期刊名称：Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi
印刷版ISSN：1302-3284
电子版ISSN：1308-0911
出版年度：2010
卷号：12
期号：2
页码：7-16
出版社：Dokuz Eylul Univeristy
摘要：The agenda of global trade recently is dominated by the world’s most severe financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression. After decades of steady growth, the volume of international trade shrank for the first time since the Second World War (Bellmann, et al. 2010: 163). The remarkable trade reforms of the 1980s and 90s slowed down in the early 21st century. While the 1990s witnessed major achievements in terms of trade policy such as the Uruguay round, the Single Market of the European Union, the North-America Free Trade Area (NAFTA), the zero-tariff agreement on trade in ICT goods (ITA) – the first years of the 21st century have been “a lost decade” (ECIPE, 2010: 3). Reforms aiming to open economies to global competition have been limited in the new century, and many countries have become more defensive in trade relations. In terms of the WTO negotiations, the Doha Round of trade talks is almost in deadlock, and neither EU nor USA is taking political leadership for making it work. In addition, there are many who argue that the Doha Round agenda does not reflect present problems but reflects concerns of the late 1990s. Thus many countries and global actors including the EU, not finding a solution at the multilateral level, try to address the issues through bilateral measures. Preferential Trade Agreements (PTA), and/or bilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTA), are in their heyday. The global economic crisis has set off fears of creeping protectionism. The developed nations breed the protectionism with the perception of “Keynes at home, Smith abroad” (ECIPE, 2009). The number of PTAs in force has increased swiftly; around 250 PTAs have been notified to the WTO. Other bilateral agreements are being negotiated in different parts of the world. The European Union has joined the FTA trend in 2006, under its trade strategy labelled “Global Europe: Competing in the World”, which underlines the importance of strengthening bilateral trade relations with a set of carefully targeted emerging markets. Although the policy statements reiterate the EU’s commitment to multilateralism in trade and to the completion of the Doha Development Agenda ( Woolcock 2006: 1), EU usually sees FTAs as a faster and more flexible way to secure preferential market access in the absence of progress at the multilateral level (Bellmann 2010: 178). The trade policy climate in the coming years will not be very different and it will affect the mood for trade liberalisation reforms. The recent Europe 2020 strategy of the EU aims to achieve prompt recovery of the crisis, and then to set out to enhance structural change and drive economic growth. It recognizes that “the EU has prospered through trade, exporting round the world and importing inputs as well asfinished goods.” It also concludes that “faced with intense pressure on export markets and for a growing range of inputs “, it must improve its competitiveness through higher productivity. However it does not have a specific trade component but rather says that the Commission will draw up a trade strategy in 2010(European Commission, 2010: 12, 22).
