Constructing European Union Trade Policy: A Global Idea of Europe [Hardcover]

With the stagnation of the Doha Round of multilateral talks, trade liberalisation is increasingly undertaken through free trade agreements. Gabriel Siles-Br?gge examines the EU's decision following the 2006 'Global Europe' strategy to negotiate such agreements with emerging economies. Eschewing the purely materialist explanations prominent in the field, he develops a novel constructivist argument to highlight the role of language and ideas in shaping EU trade policy. Drawing on extensive interviews and documentary analysis, Siles-Br?gge shows how EU trade policymakers have privileged the interests of exporters to the detriment of import-competing groups, creating an ideational imperative for market-opening. Even during the on-going economic crisis the overriding mantra has been that the EU's future well-being depends on its ability to compete in global markets. The increasingly neoliberal orientation of EU trade policy has also had important consequences for its economic diplomacy with the developing economies of the African, Caribbean and Pacific group of states.1. Introduction 2. Trade is What You Make of It: The Social Construction of EU Commercial Policy 3. Charting the Rise of 'Global Europe' 4. Resisting 'Protectionism': The EU-Korea Free Trade Agreement 5. 'Global Europe' and the Economic Partnership Agreements 6. 'Global Europe' during the Crisis: Reciprocity and the Political Limits to Liberalisation 7. Conclusion

With its combination of theoretical rigour and deep empirical research Gabriel Siles-Br?gge's volume delivers rich insight into the nature of EU trade policy and its changing orientations. This book is a 'must read' for anyone concerned with political economy of European integration and the external projection of the EU. It is also one of the very best books on trade politics published in the past decade, and a major contribution to the emerging canon of constructivist IPE. - Ben Rosamond, University of Copenhagen, Denmark