Promoting 'green' and 'social' values with China : assessing EU trade-related cooperation on sustainable development

Abstract

The present eBook is a product of the RESPECT project [ www. respect.eui.eu ]. The authors are indebted to many colleagues from universities in Europe, China and the US, for insightful discussion and valuable suggestions. In particular, we wish to thank Bernard Hoekman for encouragement, suggestions and his insistence to bring out this eBook. The theme and its in-depth treatment is neither a run-of-the-mill analysis of EU Trade Policy, nor of EU-China cooperative relations. Trade policy specialists do not deal with bilateral cooperation, with some occasional sectoral exceptions. The debates in the EU circuits are almost entirely focussed on trade negotiations and mutually agreed ‘hard’ obligations. We show that there is more and that, in the case of EU-China, it matters for sustainable development whilst supporting an important plank of EU trade policy.