A Geo-Economic Turn in Trade Policy?

A Geo-Economic Turn in Trade Policy?
Author: Johan Adriaensen
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 372
Release: 2022-02-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3030812812

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.

Global Politics and EU Trade Policy

Global Politics and EU Trade Policy
Author: Wolfgang Weiß
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2020-02-24
Genre: Law
ISBN: 3030345882

This book explores how the European Union designs its trade policy to face the most recent challenges and to influence global policy issues. It provides with an interdisciplinary perspective, by combining legal, political, and economic approaches. It studies a broad set of trade instruments that are used by the EU in its trade policy, such as: trade agreements, multilateral initiatives, unilateral trade policies, as well as, internal market tools. Therefore, the contributions to this volume present the EU’s Trade Policy through different lenses providing a complex view of it.

National Administrations in EU Trade Policy

National Administrations in EU Trade Policy
Author: Johan Adriaensen
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2016-05-25
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1137547677

This book studies the relationship between administrative capacity and a member state’s influence in the European Union. More specifically, it studies member states’ ability to exert control over the European Commission during trade negotiations. But what determines administrative capacity and how do member states ensure their preferences are defended during trade negotiations? A combination of qualitative fieldwork and survey-analysis provides the answer. Interviews in Belgium, Poland, Estonia and Spain offer a privileged insight into the functioning of national trade administrations and its effects on their behavior in the Council of Ministers. Through survey data, these findings are further corroborated. The book is aimed at a readership interested in EU decision-making, negotiation theory, comparative public administration and the international political economy of trade.

Commercial Realism and EU Trade Policy

Commercial Realism and EU Trade Policy
Author: Katharina L. Meissner
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2018-06-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1351047620

The European Union (EU) is at the forefront of engaging in external trade relations outside of the World Trade Organization (WTO) with entire regions and economic powerhouses. Understanding why and how the EU engages in one of the most active fields of external relations is crucial. This book fills a gap in the literature by analysing motives on the modes – bilateralism, inter-regionalism, or multilateralism - of EU external trade relations towards regional organizations in Asia and Latin America outside of the WTO. In particular, it examines why the EU turned from interregional to bilateral external trade relations towards these world regions – a question that is, to date, under-researched. By developing and testing an original approach rooted in realist theorizing coined ‘commercial realism’, it examines systematically the explanatory power of commercial realism against liberal-institutionalist approaches dominant in the literature on EU external relations through five in-depth case studies. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students in EU Politics/Studies, EU external relations, inter-regionalism and more broadly to International Relations and International Political Economy.

Australia, the European Union and the New Trade Agenda

Australia, the European Union and the New Trade Agenda
Author: Annmarie Elijah
Publisher: ANU Press
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2017-06-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1760461148

Australia (together with New Zealand) is one of the few Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries with which the EU does not have a comprehensive trade agreement. Australia and the EU are entering a new phase in the bilateral relationship, and the push towards a potential trade agreement has been steadily gaining momentum. This collection brings together diverse and deeply practical contributions to the forthcoming policy debate on the Australia–EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA), highlighting potential points of difficulty and possible gains from the agreement. This book makes two further contributions: it adds to the body of work reappraising the contemporary Australia–EU relationship; and provides a snapshot of current issues in trade policy—the ‘new trade agenda’—which is more complex and politically visible than ever. The issues confronting Australia and the EU in forthcoming negotiations are those confronting policy makers around the globe. They are testing public tolerance of decisions once viewed as dull and technocratic, and are redefining the academic treatment of trade policy. ‘… this book is especially important because it is talking about a very different type of trade agreement than the ones Australia has concluded recently with our major trading partners in East Asia. An agreement with the EU inevitably will focus on issues like services, investment, government procurement, and competition policy. These are major issues in their own right, are key parts of the new trade agenda, and are critical to Australia’s successful transition to a prosperous post–mining boom economy. In the absence of generalisable unilateral economic reform in this country, trade policy hopefully will provide an external source of pressure for reform. If this book adds to that pressure while also suggesting some of the tools needed for reform, it will have made a major contribution.’ Dr Mike Adams, Partner, Trading Nation Consulting

The Trade Policy of the European Union

The Trade Policy of the European Union
Author: Sieglinde Gstöhl
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2017-11-25
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1349935832

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.

