Beyond trade: The European Union - New Zealand Free Trade Agreement

The 2022 announcement of the European Union- New Zealand Free Trade Agreement was seminal for both sides. For New Zealand, the deal is projected to be worth up to an extra NZ$1.8 billion per annum by 2035. What is less evident is the motivation for securing the deal for Europe – New Zealand is only the EU’s 50th most important trading partner and accounts for 0.2% of its total trade. This article outlines three major benefits for the EU. Firstly, it symbolises that the EU’s neoliberal trading agenda is continuing in the face of perceived increased protectionism. Second, the deal includes a seminal clause of holding each partner to account in climate change responsibilities – a detail that should garner support from EU citizens. Finally, closer EU cooperation with New Zealand may add to the EU’s legitimacy in the Indo-Pacific

New Zealand and the Asia-Europe Meeting: Three Years On

New Zealand, alongside Australia and Russia, formally acceded to the Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM) in October 2010. This followed fifteen years of drift, a period during which initial strong interest, derailed by the opposition of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, subsequently became less certain as views of the forum’s utility to New Zealand dimmed. In effect, by the turn of the millennium, the issue of ASEM membership had been kicked into the long grass, where the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade was happy for it to remain until it became clear in mid- 2008 that Australia was pushing strongly for entry and was likely to succeed. This move had wrong-footed MFAT, forcing a rapid rethink of a policy that had rested, among other elements, on a view that New Zealand’s non-membership was acceptable given Australia’s parallel exclusion. The final volte face and scramble for membership was therefore motivated in large part by a fear of marginalisation, a concern that Australian entry would leave New Zealand in the untenable situation of being the only regional state outside the forum.1 Three years on, it is worth considering where New Zealand stands in relation to ASEM. Given its less than wholehearted accession, what benefits does it perceive in participation, and to what extent have these been achieved

Editors’ introduction to the Special Issue: The Member States and Differentiated Integration in the European Union

European integration has never been a ‘uniform’ process, with one set of rules applying equally to all Member States. Instead, from Rome (1958) to Lisbon (2009), the treaties establishing the European Union (EU) and its predecessors have all contained exceptions from common provisions. The literature refers to this phenomenon as differentiated integration (DI). While DI has always been a feature of European integration, the absolute number of exceptions in EU treaties and secondary law has increased over time (Schimmelfennig and Winzen 2020a). The Lisbon Treaty, for example, is considered a milestone for DI (Koller 2012; Brunazzo 2019). As such, the EU has become an increasingly differentiated political system in recent years (Leuffen et al. 2013; Dyson and Sepos 2010). Despite this, there is surprisingly little research about the attitudes of political actors – such as governments – towards DI. Five contributions in this special issue investigate this gap in the literature. Putting a focus on smaller and less studied EU Member States, they develop in-depth case studies of Austria, Finland, Portugal, Romania, and Slovenia. For better comparability, these papers follow a common approach (see below). In addition, the special issue contains a thematic contribution which explores whether the EU’s differentiated Banking Union will ultimately converge in uniform integration or see further differentiation

The member states and differentiated integration in the European Union

The editor's introduction describes the premise of the Special Issue, introduces the theoretical framework, and summarizes the key results. The Special Issue explores the positions which governments in smaller EU member states take on differentiated integration. It contains country-chapters on Austria, Finland, Portugal, Romania, and Slovenia. A final chapter discusses differentiated integration in the European Banking Union

From Developmental Regionalism to Developmental Interregionalism: The European Union Approach. NCRE Working Paper No. 07/01. July 2007

[From the Introduction] The purpose of this paper is to explore this concept of developmental regionalism, looking at its history, and its perceived benefits today. Discussion therefore begins with an investigation of the historic application of regionalism to development. Consideration is given to the linking of ‘old’ regionalism to Structuralist and Dependency views of the international economy and the causes of underdevelopment, and of the ‘new’ regionalism’s ties to the Neoliberal counterrevolution in development thinking. The paper then moves on to exploring some of the perceived benefits, both economic and non-economic, for developing countries of the new developmental regionalism. Finally, the paper considers the manner in which developmental regionalism is being applied by the EU. Specifically, it is concerned with the interregional context of the new developmental regionalism. In other words, it is interested in the way in which the EU approach firmly entrenches developmental regionalism within the broader architecture of global governance, and the synergies between developmental regionalism and interregionalism – can we conceive a ‘developmental interregionalism’? In this respect, this paper constitutes a first tentative attempt to explore a formal role for interregionalism in development

A Normative Power Paradox? Theory and Change in European Union Development Policy

One of the issues frequently raised when the EU's role as a normative actor is considered is that of consistency/variation in its approach. Much of this has centred around a norms–interests dichotomy, and the question as to which carries most weight. While political and economic interests have clearly played an important role in EU development policy, offering an explanation for much of the geographic differentiation in its application, our argument here is that apparent inconsistencies are not necessarily reducible to a violation of norms or the prioritising of interests, but may be explicable through recognition of a further factor – a 'theory filter'. From its inception in the form of Association following the signing of the Treaty of Rome, through the Yaoundé and Lomé Conventions and on to the Cotonou Agreement, the EU's approach to development has undergone a fundamental transformation over time. Nevertheless, the normative identity of the Union has, over the same period, remained relatively stable. Intrinsic to this has been the way in which development itself has been conceived and understood. Development theory has in effect acted as a filter through which European norms have passed into EU development policy, meaning that key changes in policy have been linked to the evolution in conceptual issues of development, rather than to inconsistent application of norms or the prioritisation of other interests. The paper explores this process, examining the linkage between policy change and conceptual change from the advent of Associationism in 1957 through to the present post-Cotonou and (soon) post-MDG period, with agreement on new global Sustainable Development Goals envisioned for 2015

ASEM’s First Two Decades: A Role Discovered

This article examines the first two decades of the transregional Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM) from its inception with the Bangkok Summit of 1996. Examining instances of region building and the socialisation of states, it identifies the gradual emergence of a role for the forum, one that stands in some contrast to initial participant expectations. In this respect, rather than a structure for delivering substantive negotiated outcomes around issues such as trade liberalisation, the value of ASEM across its first 20 years came increasingly to be seen in its ideational aspects: identity building, norm diffusion, and dialogue without preconceptions

New Zealand and the Asia-Europe Meeting

This article considers New Zealand?s accession to the Asia-Europe Meeting, considering both its formal path to membership and the evolving calculus by which its views of the process were structured, focusing on elements such as the enabling context provided by a change of national government in 2008, the impact of the global financial crisis and the position of Australia. Drawing on a set of interviews undertaken within the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, it goes on to examine perceived benefits of the Asia-Europe Meeting for New Zealand, and the extent to which these have been achieved. Finally, it addresses the issue of a New Zealand ASEM strategy, outlining potential areas for future engagement