Dynamics And Structure Of The European Union'S Foreign Trade Relations At The Stage Of Latest Enlargement

In article the most important trends in foreign commodity trade of the European Union for 2004-2016 are analyzed. During this period, the European Union experienced the largest step-by-step expansion of its membership, when the number of member-countries of the integration bloc increased from 15 to 28. This process occurred against the backdrop of global crisis phenomena in the world economy system, such gradually growing characteristics of world economic evolution as its uncertainty, unpredictability, turbulence, and the periodic deteriorations of the conjuncture in some global commodity markets. A significant factor, complicating the development dynamics of a number of countries and regions of the world economy, was the introduction by the West and the repeated prolongation of anti-Russian sanctions. The above-mentioned shifts have actualized the need to study the dynamics and composite changes in the geographical and commodity structure of the European Union's foreign trade relations at the stage of its latest expansion and the process of narrowing that has begun. The conducted research showed the relative effectiveness of the European Union efforts to defend in the competitive environment its primacy in the sphere of international trade in goods.