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Offering a doctrinal analysis of the EU's trade policy, this volume examines the provisions of a generation of new trade agreements in the broader context of EU foreign policy objectives.

Offering a doctrinal analysis of the EU's trade policy, this volume examines the provisions of a generation of new trade agreements in the broader context of EU foreign policy objectives.

In 2006, the EU launched the Global Europe strategy which signalled a significant change in its external trade policy by putting the emphasis on the conclusion of deep and comprehensive FT As. The departure from the EU's previous policy approach is twofold: firstly, the EU has abandoned its policy of focusing exclusively on multilateral trade liberalisation by following the lead of the US and Asia in concluding bilateral and regional trade agreements; and secondly, whereas the EU had historically tended to conclude FTAs as a means to achieve political and security goals (e.g., trade agreements concluded with neighbouring countries), the FTAs envisaged by the Global Europe strategy are 'commercially driven' insofar as they seek to increase market access in the lucrative markets in Asia and the emerging economies more generally. With this new generation of FTAs, the EU is keen to pursue its deep trade agenda by going beyond what is currently provided at WTO level and regulating behind-the-border issues, including the Singapore issues. The main question the thesis seeks to answer concerns the nature and content of the disciplines being grafted onto the EU FTAs. Do they simply require the adoption of basic common regulatory disciplines or are they being used as tools for the expansion of the EU's regulatory space? Are the rules being sourced from the EU acquis, regulatory models found in other existing international instruments, or a mixture of both, or can the EU FTAs be seen as a laboratory for the development of innovative rule-making? A second, subsidiary, question concerns how the EU's deep trade agenda, as formulated and implemented in the aftermath of the Global Europe strategy, impacts on perceived notions of what the EU is and how it acts in the international sphere.