The EU and multilateralism

In this article, based on his contribution to the High-Level Policy Dialogue on EU Trade Governance held in Turin last January, our International Trade Consultant in Brussels, Eric White, examines how and why the focus of EU trade policy has changed in recent times and what this means for future EU action.

While multilateralism has always been, and remains, in the DNA of the EU, the bloc has learned that assertiveness and the capacity to act unilaterally to promote its interests are nonetheless necessary, especially where other players are refusing to participate in multilateral processes or indeed to comply with existing internationally agreed rules.

The article traces the course of this evolution and examines the nature of the crisis facing the WTO that ought to be the principal driver of the multilateral trade agenda and the guarantor of its rules. The article goes on to examine the various autonomous (or unilateral) instruments that the EU has recently added to its toolbox, focussing principally on the EU's new Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM).  Faced with the challenge of the EU attempting to fight climate change through purely internal action and the failure of other jurisdictions to make similar efforts, the EU seeks through CBAM to require third country producers of certain key emission-intensive products to bear the same carbon price as is borne by EU producers. However, this understandable desire to level the playing field while promoting global climate action sits uneasily with both fundamental WTO principles and the concept of "nationally determined contributions" to global emission reductions, whereby each party is able to determine its appropriate contribution "reflecting its common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances". The EU successfully advocated for this at successive Conferences of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which ultimately allowed the conclusion of its Paris Agreement.

It may be hoped that the openness of the EU to negotiations and co-operation in the implementation of policies such as CBAM will lead to a new kind of multilateralism as other jurisdictions react by adopting their policies – a Brussels Effect in trade and environmental policy.

This article is part of a forthcoming publication: Luca Rubini (ed), EU Trade Governance: Assessing Prometheus?, 2024, Florence: European University Institute, Global Governance Programme.

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