assessing the eu's role in international trade negotiations
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ooks reviewed: EU Trade Strategies: Between Regionalism and Globalism Vinod K. Aggarwal and Edward A. Fogarty (eds.) (Houndmills: Palgrave, 2004), 249pp., ISBN: 1 4039 3258 1 The EU’s Common Commercial Policy: Institutions, Interests and Ideas Manfred Elsig (Aldershot: Asgate, 2002), 196pp., ISBN: 0 7546 3227 X Measuring the Costs of Protection in Europe: European Commercial Policy in the 2000s Patrick A Messerlin (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 2001), 408pp., ISBN: 0 88132 273 3 Trading Voices: The European Union in International Commercial Negotiations Sophie Meunier (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 223pp., ISBN: 0 691 12115 X Extending European Cooperation: The European Union and the ‘New’ International Trade Agenda Alasdair Young (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 206pp., ISBN: 0 7190 6272 1
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rade policy is one of the few policy fields that have been dealt with at the level of the European Union (EU) ever since the origins of this customs union.1 As the establishment of a customs union necessarily implied agreement on a Common Commercial Policy, the Treaty of Rome (1957) set out an institutional framework to govern EU trade policymaking. Based on the provisions contained therein, the European Commission
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has represented EU member states in international trade negotiations for the last four decades. Among the most important multilateral trade negotiations that have taken place during this period are the Kennedy Round (1964–1967), the Tokyo Round (1973–1979), the Uruguay Round (1986–1994), and the Doha Development Agenda (2001 onwards). In addition, the EU has engaged in a large number of bilateral and regional
european political science: 5 2006 (362 – 376) & 2006 European Consortium for Political Research. 1680-4333/06 $30 www.palgrave-journals.com/eps
negotiations with a series of countries and groups of countries mainly in Europe, Africa, and Latin America. Not least because of the size of its market, the EU has been a key player in these negotiations. The United States (US) administration proposed the start of the Kennedy Round with the explicit objective of achieving a lowering of the European Economic Community’s new common external tariff. The Tokyo Round was also dominated by the US and the EU, with both entities seeking limits on the other side’s use of non-tariff barriers, which are all measures other than tariffs that restrict the trade of products. In the Uruguay Round, the key topic in the negotiations was the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, which both protected European agricultural producers and by way of export subsidies increased competition in third markets. The Doha Development Agenda, finally, grew out of an EU proposal for new trade negotiations. Although the EU initially hoped to have the negotiations concentrate on such issues as investments and competition policy, the round recently stalled over the issue of liberalisation of trade in agricultural goods, with the EU being accused of not having offered enough to allow for a succe
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