The ‘Level Playing Field’ Metaphor: Revealing a Competitive Move in EU Free Trade Agreements

The European Union’s (EU’s) ‘New Generation’ Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) often contain ‘level playing field’ obligations. ‘Level playing field’ obligations, in this context, are minimum, reciprocal obligations usually with respect to taxation, state-aid, and both labour and environmental standards. This short article is not so much concerned with these obligations or their effect, as it is with the use of the ‘level playing field’ metaphor to describe them, specifically in the context of labour and environmental standards. Through an examination of the actual usage, meaning and context of the level playing field metaphor, the article analyses and rejects arguments that a commitment to a level playing field in fact indicates a change on the part of states away from ‘free’ trade to ‘fair’. Rather, it demonstrates that the level playing field metaphor, at least in the context of EU FTAs, in fact functions as a kind of linguistic disguise for a competitive move in trade agreements. Level Playing Field, EU Trade, Free Trade Agreements, Free Trade, Fair Trade, Sustainabilty, Labour, Environment, Metaphor, Cognitive Metaphor Theory