The Foreign Policy of the European Union

The Foreign Policy of the European Union
Author: Federiga M. Bindi
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2012
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0815722524

"Explores European foreign policy and the degree of European Union success in proposing itself as a valid international actor, drawing from the expertise of scholars and practitioners in many disciplines. Addresses issues past and present, theoretical and practice-oriented, and country- and region-specific"-- Provided by publisher.

Trading Voices

Trading Voices
Author: Sophie Meunier
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2021-01-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0691223696

The European Union, the world's foremost trader, is not an easy bargainer to deal with. Its twenty-five member states have relinquished most of their sovereignty in trade to the supranational level, and in international commercial negotiations, such as those conducted under the World Trade Organization, the EU speaks with a "single voice." This single voice has enabled the Brussels-based institution to impact the distributional outcomes of international trade negotiations and shape the global political economy. Trading Voices is the most comprehensive book about the politics of trade policy in the EU and the role of the EU as a central actor in international commercial negotiations. Sophie Meunier explores how this pooling of trade policy-making and external representation affects the EU's bargaining power in international trade talks. Using institutionalist analysis, she argues that its complex institutional procedures and multiple masters have, more than once, forced its trade partners to give in to an EU speaking with a single voice. Through analysis of four transatlantic commercial negotiations over agriculture, public procurement, and civil aviation, Trading Voices explores the politics of international trade bargaining. It also addresses the salient political question of whether efficiency at negotiating comes at the expense of democratic legitimacy. Finally, this book looks at how the EU, with its recent enlargement and proposed constitution, might become an even more formidable rival to the United States in shaping globalization.

Italy and the European Union

Italy and the European Union
Author: Federiga Bindi
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2011-02-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0815705093

A Brookings Institution Press and Scuola Superiore della Pubblica Amministrazione (SSPA) publication Federiga Bindi provides, for the first time, an in-depth analysis of Italy's role within the European Union (EU) in this inaugural volume of a book series published jointly by the Brookings Institution Press and the Scuola Superiore della Pubblica Amministrazione (Italian National School of Public Administration, or SSPA). Italy and the European Union relates in detail the historical, cultural, and sociological factors that have led to Italy's incomplete "Europeanization," or full integration, within the EU. It also brings the reader up-to-date on the steps taken by the country's leaders to improve Italy's standing and become a more effective member in the organization it helped to found. Discussing the author's extensive research, The Economist notes.... "Federiga Bindi identified a number of barriers to an effective European policy in Italy: a high turnover of governments; coalition partners with conflicting aims; the failure of bureaucrats to learn from other member states; and politicians' lack of interest in Europe... recently however, she found that matters had improved. An interdepartmental body for the coordination of EU policies has been created, Parliament operates an effective scrutiny system..., the administration has learnt to learn from others. But the other problems remain, and they are formidable. Her study ends on an exasperated note: 'Italy appears to be stuck in the age of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, in which the victory of one faction over another is what counts, and the fact that this may be damaging to the country matters little.'" —from The Economist, July 31, 2010

Institutional Challenges in the European Union

Institutional Challenges in the European Union
Author: Madeleine O. Hosli
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2012-10-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1134528957

The European Union (EU) is a continuously evolving entity. Starting with six member states in the late 1950s, the EU currently encompasses fifteen states of Western Europe. It is expected to almost double in size in the near future, however, taking in a number of states located in Central and Eastern Europe, in addition to Cyprus and Malta. This dramatic increase has lead to an intensive debate on how the institutions of the EU should be adapted in order to cope with this growth. This book addresses the challenges that EU enlargement and institutional change imply for various policy fields, such as EU trade policy, agriculture and monetary policy in the framework of European economic and monetary union. It will be of interest to economists and political scientists seeking an up-to-date overview of institutional challenges facing the European Union