Is the EU Trade Policy an Important Contribution to Overcome Slow Economic Growth in the EU Countries?

Abstract

The European Union is world’s greatest economic block. The 27 Member States share the single market, thus a single trade policy. Further, Europe is the world’s largest exporter of goods and services and this market is managed through the executive arm of the EU i.e. the European Commission. This means that there is one negotiator with the outside world in the name of the Member States.

However, the rates of economic growth of the EU Member States remain low, except from some slight divergence and faster growth of the new Members States, but overall on EU level the economic growth has been slow. Hence, this paper analyses the aspects of the external and internal dimension that the European trade policy poses on the growth of the economy as a whole.

The assumption is that the contribution of the EU trade policy to the economic growth is found to be moderate, if not negligible due to its character and objectives.

Keywords: EU, Trade policy, economic growth

JEL Classification: E0, F15, F53, O52