European Union common commercial policy: continuity or change

An effective international trade and investment policy is important for the European Union and to the EU is important for the maintenance of an open, rules-based trading system. The challenges facing the trading system in terms of a structural shift in influence away from the former Quad (the USA, EU, Japan and Canada) as well as mercantilist and populist tendencies in some major trading partners call for a strategic response from the EU. At the same time domestic demands for greater transparency and democratic control of the Common Commercial Policy (CCP) are a potential brake on the ability of the EU to act. At issue therefore is how the EU can reconcile these international and domestic dimensions of policy so that the credibility of the EU as a leading actor in the international trade and investment is not undermined or questioned. To date the modifications of the CCP in the Lisbon Treaty have managed to cope reasonably well, but EU institutions and in particular the Member State governments need to engage more in a public debate on the aims and limitations of the CCP.