policy outcomes. Gstöhl and De Bièvre show how the thorough and critical study of EU trade policy can be conducted from an interdisciplinary viewpoint, enabling the student to tackle the ever-evolving political, economic, and legal questions that arise. Given the accessible writing, this book is recommended for both undergraduate and Master's students studying the EU and Europe in their Politics, International Relations, Economics or Law degrees, as well as those focusing on international trade policy.

A 'new generation' of EU trade policies aims to advance public goods - such as promoting sustainable development, protecting human rights and enhancing governance in third states. The pursuit of these objectives raises important questions regarding coherence, effectiveness, legitimacy and extraterritoriality. In Global Governance through Trade leading scholars from different disciplines address these topical questions. The book contains a comprehensive analysis of the concept of governing through trade and investigates how the EU ‘exports’ regulation through conditional market access regulation, bilateral trade agreements and unilateral trade policy. Several case studies complement the general analysis and provide an in-depth assessment of the European Union's new trade policies. This multidisciplinary book will be an enlightening read for a wide-ranging audience encompassing academics, policymakers, policy analysts and students of, amongst others, trade law and policy, global governance, sustainable development, human rights and labor standards.

This volume offers new perspectives on the evolution of the trade–development nexus in the European Union against dramatic changes in the international context. Without disregarding them, it seeks to go beyond the controversial and extensively researched Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). In particular, it focuses on the reform of the Generalised System of Preferences, the negotiation of various Preferential Trade Agreements, the application of trade sanctions, the allegedly ambitious agendas on decent work, Aid for Trade and aid untying, and the implications of the changing balance of power in global economic relations. Taking diverse approaches and, at times, reaching different conclusions, contributors directly or indirectly address one or more of the three general themes of the book: differentiation, coherence, and norms. This book was published as a special issue of Contemporary Politics.