Impact of the corona crisis on EU trade policy : our five cents to the debate

The resilience of the neoliberal free trade paradigmin the post-covid-19 erashould not be underestimated, at least in the short term. The EU’strade policy response hasso farbeen compliant with free trade philosophy and this has not faced serious challengesyet. Ostensibly protectionist measures are explicitly framed as temporary and exceptional and have been accompanied by liberalizing proposals. In the medium and longterm, paradigm change may happen. However, the authorswarn that suchshifts may not be as romantic as envisaged by deglobalization advocates, because also securitization looms as a realistic and dangerous alternative. While both deglobalization and securitization involve less trade, their political underpinnings are radically different

Sociaaldemocratie moet zich uit Europese dwangbuis wringen

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European Union regulatory politics in the shadow of the WTO: A critical historical institutionalist perspective

This paper focuses on an increasingly important aspect of European Union (EU) trade policy: the interface between internal regulation and international trade. More specifically it looks at how World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules influence regulatory politics in the EU. While WTO law has no direct effect, it is assumed by rational functionalists that its rules are enforced in a decentralized way by exporters that want to avoid retaliation against their exports resulting from a negative dispute ruling. I challenge the actual plausibility of this mechanism and offer an alternative perspective rooted in critical historical institutionalism. From this perspective it is argued that vague WTO rules may be used by interest groups and decision-makers as resources in domestic policy battles to oppose trade-restrictive/burdensome regulation. Such instrumentalization may in the long run lead to internalization and institutionalization of WTO rules but also strengthened opposition against the organisation. To empirically test the explanatory value of the proposed perspective I process-trace three decision-making processes on EU regulation of which WTO-consistency was contested: the trade in seal products ban, REACH, and a carbon border tax in the framework of the EU emissions trading scheme post-2013

How the Eu Defends its Non-Trade Objectives Before the Wto: an Analysis of Sps/Tbt Disputes

The European Union is at the same time one of the staunchest defenders of a liberal and multilateral trading order and often the most radical regulator in protecting the health of citizens and the European and global environment. This might be problematic when ‘protective’ regulations at home are perceived as ‘protectionist’ measures abroad. This article looks at a particular arena where the EU has to confront this potential contradiction: the World Trade Organization’s dispute settlement system. How does the EU reconcile its free trade ambitions with its regulatory stringency there? It is found that the EU manages to act consistently before the WTO courts by refraining from pressing charges against other countries’ sanitary and phytosanitary and technical measures and, as a third party, speaking out for the defendant by advocating discretion in deciding on and maintaining the appropriate level of protection. That the EU is so much on the ‘protection’ side of the continuum before the WTO courts is explained by its own early losses in some high-profile, sensitive WTO disputes in combination with the more risk-averse stance of the European public