EU is Speeding Up Its Offensive Trade Policy. The New EU-Japan Free Trade Agreement

Abstract

In March 2013, the EU and Japan launched negotiations for a comprehensive free trade agreement (FTA). The EU also announced starting of similar negotiations with the United States. Japan decided to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership under negotiation among 11 developed and developing nations in Asia-Pacific. FTAs are not new for the multilateral trading system. Striking is, however, the outstanding pace of the new trade deals among traditional trading powers. Our paper addresses the significance of the EU-Japan FTA. It first discusses the new FTA from a broader perspective, focusing on the difficulties and ongoing structural changes in the world economy. Second, it explores its importance through the lens of EU-Japan bilateral trade relations. It concludes that the recent push for FTAs by the big trading powers is a rapid means of mutual market opening in the context of reforming the very fundamentals of their economic and trade policies, as a response to the financial crisis and the shift in economic power from developed to developing countries.

Keywords

• EU
• Japan
• free trade agreement
• trade
• trade policy
• trade negotiations