NCCR - EC and WTO - Adapting the European Community Legal Structure to the International Trade

Abstract

Since the origin, the EC has had to change and develop its institutional law (or primary legislation), which defines the concept and the scope of the Common Commercial Policy, to follow as much as possible the protean mutations of the international trade system governance. Our study relates to the very causes that have come about from the standards resulting from World Trade Organisation agreements and which induce an adaptation of the primary legislation. We will focus on the evolution of the CCP which shows a strong and progressive increase in the EC competence, as well as simultaneously presumes an accepted erosion in the sovereignty of the EC Member States sovereignty. The CCP evolution highlights the deepening of the European integration process through the elaboration of new decision-making mechanisms in matter of commercial policy. In this connection, the pivotal question is: according to the WTO frame, how to allocate power between the EU institutions and governments of the Member States on the one hand, and between different parts of the EU institutions on the other? Indirectly then, the WTO, in the light of the questions raised, is contributing to the EU past, present and future structural evolution.

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