Opening Pandora’s Box: What the EU-UK Trade Deal Means for Trade and Conditionality

Summary:

Conditioning trade access on compliance with environmental, climate or labour rules can be either trade-enhancing or trade-restricting, depending on whether conditionality leads to greater liberalisation than would have otherwise been politically feasible, or serves to restrict access to the trade benefits otherwise available. EU policy-makers will ultimately need to decide what their priority actually is: additional protection for domestic producers, particularly in the agri-food sector; or pragmatic liberalisation that serves the EU’s international environmental goals. If the ultimate aim is to use conditionality to keep parts of the EU market closed off to foreign competition, rather than to ensure a level playing field for domestic producers, then the EU’s efforts will probably go nowhere, to the detriment of both its trade and sustainability agendas.

• Primary Source

• Alternative Source

ESO Records

European Commission: COM (2021) 66: Trade Policy Review https://www.europeansources.info/record/trade-policy-review-an-open-sustainable-and-assertive-trade-policy/

OJEU: L 149: Apr. 30th 2021: Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK) https://www.europeansources.info/record/trade-and-cooperation-agreement-between-the-european-union-eu-and-the-united-kingdom-uk/

---