Trade policy and foreign policy in the EuropeanUnion Trade policy and foreign policy in the EU

This chapter raises some central questions about the relationship between EU trade policy and ‘European Foreign Policy’, in the context of recent calls for ‘joined-up policy-making’ in the EU’s Global Strategy Paper and of recent literature in the field. In particular, it explores the forces tending towards convergence between trade policy and foreign policy in the EU, and those tending towards continuing divergence or parallelism, by assessing a number of key issues and relationships in EU external action. By focusing first on pressures for convergence and divergence, then on key issues and finally on key relationships, the chapter provides a framework for the evaluation of current and recent EU policies, and for an assessment of the potential interaction between trade policy and foreign policy in future EU external action.