The EU negotiations differ from traditional international negotiations in several respects and this book presents a detailed analysis of the processes while examining its distinguishing features.

The European Union, the world's foremost trader, is not an easy bargainer to deal with. Its twenty-five member states have relinquished most of their sovereignty in trade to the supranational level, and in international commercial negotiations, such as those conducted under the World Trade Organization, the EU speaks with a "single voice." This single voice has enabled the Brussels-based institution to impact the distributional outcomes of international trade negotiations and shape the global political economy. Trading Voices is the most comprehensive book about the politics of trade policy in the EU and the role of the EU as a central actor in international commercial negotiations. Sophie Meunier explores how this pooling of trade policy-making and external representation affects the EU's bargaining power in international trade talks. Using institutionalist analysis, she argues that its complex institutional procedures and multiple masters have, more than once, forced its trade partners to give in to an EU speaking with a single voice. Through analysis of four transatlantic commercial negotiations over agriculture, public procurement, and civil aviation, Trading Voices explores the politics of international trade bargaining. It also addresses the salient political question of whether efficiency at negotiating comes at the expense of democratic legitimacy. Finally, this book looks at how the EU, with its recent enlargement and proposed constitution, might become an even more formidable rival to the United States in shaping globalization.

This book argues on EU enlargement looks at how EU members and applicant states negotiate enlargement benefits and costs.

Analysing the relationship between EU unity and effectiveness in multilateral negotiations on food standards, climate change and health, this book develops a new model that simplifies earlier work on 'actorness' as well as combining insights from institutionalist, intergovernmentalist and constructivist theories.

Economic and monetary union in the European Union represents a massive change for Europe and for the world. The Road to Maastricht identifies why the agreement was possible and how the agreement was made. The book examines the motives that inspired European political leaders, the strategies that they pursued, and the institutions that were used to achieve monetary union. Drawing on a wide range of sources and unprecedented research and interviews, the book combines careful political analysis with new information about the way in which European Monetary Union was negotiated. It delves into the complex forces at work in Europe, including the cross-national political interactions, to produce an authoritative account of the boldest and riskiest venture in the history of European integration.

In this 2006 book, Jonas Tallberg offers a novel perspective on some of the most fundamental questions about international cooperation and European Union politics. Offering the first systematic theoretical and empirical exploration of the influence wielded by chairmen of multilateral negotiations, Tallberg develops a rationalist theory of formal leadership and demonstrates its explanatory power through carefully selected case studies of EU negotiations. He shows that the rotating Presidency of the EU constitutes a power platform that grants governments unique opportunities to shape the outcomes of negotiations. His provocative analysis establishes that Presidencies, while performing vital functions for the EU, simultaneously exploit their privileged political position to favour national interests. Extending the scope of the analysis to international negotiations on trade, security and the environment, Tallberg further demonstrates that the influence of the EU Presidency is not an isolated occurrence but the expression of a general phenomenon in world politics - the power of the chair.

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. This book provides a distinctive and empirically rich account of the European Union’s relationship with the Common Market of the South (Mercosur). It seeks to examine the motivations that determine the EU’s policy towards Mercosur; the most important relationship the EU has with another regional economic integration organization. In order to investigate these motivations (or lack thereof), this study examines the contribution of the main policy- and decision-makers, the European Commission and the Council of Ministers, as well as the different contributions of the two institutions. It analyses the development of EU policy towards Mercosur in relation to three key stages. Arana argues that the dominant explanations in the literature fail to adequately explain the EU’s policy, in particular, these accounts tend to infer the EU’s motives from its activity. Rather than the EU pursuing a strategy, as implied by most of the existing literature, the EU was largely responsive, which explains why the relationship is much less developed than the EU’s relations with other parts of the world.