The European Union’s trade policies and their economic effects

I. Progress Towards Freer Trade: An Overview -- Internal integration improves access of third countries -- An expanding network of regional trade arrangements -- Multilateral liberalisation has kept momentum -- II. The Currrent Trade Regime in International Comparison -- -Tariff barriers are losing in importance -- Greater transparency of non-tariff barriers -- Agricultural protection remains high -- Services are undergoing major liberalisation and e-commerce takes off -- Cross-border competition issues receive more attention -- Harmonisation of standards: a response to increasing technical barriers to trade -- The EU's market access strategy -- III. Economic Effects of Trade Liberalisation -- -Eyeballing trade indicators -- Trade creation and trade diversion -- Investment and trade liberalisation -- Trade and growth -- Trade and employment -- IV. The Future Agenda -- -Cooperation on trade-related issues -- Deepening regional integration -- The multilateral agenda -- Notes -- Glossary of terms and acronyms -- Bibliography -- Annex I. The Institutional Framework and Treaty Provisions -- Annex II. Trade and Growth in the European Union This book retraces the Communities external liberalisation efforts, and discusses, where relevant, the repercussions of internal liberalisation on foreign competitors. The aim of this book is to clarify, and when feasible, to quantify the economic effects of the EU's trade policies. To this end, it provides an overview of past liberalisation efforts, reviews trade indicators in international comparison and lays out the future trade agenda of the Community. According to the empirical evidence provided in this volume, integration in Europe does not seem to have entailed much trade diversion, wh