EU Trade Governance: Assessing Prometheus

Abstract

This lecture will focus on EU trade governance in these turbulent and exceptional times. It will use EU action in the fields of industrial policy and competitiveness, and the fight of climate change as case-studies. The first case-study will focus on the recent EU initiatives with respect to subsidies, in particular the Foreign Subsidy Regulation (FSR) and the reconstruction of trade remedies to tackle transnational subsidies. The second case-study will concentrate on the extension of the Emissions Trading System (ETS) beyond the EU via the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). Drawing on the Greek myth of Prometheus, the lecture will enquire whether the EU action in these fields has been 'clever' but at the same time 'full of various wiles' - as the Greek mythological figure was believed to be. Ultimately, these two rich and salient case-studies will enable a broader assessment of recent EU trade policy, its innovations as well as its side-effects and difficulties.