European Union Trade Policy

The process of economic integration at the European level began with the integration of the market of goods. Therefore, the EU’s trade policy was the first genuine common policy. Even if it is still the most important global trading actor, the EU cannot ignore the transformations taking place within the multilateral trading system. The current context is marked by tensions between multilateralism and regionalism. This raises numerous challenges to the resilience of the global trading system. The present investigation is based on the hypothesis that the trade policy is still a major tool used to address these challenges. This chapter provides an examination of EU’s trade policy emphasizing the actors involved, the challenges that the EU has to face, the tools that can be used and the specific responsibilities of the European integrationist group.