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Global Europe and strategic sovereignty ] 165 Third, there also exist several streams of right-wing conservative and nationalistic criticism of the Unions trade regime. While most of the major conservative parties in Europe support free trade, there seems to be a growing aversion towards such policies among right-wing constituencies. Some would argue that sovereignty pooling has reached its limits (Fekete 2018), and that this is also true in free trade. From a more nationalistic perspective, this means that nations should support their own domestic producers, and that this is exactly what free trade policies are preventing. These views also consider the strict EU policies on state aid and the ultra-liberalised open borders within the Union as measures that hinder nation-states in reacting to international developments and supporting their own interests and producers, by ignoring or denying that these nation-states remain the fundamental building blocks of the international system. From this perspective, the EU’s free trade policies are criticised from an empirical perspective as well, and are often presented as the main cause of the collapse of certain economic sectors within the Union due to their dislocation to other countries, mostly in Asia. We may not share and accept these critical viewpoints, but it would be a mistake to ignore them. In the light of the changing world order, the EU needs to invest in a genuine rethinking of its trade system with the aim of enhancing its legitimacy and efficiency. In this process, citizens’ voices and demands should be listened to and paid special attention. Furthermore, it is now high time to engage in a broader reflection on the Unions trade policy objectives. It should be asked what the aims to achieve through free trade agreements exactly are, and whether these aims are achievable through such deals at all. Market-bias in EU policies has been well documented, and this bias should be kept in balance. Consequently, it is crucial to compensate the losers of free trade. Right now, this only happens in the field of agricultural products via the Unions Common Agricultural Policy. There is a need to restructure other sectors as well. Otherwise, the EU will lose on both the competitiveness and legitimacy sides. All in all, while free trade shall be maintained as a cornerstone of contemporary European and global systems and order, an honest and democratic public debate about its downsides should also be encouraged. In this context, some important questions regarding the trade-strategic sovereignty nexus are to be answered as well. First of all, how much will the EU let its trade preferences be shaped and steered by business actors, or how much will it consider this to be the role and prerogative of political decisionmakers? And even if the Union decides to consolidate its political control over trade policies, another dilemma is whether, and in which way, it aims and is ready to use trade as an instrument for enhancing its stance in the global arena and achieving its geopolitical objectives.
