Ask the EU cheerleaders why its trade and regulatory policies are better than the US, and get a familiar answer. The US seems to care only about power, leverage and mercantilist market access, while Europe cares about values.

Even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, this claim was met with well-founded false accusations. But as Brussels expands its ambitions at a time when trade remains one of its most powerful policy tools, it will find a growing tension between principles and power.

A commitment to values ??means that trade access to the EU’s huge and lucrative market is increasingly shaped by conditions such as human rights, labour standards and the environment. Sometimes these concerns are clearly real, whether or not they will achieve their goals. For example, the EU spent a long time in 2020 wrestling with which trade preferences to withdraw from Cambodia due to state human rights abuses, weighing its uncertain political impact on the government against the loss of some jobs in the garment export industry.

Sometimes they look more like protectionism in disguise.when the EU Draft trade agreement with MERCOSUR Admitting to importing cheaper goods from Brazil threatens their domestic market share.

Moreover, the terms of trade are increasingly susceptible to darker motives. The EU cynically puts its restrictive immigration policies under the heading “Protecting our European way of life” (Outcry rightfully forcing it to change its label) repeated disregard for international law and human rights, illegal fight back Asylum seekers and other migrants crossing the EU’s external borders.

it agrees with a nice dirty fix Paying Turkey to take refugees to Europe during the 2015-16 migration crisis was more morally reprehensible trade With Libya – which involves thousands of migrants disappearing in ”black jail“Rape, torture and murder are common there.

Now, trade policy is also used to enforce immigration rules. as the Financial Times disclose Last week, the European Commission proposed scrapping trade preferences for countries that failed to accept asylum seekers who applied to stay in the EU. The rationale is that their countries of origin, which include Mali, Senegal and Guinea, need the best and brightest to stay at home and foster growth there.

This rationale is clearly self-serving and based on the outdated concept of “brain drain”: the smarter the development economist Is trying to retire it as a derogatory and counterproductive idea. (This argument is traditionally also Brexiteers use Against Central and Eastern European immigration to the UK – strange company reserved by the committee. ) remittances, knowledge transfers and other benefits from migrants help countries of origin far more than trap productive workers in dysfunctional economies.

Some members of the European Parliament are trying to remove the conditions for those asylum seekers. They deserve success. This is not joint trade and immigration policy. This is abusing trade to pander to anti-immigrant sentiment at home. You can justify trying to get countries to take back failed asylum seekers: it’s the law, after all. But you cannot dress the coercive threat of removing market access as an international development strategy and expect it to be taken seriously.

The EU will encounter more of these tensions as it begins to fill in the geopolitical mantle it has ambitiously draped over its scrawny frame.Most notably the committee’s Don Quixotic Plan (Joined by several member states) Quickly recognize post-conflict Ukraine membership in the EU.

The strategic logic is undeniable, the creation of Ukraine under the orbit of the EU without the full military implications of joining NATO. But under normal circumstances, Ukraine’s entry into the EU would not have been possible without years, if not decades, of painful reforms. Despite already having very good trade access, Ukraine is still poor and corrupt. Before the Russian invasion provided a strategic motivation, you could imagine the rhetoric of a right-wing tabloid like Bild about acknowledging the erratic compliance with the rule of law in another Eastern European country hungry for subsidies.

It is true that member states is resisting Application for Ukraine. It’s unclear how things will play out. But either way, the EU must choose between strategic influence and value alignment.

Hypocrisy often comes with power. The United States declared its adherence to democracy during the Cold War while establishing and supporting a government led by a global rogue gallery. Thief and mass murderer. Maybe the EU will keep proclaiming one thing and doing another, relabeling cynical self-interest as “European values”, as it does with immigration, and prioritizing security against Russia over democracy and good governance. superior. Perhaps, at least in the latter case, this is the best course of action. But if European leaders acknowledge the contradiction, it could help clarify the debate. Even if not, there is no reason for us to stop pointing out this duality.

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