EU Trade Policy in Context of Recent World Trade Developments

The article aims to point out, if the European Union realizes liberal type of trade policy or if there is rather the tendency to introduce protectionist measures in trade with third countries recently. In the first part of the article, the focus is the characterization of trade policy in general. Other parts of the article refer to the world economic development as objective factor for creating specific typ of trade policy (protectionist type/liberal type). In the other part of article, subjective factors such as economic growth, rate of employment/unemployment and trade balance are described. These factors influence the decision making process of the EU institutions when taking the trade-policy instruments. At the end of the article, some facts present the development of openness rate of the EU and level of trade protection in the EU during the last ten years.