Montreal

Draft. Please don’t cite without permission. Comments encouraged. The European Union is the world’s largest exporter of goods and services and the world’s largest market. It is also a key player in multilateral trade negotiations. It is, however, an unusual ‘trade power ’ in that it is an international organisation, as well as an international actor. This means that its negotiating positions reflect the aggregation of the preferences of the governments of its member states. In the EU trade policy literature this situation is usually captured by the metaphor of the ‘three level game: ’ domestic, European and international. In practice, however, the tendency has been to treat the member states ’ positions as given, effectively collapsing the three-level game into a two-level game with the European level as the ‘domestic ’ level. Moreover, the member states ’ preferences regarding liberalisation or protectionism are taken to be fairly stable. This paper argues that while there is some merit in such assumptions they are becoming increasingly unsustainable. This paper argues that the member states ’ trade policy preferences are shifting and becoming more complex for four reasons, most of which are common to all developed states