Date: 2009
Type: Thesis
Building EU Trade Governance. The European Commission and Non-State Actors in External Trade in Services Policy
Florence : European University Institute, 2009, EUI, SPS, PhD Thesis
LIETAERT, Matthieu, Building EU Trade Governance. The European Commission and Non-State Actors in External Trade in Services Policy, Florence : European University Institute, 2009, EUI, SPS, PhD Thesis - https://hdl.handle.net/1814/17694
Retrieved from Cadmus, EUI Research Repository
This thesis contributes to the literature on EU studies by analysing how and why the European Union adopted a new trade agenda in the mid-1990s that departed from previous policies. While the EU was focused largely on its internal market from the mid-1980s onwards, external trade strategy became a key item on the agenda a decade later, wrapped in a more aggressive and free-market stance. I argue that the European Commission rather than the EU member-states was the key player in the decade that followed the signature of the Uruguay Round, and introduced services into trade negotiations. More precisely, based on empirical data from the years when Leon Brittan (1994-1999) and Pascal Lamy (1999-2004) presided as EU Trade Commissioners, the thesis analyses the European Commission’s central role as a skilful ‘network creator’ both in pushing for, and legitimising, an expansion of the free-trade agenda from goods to services. However, this research also argues that the Commission did not act alone, and that different kinds of non-state actors must also be analysed in order to understand changing EU trade governance at the dawn of the 21st century.
Additional information:
Defence date: 26 October 2009; Examining Board: David Coen (UCL), Martin Rhodes (University of Denver, formerly EUI) (Supervisor), Sven Steinmo (EUI), Bastiaan van Apeldoorn (VU Amsterdam); First made available online: 29 July 2021
Cadmus permanent link: https://hdl.handle.net/1814/17694
Full-text via DOI: 10.2870/257452
Series/Number: EUI; SPS; PhD Thesis
Publisher: European University Institute
LC Subject Heading: European Union countries -- Commercial policy; European Union countries -- Foreign economic relations; European Services Industries Forum