From neoliberal to geopolitical EU trade policy? Five questions and two traps
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Geopolitical EU trade policy
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Geopolitical EU Trade Policy
I’m honoured to be invited to speak about this important topic, but to be honest I’m also very
confused. So in my talk I will mainly ask questions – basically 5 questions – because again I’m
really puzzled about what happened in the past years.
When we had this same conference seven...
From neoliberal to geopolitical EU trade policy? Five questions and two traps Jan Orbie (Ghent University) The speech below was presented at the ‘Future of Trade Conference ’, organized by the ÖFSE on 23 -25 June (Vienna). The purpose of the conference was to bring stakeholders from academia, civ il society and politics together to discuss analysis and visions on the future of trade and intern ational economic cooperation. Because I am too lazy to elaborate this in an article and too vain to n ot make it public, the text below provides the written version of my contribution. The presentation was part of the opening panel of the conference, ‘From neolibera l to geopolitical trade? Assessing changes in the global political economy and its impacts on trade and investment policies’, in which also Sandra Polaski (Former ILO/Boston University) and Andreas Bieler (N ottingham University) participated. It was moderated by Bernhard Tröster (ÖFSE). A video recording can be found here: https://youtu.be/aVWqF9D3UwM?si=N8rXVMkUv_5HyNGv I’m honoured to be invited to speak about this important topic, but to be ho nest I’m also very confused. So in my talk I will mainly ask questions – basically 5 questions – because again I’m really puzzled about what happened in the past years. When we had this same conference seven years ago, it was clear tha t (from a progressive perspective) neoliberalism was the enemy. And TTIP and CETA were the key examples of derailed free trade project and the key targets of activism. Now today, neoliberalism is almost dead; it is being killed, but w e did not do it; it’s not progressive activists or academics who can take credit. I don’t want to find out ‘whodunit’; but it is clear that both th e US and the EU talk about international economic interdependence as something dangerous, as a risk for national security; and they largely agree that trade is and should be ‘geopolitica l’. For me this raises 5 questions – that will structure my intervention. First, what happened to the window that opened in the beginning of the covid pandemic? Remember, in the Spring of 2020, to paraphrase Gramsci, the old was dying and the new was not yet born. It was clear that neoliberalism had failed but geopolitics h ad not yet presented itself as a clear alternative. The global health crises provided a blun t illustration of the flaws of capitalism: it had become clear that human intrusion in nature had gone too far, we learned to distinguish ‘essential jobs’ from ‘bullshit jobs’, the mechanisms of inequality became crystal -clear. Concepts such as the ‘economy of care’, the ‘doughnut economy’ and de/post -growth became popular. Rising state support was no longer taboo and it seemed that loca l, fairer and more resilient trading systems could be created. Furthermore, the worldwide resonance o f the Black Lives Matters movement (also in 2020) highlighted the racial and col onial dimension of the capitalist system. All this seemed to provide fertile soil for trade justice advocacy . What we are getting instead is the abandonment of neol iberalism, and the geopoliticization and securitization of trade . Interestingly, in institutional terms, key trade strategies are no lon ger formulated by the Trade Representatives or Trade Commissioners. In a recent speech, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was merciless in ridiculizing the logic of trade liberalization; in the EU, it was Commission President Ursula von der Leyen who earlier th is week proposed the ‘Economic Security Strategy’ for the EU, highlighting the need for more protection. EU discourse is a bit more diplomatic about the fate of free trade, but the EU’s depar ture from earlier neoliberal thinking is highly remarkable. Even the ambiguous ‘Open Strategi c Economy’ concept has disappeared. It is also clear that this is a fight against China – to be sure, the word ‘China’ does not appear once in the EU’s Economic Security Strategy, it reminds me of Voldomo rt in Harry Potter, where China
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