Revista OEconomica

Raluca-Georgiana ROBU, Maria GHEORGHE (NIŢU), Valentin COJANU, Alexia-Maria POPESCU - Between Opportunity and Dependency: The Evolution of Romania’s Trade with Asian Economies [Între oportunitate şi dependenţă: evoluţia comerţului României cu economiile asiatice]

Narciz BĂLĂŞOIU, Octavian-Dragomir JORA, Răzvan Marian PÎRCĂLĂBESCU - Romania’s Positioning and Room for Manoeuvre: The Dilemmas of Peripheral Adaptation in the New Indo-Pacific [Poziţionarea şi marjele de manevră ale României: dilemele adaptării periferice în noul Indo-Pacific]

Mădălina JURUBIțĂ - Redefining EU Trade Policy for an Age of Geoeconomic Rivalry: Strategic Autonomy, Security, and Resilience

Geicun MUSTAFA - Islamophobia as an Informal Trade Barrier: Reputational Risk and the Political Economy of Deglobalization

Hesam JEBELI-BAKHT-ARA - Racialized Capitalism and Economic Discrimination: The Case of Ethnic Labour Segmentation in Contemporary Europe

Articles on Issue Theme

Mădălina JURUBIțĂ

Academia de Studii Economice din Bucureşti

Accelerating geopolitical shocks and geoeconomic competition after 2020 have pushed the European Union to revisit the purpose and toolkit of its trade policy. This paper maps the key redefinitions required for the Common Commercial Policy (CCP) in a context marked by supply-chain disruptions, war in the EU’s neighbourhood, systemic rivalry in the Indo-Pacific, and heightened contestation over technology and critical inputs. The analysis first clarifies the boundary between trade policy and the broader external economic policy, then reviews the evolution of CCP competences and the institutional architecture shaping EU decision-making. Building on recent debates on fragmentation of globalization, selective de-risking/decoupling, and the securitization of interdependence, the paper assesses how trade instruments increasingly serve objectives of economic security, sustainability, and strategic autonomy. An applied comparison of the EU’s trade stance toward China and the United States highlights both trade-offs and complementarities across areas such as trade defence, FDI screening, standards, and climate-related conditionality. The paper concludes with policy recommendations aimed at improving coherence across instruments and aligning trade policy with the Union’s external objectives while preserving openness through risk-managed engagement.

ŒCONOMICA no. 4/2025

Keywords: EU trade policy, Common Commercial Policy, geoeconomics, economic security, open strategic autonomy, de-risking and decoupling, global value chains, trade defence instruments, FDI screening, sustainability conditionality, EU-China relations, EU-US relations

JEL: F13, F15, F51, F52, F55, O19

Redefining EU Trade Policy for an Age of Geoeconomic Rivalry: Strategic Autonomy, Security, and Resilience

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