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Project

The European Commission’s Internal and External Strategies in International Trade Negotiations - An Empirical Analysis of the European Community’s Negotiations of Voluntary Export Restraints with Japan from the 1980s to the Early 1990s

The objective of this dissertation is to analyse the European Commission’s internal and external strategies during the European Community’s (EC’s) bilateral trade negotiations of voluntary export restraints (VERs) with Japan from the 1980s to the early 1990s. Despite the proliferation of VERs in international trade policy from the 1980s to the early 1990s, the study of European Union (EU) trade policy almost exclusively analyses multilateral and bilateral trade negotiations of formal trade agreements, and the study has surprisingly paid little attention to the EC’s negotiation of VERs as informal trade arrangements.

In order to fill in this empirical research gap, as typical examples of the EC’s VER negotiations, this dissertation traces the following two bilateral VER negotiations with Japan: The EC-level Japanese VERs on ten products agreed in 1983 (Case 1 - Chapter 3), and the EC-Japan Automobile Arrangement (“Elements of Consensus”) agreed in 1991 (Case 2 – Chapter 4). Based on existing rational institutionalist debates inspired by the principal-agent (P-A) model and the two-level game model, this dissertation examines the European Commission’s internal framing strategy vis-à-vis EC Member States and its external ‘tied-hands’ strategy vis-à-vis Japan (Chapter 2). Methodologically, unlike existing empirical studies on the EU’s recent trade negotiations, this dissertation utilises qualitative data from recently disclosed historical documents at EU and Japanese archives, which include extensive negotiation records for the process tracing of the two cases (Chapter 2).

First, unlike the EU’s negotiation of formal trade agreements where the European Commission’s representation of the EU is taken for granted, this dissertation unveils the mechanisms of how the European Commission came to represent the EC on behalf of the Council in the EC’s VER negotiations with Japan. In Case 1, through the European Commission’s effective internal framing strategy with the idea of the EC’s unity, EC Member States accepted the European Commission’s representation of the EC. In Case 2, since the idea of the EC’s unity became a rule of the game among EC Member States after the launch of the Single European Market, the European Commission continued to represent the EC.

Second, this dissertation investigates the European Commission’s trade negotiations not only with the Council’s negotiation mandate but also without it. The latter situation is not possible in the EU’s negotiation of formal trade agreements. In Case 1, through the European Commission’s effective internal framing strategy with the idea of the EC’s unity, the Council decided the EC’s joint position based on its negotiation mandate. Through the European Commission’s effective external tied-hands strategy, Japan agreed on the EC-level VERs with the European Commission. Consequently, the European Commission’s bargaining leverage was high. In contrast, in Case 2, without the Council’s negotiation mandate, the European Commission had simultaneous internal and external negotiations with EC Member States and Japan. Internally, due to EC Member States’ counter-framing strategy with the idea of the EC’s unity, the European Commission’s framing strategy with the same idea was ineffective vis-à-vis EC Member States. Externally, the European Commission’s ‘stick and carrot’ strategy was ineffective vis-a-vis Japan because Japan acknowledged the EC’s internal division and articulated its own economic preferences. Consequently, the European Commission’s bargaining leverage was low.

These empirical findings have the following implications for  the study of EU trade policy (Chapter 5). Concerning the European Commission’s internal strategy, first, in addition to the EC’s institutional rules, the European Commission’s framing strategy and EC Member States’ reactions had critical influences on the EC’s joint position or its lack vis-à-vis Japan. Second, once an idea was highly internalised among participants (EC Member States) and became the rule of the game, self-interested rational participants could strategically interpret and employ the idea to achieve their own objective. This might hinder the original objective of an entrepreneur (the European Commission). Regarding the European Commission’s external strategy, first, while the Council’s ex ante consensual decision-making might make third countries acknowledge the European Commission’s little possible concession, its ex post consensual decision-making alone might make them acknowledge the European Commission’s flexible concession. Second, the lack of the EU’s joint position might negatively influence third countries’ external perceptions of the EU.

Date:17 Apr 2019 →  17 Apr 2023
Keywords:Japan, European Community (EC), European Commission, European Union (EU), international trade negotiations, voluntary export restraints
Disciplines:International politics, Political economy, National politics not elsewhere classified, European union politics
Project type:PhD project