Challenges for EU Trade Policy

This chapter discusses some of the main challenges that EU trade policy currently faces. The rise of the emerging economies and the stagnation of the negotiations in the World Trade Organization (WTO) contributed to a reorientation of EU trade policy towards more bilateral trade agreements in the form of an unprecedented proliferation of free trade agreements (FTAs) and also a reorientation of trade relations with many developing countries. Yet not only the quantity but also the quality of the FTAs has changed as they became deeper and more comprehensive, reflecting a degree of externalization of the EU’s internal market. Moreover, beyond the trade development nexus discussed in Chapter 6, trade policy has increasingly become intertwined with other external or internal EU policies, such as human rights, competition or environmental policy. As a result, it is facing new institutional and political challenges.