The Challenges to EU Trade Policy in a Changing World Order

Abstract

This chapter discusses the EU’s common external trade policy in light of economic and political changes in the world. The authors establish that EU external trade policy is currently facing some of its greatest challenges ever. This is not only a consequence of Brexit, considering the equally great demands for continuous adjustment to worldwide structural changes in international trade. The question that Alvstam and Lindberg address in this chapter is how EU trade policy vis-à-vis the rest of the world should be modified and renewed in pace with external changes. In particular, they analyse the changing world order in the form of a new US trade policy, the British withdrawal from the EU, and China’s increasingly prominent place in the international arena. In light of this, the authors consider various possible alternatives for the EU’s external trade policy. The role that the relationship with the post-Brexit UK will play in formulating an effective trade policy for the EU is a central question here.