THE NEW TENDENCY IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EUROPEAN UNION COMMON TRADE POLICY DURING THE WORLD ECONOMIC CRISIS

Abstract

It is emphasized that the trade liberalization has a special positive significance in the global context. Due to technical progress and to the growth of economic ties between particular countries, participants in the world economy, the benefits resulting from liberalized international trade and from the freedom of movement of foreign direct investments become bigger not only for the industrialized countries but also for the so-called “emerging markets”, that is, the countries that find themselves on the stage of the accelerated development. Another situation was during the world economic crisis like 2008-2010. The international trade policy and also the Common Trade Policy of the European Union in the end of the first decade of the XXI century have been strongly affected by the force of the economic crisis. The changes are evident in the growing importance of international trade to national economies and to domestic groups within those economies, in the closer linkages between trade and other international issues. Realistic point is important trends in the global trade regime during the economic crisis. The growing interdependence have led to increased competitiveness and greater temptations to resort to strategic trade policy. In the situation of economic crisis different positions of the member states of the World Trade Organization (WTO) especially developed and developing countries and also USA, the European Union and Japan representatives were observed during the Doha Round of trade negotiations under the WTO. The problems of agriculture protection in the developed countries for example in European Union and USA and also in the developing countries, were becoming a serious obstacle during the negotiations. Despite the undeniable benefits of the multilateral WTO forum for trade liberalization, the rapid increase of North-South bilateral and multilateral Free Trade Areas (FTAs) begs a systematic explanation for why some forums are prioritized relative to others. The main aim of the article is the presentation of the new tendency in the development of the European Union Common Trade Policy during the world economic crisis. In the article presents the tendencies to bilateralism in the foreign trade policy during the economic crisis, the problem of public choice in the foreign trade policy, protectionist pressures in different political systems, the level of protectionist pressures, food producer’s pressure and conflicts between the tendencies to international trade liberalization and environmental protection.