EU Trade Policy Meets Geopolitics: What About Trade Justice?

On 18 February 2021 the Commission issued its trade policy review. The new trade strategy marks a radical shift from the previously insulated, technocratic and mostly free trade-oriented position of the Commission’s Directorate General for Trade. After decades of following a headstrong course, EU trade officials seem to finally join the European foreign policy family. Since COVID-19 struck the European continent, EU trade talk has adopted the ‘resilience’ and ‘strategic autonomy’ concepts that were already central to the EU Global Strategy. By introducing ‘assertiveness’ as a key concept into the title – next to the more familiar ‘open’ and ‘sustainable’ – the new trade strategy clearly aligns itself with the geopolitical ambitions of the Von der Leyen Commission. Already before COVID-19, scholars noticed a ‘geopoliticization’ of EU trade policy claiming to be ‘less naïve’ and more ‘muscular’, for instance towards China. Indicative of this trend is the new ‘enforceability’ agenda. In December