EU External Trade Policy in the Digital Age: Has Culture Been Left Behind?

Abstract

In the face of new technological developments triggered by the process of digitization and more recently, the increased importance of data to societies, the European Union (EU) has updated its approach in external trade policy. Key changes have been made in particular in the dedicated electronic commerce/digital trade chapters of free trade agreements (FTAs) and the EU has strived to link its newer commitments on cross-border data flows with the high standards of personal data protection as endorsed by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Yet, cultural concerns, except for a general carve-out of audiovisual services, appear somewhat left behind in the EU’s new digital strategy. The chapter discusses this predicament by tracing the digital trade and culture-related provisions in the framework of EU’s FTAs, starting with earlier agreements that include cultural provisions, such as the EU–Cariforum and EU–South Korea FTAs towards more recent agreements, such as the post-Brexit Trade and Cooperation Agreement with the United Kingdom. The chapter analyzes the shift in EU’s external trade policy that seemingly now gives primacy to economic considerations and the discrete right of privacy over cultural concerns and suggests ways in which the EU may wish to integrate cultural diversity considerations in a more immediate way in its future trade deals, for instance by including provisions on digital platforms.

Keywords: digital trade, cross-border data flows, personal data protection, audiovisual services, trade and culture, cultural exception, EU FTAs, EU external cultural policy