The Incidental Fortress: The Single European Market and World Trade

The European Union's role in international trade contains two significant contradictions: first, although its trade policy, with some notable exceptions, is generally fairly liberal, it has been the respondent in a number of high-profile trade disputes; second, al though a champion of multilateralism, the EU has had problems complying with World Trade Organization (WTO) judgments. I argue that these contradictions in the EU's trading persona are due to the internal dynamics of European policy-making, which create 'regulatory peaks' where the member governments' rules diverge, and render the resulting rules difficult to alter. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2004.