European Union trade policy and the prospects for a transatlantic trade and investment partnership

Amid the most severe refugee crisis the European continent has seen in decades and the increasing fears that European integration is in peril, the expansion of European Union (EU) trade policy continues. Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, and his administration have prioritized the conclusion of comprehensive economic agreements with strategic partners, including the United States, Japan, and China. These negotiations are currently conducted by the European Union, showcasing the dramatic change of global trade politics in the last ten years.A clear shift away from the World Trade Organization (WTO) as the predominant trade negotiating forum is taking place. The fact that the recent WTO Ministerial Conference in Nairobi expressly recognized not only the centrality but also the primacy of the WTO system does not seem to affect these dynamics.2 Particularly, this shift has manifested itself in the increasing emphasis the EU is placing on concluding bilateral trade agreements with strategic partners-which, while occurring within the framework of WTO obligations, occurs outside of the WTO as a negotiating forum.Against this backdrop, this note assesses the current state of affairs and future prospects for a balanced transatlantic trade deal. Absent any significant progress within the WTO and multilateral negotiations, larger economies are seeking to redefine the agenda of trade rules for the medium run out of the acknowledgement that new production methods and business models also require creative legal engineering. This note outlines the current trajectory of EU trade policy under the Juncker administration, analyzes the importance and challenges of concluding the Transalantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) between the EU and the United States, and concludes with a review of the current state of global trade regulation.THE DIRECTION OF EU TRADE POLICYFocusing on the future of EU trade policy, the European Commission has made clear the shape of the EU agenda in coming years:3 it will seek to become more effective and more transparent, as well as attempt to export EU values to the rest of the world. These three elements-effectiveness, transparency, and values-constitute the three pillars of the revitalized EU trade policy. Effectiveness means that EU trade policy will become more results-oriented, focusing on the facilitation of value chains, the inclusion of digital trade in prospective negotiations, and the easing of rules governing movement of high-skilled professionals. Transparency, the second pillar, has been a recurring theme in trade negotiations, and EU institutions have been the recipients of numerous calls for increased access to documents previously regarded as confidential. In a significant policy turn toward more openness vis-a-vis civil society and the public in general (which, admittedly, was also the result of a more hands-on approach to the issue of access to confidential documents by the Court of Justice of the European Union, the EU's highest court), the EU started publishing key negotiating texts shortly after they were discussed at the table with the EU's partners. This is in stark contrast to the policy the United States administration has adopted, turning a deaf ear to the demands for more transparency in the negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) or in the current T-TIP negotiations.The third pillar of the EU's new approach to trade matters rests on the idea that EU values can be exported through trade negotiations. In EU foreign policy, this has previously included the exporting of concepts relating to public (so-called services of general interest) to the EU's partners in Eastern Europe, but also the exporting of concepts relating to competition law. In its new policy, the EU aspires to enrich this agenda with new concepts such as enhanced corporate social responsibility to ensure a high level of protection for European consumers, increased legitimacy for investment arbitration systems used by the EU in its international agreements, and a more targeted system of autonomous preferences given to developing and least developed countries. …