What game? By which rules? Adaptation and flexibility in the EC's Foreign Economic Policy

Abstract

[Conclusion] This chapter has challenged the common perception that the EC's foreign economic policy is firmly supranational (see, for example, M. E. Smith, 2001). It has also illustrated how the institutional context in which the member governments choose whether to cooperate has changed over time and not always in ways that they favoured. Thus this chapter has demonstrated that the EC's status as an international actor is complicated even within economic policy. In doing so it has revealed that there are a variety of forms of cooperation among which the EC's member governments can choose if they decide to cooperate. This suggests that it may be worth thinking about the different forms of cooperation in EC foreign economic policy as forming a spectrum ranging from no cooperation through ‘soft’ cooperation to 'hard' cooperation, where exclusive EC competence applies. Considered in this light, the differences between the practices in the EC's different external policies may not be so stark as it might at first appear. Show more