Research On Eu Trade Policy System

EU is being seen as a"big country"in the economic side. EU and China are same in many sides, especially for its high trade status and degree of dependence upon foreign trade. As the biggest regional group which is composed by developed countries mainly, EU's trade policy has been mature which may be used for reference by emerged countries like China. What's the trade policy system of a big country? What are the framework and the characters of its functioning mechanism? How to evaluate the trade policy? What can be used for reference by China? All this problems are explored in the dissertation. At the same time, EU-China relationship is one of the most important bilateral relationships in the international economic and political region with the rise of China. So the reality need we pay more attention to EU's trade policy.The skeleton of the dissertation is developed by two lines: internal trade policy and external trade policy. As a regional economic integration organization, EU's trade policies are special, which include integrated external policies and also parts of policies among its members. Under economic globalization, the foreign trade policy is extended to the area of traditional internal trade policy, so the relationship between the internal and external trade policy are becoming more and more close. In practice, the orientation of internal trade policy is integration and that of external trade policy is liberalization, which are inclined to break trade and investment barriers and optimize collocation of resources in essence. In this dissertation, I studied the internal and external trade policy of EU in a unified framework, but there are also differences in different chapters. In detail, I departed the internal and external policies in analyzing the framework and detailed implementation, and analysized the functioning mechanism and performance evaluation in a integrated model.The dissertation includes six chapters. Chapter 1 is introduction which includes the literature summarization, the mainstream and skeleton, the innovation and the research methods of the dissertation.Chapter 2 is about the evolement and framework of trade policy of EC. EC's internal policies were originated in sectoral integration and then tured to comprehensive common market. The White Paper and Single European Act meant the re-startup of integration after stagnation and the economic and monetary union madethe integration goes to a new level. EC's external trade policies were originated in the regulations in Rome Treaty which provided the basic principles and framework of common commercial policy (CCP) and also led to dispute on the extension of CCP. Single European Act and European Union Treaty emended little to the CCP and the progess of Amsterdam Treaty and Nice Treaty were also limited. Constitutional Treaty provided substantial reform to CCP. The enlargement of EC gave important influences to CCP which must internalize the interests of new members and carry compensation negotiations with trade parters. In despite of various doubts,"Europe Fortress"has not been the truth. EC regulated the logic of parallelism for the relationship between internal and external trade policies and Constitutional Treaty also provided the principle of consistency which means the coherence in different external actions and also the consistency between internal and external actions. So where there are no powers on internal legislation, there are no powers to conclude international treaties.Chapter 3 is the decision-making mechanism of trade policy. I first make a three-level framework in analyzing the decision-making and then analysize each factor in detail, which include the political regime and decision-making institution, member country politics, EU-level politics, international level politics and interest group. Political regime decides the institutional structure of decision-making. The institution of decision-making regulates the channels to diliver interests. EU-level politics are the core of decision-making in which the Council and the Commission play the main role. Interest groups are important to all the three levels. However, the relationship among the three levels are nor certain and there are no unified model of decision-making. In fact, the decision-making mechanism of EU is very complicated for the characters of decision-making in different areas are different.Chapter 4 is the implementation of EU trade policies which evaluated the detailed measures during integration and explained its external trade policy in three dimensions: unilateral policy, bilateral / regional policy and multilateral policy. EC kept going on construction of single market after 1992 plan and issued many action programs. But the evaluation from the Commission showed that the single market is almost stagnated. All in all, the internal market integration is not completed especially in services integration. In multilateral level, EC became one of the leaders in WTO by complying with WTO rules and also winners for its active use of multilateral dispute settlement mechanism. In bilateral / regional level, EC has developed the biggest andalso the most complicated network of preferential arrangements. In unilateral level, EC provides GPS to developing countries which also mean influences and control. In practices, the orientation of internal trade policy is integration and that of external trade policy is liberalization with the former as the first choice.Chapter 5 is performance evaluation on EU trade policy. I developed a general framework on performance evaluation on EU trade policy, which includes two sides: economic development and economic security. In the ead I drew the conclusion of"Advantages of Big Countries". There are"Advantages of Big Countries"in theory though disputes remain. Firstly, in the economic growth side, big countries are more advantage than small ones in specialization, scale economy and technolodge advancement. Secondly, in the economic security side, big countries can defend international risks for they have more resources. In detail, the advantages of big countries include: the richer resource endowments and the diversified production may reduce attack from individual sector to the whole production and economic fluctuation; the lower dependence on foreign trade may reduce the influnces from international trade shocks; providing reservoir to export; having more internal demands to rely on; having more room to convolute when facing trade deficits; having great bargaining power in international negotiations as the maker of international rules; winning the trade war. All thess advantages are suitable to China also.Chapter 6 is EU-China economic and trade relationship and the perfection of China's trade policy system. I analysized the historical development of EU-China relationship especially the new policy document to China and then analysized the status of bilateral economic and trade development and also their trade frictions. In the end, the dissertation drew the suggestions to improve China's trade policy system in various levels: to dig the big country advantages internally, to actualize China's GPS strategy, to develop China's network of regional arrangements and to be free rider in WTO negotiations.