The external dimension of the EU’s global competitiveness
The external dimension of the EU’s global competitiveness

Author(s): Miklós Losoncz
Subject(s): Supranational / Global Economy, Geopolitics
Published by: Kossuth Kiadó Zt.
Summary/Abstract: The objective of this paper is to analyse the external dimension of the EU’s global competitiveness. For a rather long time, only the supply factors of competitiveness have been considered by EU institutions. No attention has been paid to demand factors in general and external demand in particular. This is surprising because the EU’s global competitiveness EU depends not only on the nature of supply in terms of rate of growth, changes in its structure, etc., but to a large extent on external factors as well. Therefore, external demand needs to be addressed and influenced by the EU. In a possible approach two factors should be distinguished in the external dimension: the first one is trade in a broad context including not only goods, but services as well, and the second one is trade policy with its objectives, institutions and policy tools meant to promote external economic relations, including trade. As it is well-known trade policy was the first common policy in the predecessors of the European Union. Its scope has broadened over time, since emerging tradeable services and other activities enriched it. Therefore it seems to be justified to refer to common external economic policy rather than trade policy to address the changes of the past 20-30 years.

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