ABSTRACT
There is an old and overtold story about European heaven and European hell. European heaven is where the cooks are French, the lovers are Italian, the engineers are German, the chauffeurs are British, and so on. European hell, on the other hand, features British cooks (or sometimes lovers), German sense of humour, Italian chauffeurs, and so on. The joke may be tired, but it is instructive in revealing the depths of the national diversity which still exist inside the European Union (EU). 2 This article argues that ‘European heaven’ and ‘European hell’ also exist in relation to EU trade politics. Not, this time, on the basis of national stereotypes, but from contrasting alignments of different factors.
