EU Trade and Development Policies

Trade policy and development policy are the EU’s two most potent external policies. As such, they are central to conceptions of what kind of global actor the EU is – a civilian power, a normative power or a market power. Both policies have become contested of late. Regarding trade policy, contestation has been predominantly internal, which has contributed to a greater emphasis on exporting EU rules. The geopolitical turn in trade policy has led to an enhanced concern about the political and security implications of economic exchange. Both changes compromise the EU’s commitment to free trade. Development policy, for its part, has been confronted with various challenges, some even existential. The North-South binary is under scrutiny following the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and changing patterns in global inequality. The increased agency of developing states has pushed the EU to give more importance to the creation of partnerships of equals. The rise of China and other emerging powers has created attention to the pursuit of strategic interests through foreign aid and other development-related policies. The EU also makes extensive use of trade policy to foster development, but developments in the two policies – exporting EU rules through trade and emphasizing partnership in development – are in acute tension. This section invites papers and panels that address three streams: 1) Trade policy broadly understood to include foreign direct investment and international regulatory competition/cooperation; 2) Development policy, particularly EU-Africa relations and post/de-coloniality perspectives; 3) The nexus between trade and development policies, including the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) and the Global Gateway.