"The European Union as a Trade Power"

Meunier, Sophie and Nicolaidis, Kalypso. (2005) "The European Union as a Trade Power". In: UNSPECIFIED, Austin, Texas. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

[Summary]. The EU is a formidable trade power. While trade liberalization internally and externally have always been the essence of European integration, successive enlargements and the creation of the European Single Market have turned the EU into the world’s largest trade power. The EU is responsible for making trade policy through a complex decisionmaking process that has often been contested politically but allows it to speak on behalf of its members in international trade negotiations. This chapter argues that not only does the EU derive some inherent power from trade, but that it is also increasingly prone to use trade as the backbone of its normative power. As a result the EU is now becoming a world power through trade, as one of the major actors shaping the multilateral trade agenda, and using access to its market strategically in order to obtain political concessions from its commercial partners. This chapter explores the determinants of the EU’s trade power (both inherent and normative) and examines the contribution of trade policy to the power of Europe in the international system, both in the context of the World Trade Organization and in the broader framework of international relations.

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