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<p>The EU trade policy is increasingly confronted with demands for more transparency. This article aims to investigate how transparency takes shape in EU trade policy. First, we operationalize the concept of transparency along two dimensions: a process dimension and an actor dimension. We then apply this framework to analysis of EU Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). After analyzing transparency in relation to FTAs from the perspective of the institutional actors (Commission, Council and Parliament), the different instruments and policies that grant the public actors (civil society and citizens) access to information and documents about EU FTAs are explored by discussing Regulation 1049/2001, which provides for public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, and the role of the European Ombudsman. The article is based on an analysis of official documents, assessments in the academic literature and case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The ultimate aim is to assess current initiatives and identify relevant gaps in the EU's transparency policies. This article argues that the EU has made significant progress in fostering transparency in the negotiation phase of FTAs, but less in the implementation phase.</p>

Dedication -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Chapter 1: Introduction -- The Literature -- Principal-Agent Model -- Comparative Public Administration: National Administrations in EU Policies -- Negotiation Theory: Capabilities and Negotiation Activity -- The Argument -- The Research Design -- The Structure of the Book -- References -- Chapter 2: Member States in European Trade Negotiations -- The Legal Framework -- Autonomous Trade Policy -- International Negotiations -- The Administrative Framework -- Participating in the Council

Non–trade issues are gaining increasing importance in the EU's trade policy. The case of agricultural multifunctionality is an example of the EU trade policy's approach in dealing strategically and structurally with non–trade issues in international trade. In the context of the Doha Round, the concept has been of minor direct importance despite its prominent rhetorical promotion at the beginning of the negotiations. Indirectly, the concept has had a more significant impact on the negotiations as it allows the EU to maintain an overall high level of agricultural subventions due to its compliance with WTO rules of non–trade-distorting support. This indirect impact, however, weakens the EU's negotiating position as it focuses the discussion on traditional agricultural support and puts the EU in a defensive position instead of allowing an offensive promotion of its concept of agricultural multifunctionality. It can furthermore be argued that the strategic use of multifunctionality in the Doha Round does not generally support the EU's negotiation objectives due to divided competitive advantages on multifunctionality among WTO Members. One of the EU trade policy's strategies in facing this situation can be found in a shift of agricultural non–trade concerns beyond the WTO framework towards a level of legally non–binding, private–market regulation. This shift can also be seen in the structural impact of agricultural multifunctionality on EU trade policy, illustrated by the semi–formal Civil Society Dialogue of DG Trade and the European Commission's Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives.

This editorial provides an introduction to the thematic issue 'Politicization of EU Trade Policy Across Time and Space.' The academic editors place the issue in the context of the current literature, introduce the contributions, and discuss how the articles, individually and jointly, add to the state of the art.

"This book studies the relationship between administrative capacity and a member state's influence in the European Union. More specifically, it studies member states' ability to exert control over the European Commission during trade negotiations. But what determines administrative capacity and how do member states ensure their preferences are defended during trade negotiations? A combination of qualitative fieldwork and survey-analysis provides the answer. Interviews in Belgium, Poland, Estonia and Spain offer a privileged insight into the functioning of national trade administrations and its effects on their behavior in the Council of Ministers. Through survey data, these findings are further corroborated. The book is aimed at a readership interested in EU decision-making, negotiation theory, comparative public administration and the international political economy of trade"--Provided by publisher.

AbstractTrading actors like the European Union (EU) are increasingly seen as geopoliticising trade policy, but such assertions may not capture the extent to which the Directorate General for Trade (DG Trade) uses this policy to achieve security objectives. This article investigates changes over time in justifications for trade policy by differentiating between how the EU and DG Trade use frames – articulated in four EU trade strategies with two DG Trade strategic plans and 10 annual management plans – to propose solutions in response to the geoeconomic turn. This article finds that, whilst DG Trade's discourse continues to reflect the dominant market liberal frame, geopoliticising pressures are encouraging the emergence of an EU counter‐frame linking trade to non‐trade issues and a reframing of the counter‐frame that increasingly links trade and security policy. As a result, the EU's framing of trade policy resembles deep geopoliticisation, whilst DG Trade's framing resembles reluctant geopoliticisation.

This editorial provides an introduction to the thematic issue "Politicization of EU Trade Policy Across Time and Space." The academic editors place the issue in the context of the current literature, introduce the contributions, and discuss how the articles, individually and jointly, add to the state of the art.

EU trade policy, which is essential to a prosperous European economy and industry, has an important role to play in tackling the major challenges of our times relating to worsening geo-economic and trade tensions, enduring global sustainability issues and a deteriorating multilateral order.

Europe's trade policy is heading for a sea change. But it is not Putin's war of aggression against Ukraine that is the main reason for this development. Rather, there are long-term influencing factors at work here: the WTO-centred multilateral trade order is visibly eroding. Protectionism is on the rise around the globe. World trade is grow­ing only marginally or is even stagnating. Globalization is undergoing a transforma­tion whose outcome is uncertain. And international trade is increasingly being instrumentalized for political purposes. In February 2021, the European Commission responded to these structural upheavals by announcing an "open, sustainable and assertive trade policy". However, there has so far been uneven progress towards im­plementing the objectives included in the new trade policy strategy. While the EU's intention to strengthen both Europe's assertiveness and the sustainability of trade is being realized through numerous new instruments and measures, its promise of openness and liberalization remains unfulfilled for the time being. In particular, the Indo-Pacific region beyond China would offer the German and European economies significant opportunities to tap new sources of raw materials and access reliable sup­plier networks and growing sales markets. (author's abstract)

This paper aims to convince the reader of the potential of a critical version of historical institutionalism (HI) as a theoretical perspective for EU trade policy analysis. It argues that critical HI sensitises the analyst to important but hitherto often neglected factors including: the influence of the past on EU trade policy; the complex, multiarena and multilevel nature of contemporary trade policy; and issues of distributional conflict. The core concept in critical HI is 'reactive sequencing', conceiving of policy evolution as a chain of events produced by reactions and counter-reactions. This paper demonstrates that this is invaluable to understand contemporary EU trade politics. Some examples of EU trade policy decisions and its general strategic evolution since the conclusion of the Uruguay Round are given to show the value of critical HI. Finally, the external dimension of "Europe 2020" as the latest trade policy strategy is analysed from a critical historical institutionalist angle.

This article assesses the social dimension of EU trade policy. First, the essence of the 'trade and labour debate' is recalled. Then, the EU's practice of promoting decent work conditions through unilateral (GSP), bilateral or regional trade instruments is explored. EU support for corporate social responsibility is touched upon briefly. It is demonstrated that the EU essentially relies on its GSP to pursue objectives of decent work, whereas the social provisions of EU preferential agreements seem to be included as objectives to be achieved rather than as legal commitments to be enforced.