Quo vadis external trade policy of the European Union? Exporting its own values or being a pointguard within the multilateral trading system?

Abstract

European Union (EU) has a very distinctive status within the multilateral trading system and thus is found worthwhile to examine in many respects. It has been not only a prominent actor and a contributor of the multilateral trading system since the fundamentals of the system were set by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) but also the chief executer of its own preferential trade relations compatible with the GATT and its successor, World Trade Organization (WTO). External trade policy has always been one of the privileged common policies of the EU and commitment to the multilateral trading system has constituted the core of it. Upon the pending of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA), the EU has paved the way to deepen its trade relations with the other prominent actors of the multilateral trading system, namely the US, Canada, Japan and South Korea. These nouveau trade relations do not simply embrace trade but also investments, services, competition, etc. and thus favorably referred to new-age partnerships. Essentially, they constitute the pillars of the EU's new-born Trade for All Strategy. Then, here come two inter-linked, substantial questions: Does the new external trade policy of the EU that is figured out by the Trade for All Strategy in general and the new-age partnerships in particular, compatible with the multilateral trading system? Would the EU by-pass the multilateral trading system and export its own values via new-age partnerships or be a point guard in the enhancement of the system? The aim of this paper is to make a contribution in responding these substantial questions