The EU’s Assertive Trade Policy: A Redefining Moment for European Integration?

Since 2019, scholars have paid growing attention to the European Union’s response to the weaponization of trade interdependence, often captured by the notion of geopoliticization. The war in Ukraine, however, has reignited this debate through a new vocabulary of turning points – the geopolitical, geo-economic, or even geo-dirigiste turns. This article argues that this conceptual proliferation risks obscuring rather than clarifying how and why the EU’s trade preferences are changing. Rather than treating trade and foreign policy in isolation, the paper explores how trade policy developments have spilled over into other fields of EU policymaking, shaping a broader “strategic turn.” It engages with recent analyses highlighting the EU’s shift away from technocratic and liberalization-oriented approaches toward a more interest-driven and security-conscious outlook. Building on these insights, the paper suggests that revisiting the idea of functional spillovers—while accounting for the politicization of trade—can help make sense of the EU’s evolving strategic posture. In doing so, it aims to spark a conversation on how to better theorize the EU’s “strategic turn” and to clarify the conceptual foundations that underpin current debates on the geopoliticization of European integration.