Geopoliticisation of EU Trade Policy within FTAs

The so-called ‘geopolitical turn’ in EU trade policy has been characterised by the introduction of new measures including in trade defence, investment screening, the anti-coercion instrument technological sectors and respond to the use of trade as a way of exerting political pressure. Beyond these headline policy changes, another important focus of EU action has been free trade agreements. These serve as a means of perpetuating some of the established liberal order trade rules and way to reinforce alliances with ‘like-minded’ partners in the face of a protectionist USA, rising China, aggressive Russia that have upended the international order. FTAs also aim to bolster the EU’s position in the global economy, including through guaranteeing access to markets and resources. Recent innovations in FTAs, such as energy and critical raw minerals chapters in the modernised Association Agreement with Chile, directly address EU concerns over future competitiveness in green and digital technologies and its geostrategic objective of reducing economic reliance on few suppliers and markets and on economic rivals. Leveraging public documents relating to FTAs and the work of their implementation committees and materials from interviews with key informants, this paper addresses the question of the extent to which recent ‘geopoliticisation’ has altered the design and implementation of recent EU FTAs, paying particular attention to discrepancies between stated objectives and practical operationalisation. It turns attention to an aspect of trade policy underexplored by the growing literature on the geopoliticisation of EU trade policy.