Economic Integration as Virtue Signalling in the Contest For Geopolitical Supremacy Between the European Union and China

This paper examines the EU economic integration in the context of a broader process of economic globalization. It argues that the relationship between the EU law and policy making in the areas of international trade and the EU enlargement reflects the confluence of the EU’s views on globalization and on the EU’s own role in international legal order. Building on the scholarship of Roberts and Lamb on different narratives on globalization (Six Faces of Globalization, Harvard University Press 2021) the paper opens with situating the EU enlargement policy within the "establishment narrative" about globalization that views economic liberalization, good governance and the rule of law as the pillars of economic prosperity, development and peace in Europe and in the world. In that context, the Stabilization and Association Agreements (SAAs) signed between the EU and the Western Balkan states are seen as international trade agreements aimed at emulating the EU’s peace through trade path to regional economic integration whereby principles of good governance and the rule of law appear rooted in the theoretical framework of market liberalization. The SAAs establish explicit political conditionality upon candidates and emphasize the importance of the EU normative perspective for the Western Balkan states. The paper argues that this SAA virtue signalling within the EU’s taking on "the geoeconomics narrative" reflects the shift in the EU’s perception on globalization and move from emphasizing benefits of economic integration and market liberalization towards underlining economic and political security and calling attention on the rise of China’s influence on international legal order. The paper concludes that the EU enlargement policy urgently needs to mediate the effects of competing normative commitments to different values brought up by multiple perspectives on economic integration.