ABSTRACT
The European Union (EU), in exercise of its Common Commercial Policy, is seeking to promote more sustainable international trade. The European Commission’s recent Communication on The European Green Deal underlines that the EU’s trade policy shall serve as a platform to engage with trading partners on climate and environmental action. This chapter analyses various initiatives that have been launched by the EU to meet these aims: the EU’s Generalised Scheme of Preferences and its special incentive arrangement for sustainable development and good governance; the inclusion of provisions on sustainable development in new regional trade agreements concluded by the EU with third countries; the EU’s promotion of sustainable public procurement; the recent reform of the EU’s regulation of anti-dumping measures, partly addressing so-called social and ecological dumping; and some EU trade measures related to carbon footprint, such as the proposal to establish a carbon border tax. Some of these EU initiatives have been strongly challenged by certain emerging or developing countries. This chapter appraises the EU’s capacity to promote new global rules through trade instruments as a way to respond more effectively to the traditional debate between trade and the environment.
