| Since its founding in 1957, the European Union has concluded trade agreements with almost all countries in the world. Since its early days, as the EEC, the EU has developed special ties to certain groups of developing countries. More recently, throughout the mid-1990s, EU-developing countries have changed both geographically and substantively. As the largest trading bloc in the world, understanding how the EU negotiates these agreements is an important problem. The approach taken in this study will be to analyze three trade agreements from a two-level games perspective, in which the "domestic" and "international" levels are interactive.; In particular, the negotiations between the EC and the ACP, the EU and Mexico, and the EU and the Mediterranean Partner Countries will be analyzed. All three agreements were significant for the EU. The Lome Convention of 1975 formed the "centerpiece" of EU-developing country relations for almost two decades. The EU-Mexico agreement of 2000, at the time, was the broadest pact ever negotiated by the EU and a third country. The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership was part of a major reorientation in EU priorities since its foundation.; Three variables are posited as explaining the manner in which trade deals are made between the EU and the developing countries. Drawn from literature on EU integration, EU trade policy, and EU-Developing country relations, the variables of prior relations, domestic politics, and institutional setting provide the motivation and the basis for new agreements. It is argued here that in the three negotiations, different variables have greater explanatory value in the outcome. It is also suggested that international negotiations involving the EU can be characterized as a very complex game, in which much of the game is played at the EU level. |
