EU’s Resilience in the Multilateral Trade System

Since Cancun 2003, the so –called Old Quad conformed by the US, the EU, Japan and Canada has been replaced by other groups of countries (G4, G5, G6 and G7) in the consensus building core of the Doha Development Round (DDR). As a result, the new decision-making core at multilateral level includes Brazil, India and China –the BIC. This paper shows that while the EU first reaction to this shift in power distribution was accommodation, it has reversed towards entrenchment since 2009.  From 2004 to 2008, the EU accepted the BIC in the core decision-making groups of the Doha negotiations, made several concessions to their demands and launched the Global Europe trade approach that focused on free-trade arrangements with emerging/Asian countries. Since 2009, the EU has not offered further concessions and has radicalized its free trade strategy, engaging in free trade negotiations with Japan, Canada and even the US.   

We argue that these results indicate that entrenchment has been a second best option for the EU. This interpretation is based on the assumption that the EU remains committed to effective multilateralism - in this case, to a multilateral agreement. If this assumption is sound, the EU would have only turned towards an “exit tactic” in the DDR as a second-choice because the odds against effective multilateralism are higher with such stratagem. It is interesting to point out, however, that if this assumption were not sound entrenchment could be a first option because it may enhance EU’s normative power.