ABSTRACT
In the second half of this decade, the EU seems to have gone through a radical overhaul of its trade policy. According to many, the novelty in EU trade policy should be reconducted to the “Global Europe strategy” launched in 2006. Actually, “new” elements of the EU trade policy go well beyond and before that strategy and cover concrete actions, negotiations of new agreements, declarations of intent, official statements and so on. This study discusses the main strands of this policy. After taking stock briefly of the Global Europe strategy, the second section deals with the new market access strategy and the raw materials initiative taken by the EU, pointing out the defensive and reactive nature of the EU response. The new generation free trade agreements is the subject of the third section, with a particular emphasis on the recently signed EU–South Korea free trade agreement (FTA) and the EU–Canada negotiations. Section four investigates the Economic Partnership Agreements proposed by the EU to the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries and highlights some of the most controversial trade-related development issues. The fifth section indicates the possible reasons behind EU trade policy and the many contradictions that it still carries all along. The last section evaluates the possible impact of protectionist tendencies and the recently announced “renewed trade strategy” of the EU.
