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Global Europe and strategic sovereignty ] 163
> China
18% (2) 15%
y Oo India
LI 7% JL
me
9%
12%
Figure 11: Share of world GDP (PPP) from 2016 to 2050
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2017
Two recent key initiatives were the Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership (TTIP), which was supposed to create closer economic
cooperation with the US, and the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic
and Trade Agreement (CETA). While the CETA deal was signed, after
long negotiations, and ratified, the TTIP was never concluded due to the
opposition by President Trump and his administration in particular. However,
both TTIP and CETA provoked extensive criticism in Europe.’ Still, despite
the fact that 250,000 people protested against the TTIP, the CETA, and the
further liberalising of trade in 2015 in Berlin, to name this single case, the
European Commission's policy to propagate free trade agreements remains
nearly uncontested at the Union's upper political levels.
Free trade and investor protection agreements are being criticised from
at least three different angles, which deserve our attention. First, even from
a liberal perspective, there is criticism of the extensive use of bilateral trade
agreements, as this method establishes preferences and exclusivist regional
trade areas, which are often unfair vis-a-vis third countries that are not
part of them (Bhagwati 2008; 2013). Even though regional cooperation and
bilateral trade agreements have become standard instruments in international
trade regulation over the past decades, they often undermine multilateral
World Trade Organisation (WTO) arrangements and discriminate against
third countries. So, while the new norm - preferential treatment - sounds
4 Especially regarding TTIP, critics claimed that such agreements had the potential to force
nations to lower their environmental standards, allow the infiltration of GMO products
onto European markets, and outsource decision-making to special investor-state courts,
limiting state power in important matters (Ziegler 2016).