Résumé
This paper analyses the European Commission's communication Global Europe and attempts to demonstrate that the substance behind the shift in emphasis towards bilateral trade policy is an extension of existing EU bilateral trade policy; that the shift is not convincingly justified by the analysis in the EU Commission papers; that the shift might be best thought of as an attempt to re-energise corporate sector support for trade liberalisation in the face of the suspension of the Doha Development Agenda and a weakening of political support for trade liberalisation.
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Extrait
Global Europe: Old Mercantilist Wine in New Bottles?
1 Introduction
MR. MANDELSON'S new trade policy (EU COMMISSION 2006a, 2006b) seeks to dress a shift in trade policy from one with a bias towards multilateral liberalisation to one with a bilateral or regional trade policy bias in the clothes of the Lisbon Agenda and give it a focus on the emerging markets of Asia and Latin America.Bilateralism or regionalism is not new in the policy armoury of the European Union (EU). From its inception the Union, with the Commission as negotiator, has used preferential arrangements as a way of binding potential members, neighbours, and former colonies of its member states more closely to it. Latterly there have been some defensive Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) to protect market access in the face of US preferential arrangements in Latin America. It is important to understand the development of these policies, to see where the new policy comes from, and the way in which it is a seamless extension of existing trends; this forms the subject matter of the next section of the paper.The section following that reflects on the justifications for the change in policy and the choice of countries with which to initiate agreements. It rather rejects the ...Voir le contenu complet de ce document
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