ABSTRACT
In comparing the European Union’s design of trade policy, ranging between interregionalism and bilateralism, towards different world regions, Chapter 6 is one of the rare scholarly contributions that analyze Europe’s external relations across regions. More specifically, it summarizes and compares the empirical findings of case studies on the European Union’s trade policy towards regional organizations in Asia, Africa, the Gulf region, and Latin America. The findings suggest that the developed theory of ‘commercial realism’ has strong explanatory leverage in the field of European Union external trade relations and that it adds important insights on these relations next to commercial liberalism and the principal-agent framework. As evident in the case studies, the European Union shifted between interregionalism and bilateralism in order to secure its regulatory and economic power in these world regions. Therefore, Chapter 6 emphasizes that realist theorizing should be considered a legitimate theoretical approach on European external relations next to the dominant liberal-institutionalist accounts. Finally, the chapter addresses open research questions in the field of European Union trade policy towards world regions, identifies possible multi-causal approaches, and reflects on the important role of the European Commission in designing this policy.
