EU–global interactions: policy export, import, promotion and protection

Abstract:

The interactions between the European Union (EU) and international policy regimes are ever more important. Much of the existing literature has focused on the bottom-up dimension of the EU's role in global institutions, assuming that the EU predominantly seeks to project its policies to the global level. However, our review of empirical research reveals that EU policy exports tend to be rare and that EU–global interactions are more varied. On a global scale, the EU is not a hegemonic power that can easily transfer its standards to international regimes, nor does it always desire to do so. This article conceptualizes the EU's interactions with international institutions in four modes (policy export, policy promotion, policy protection and policy import), establishes different rationales motivating EU actors to engage through a given mode and relates recent empirical research to this comprehensive typology.