IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/avo/emipdu/v16y2007i2p193-210.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Regionalization And Regional Economic Cooperation European Integration

Author

Listed:
  • Huguette Laermans

    (High School St.-Niklaas - Belgium)

  • Paul Roosens

    (University of Antwerp - Belgium)

Abstract

At the time of writing this article, the European Union (EU) is fifty years old. With its 27 member states today, and with Croatia and other countries to join in the future as well, the EU is no doubt one of the most successful economic integration blocs in the world. Nevertheless economic integration or regionalism always will remain a second best solution compared to multilateral trade liberalization. In the Treaty of Rome (1957), the customs union was chosen as the basic option for economic integration, and not the free trade area which was adopted for instance by NAFTA and EFTA. The choice for the customs union relies more on political than on economic arguments. Since the achievement of the customs union in 1968, the EU became over the years a common market, an economic union, and a monetary union limited to the countries that adopted the euro in the meantime. The EU as a market economy requires free interaction between producers and consumers. There is however in customs union theory some built in bias in favor of the producers. This tendency is confirmed by many producer oriented policies in the EU, and these are not sufficiently compensated by the soft policy on consumer protection. The performance of the EU is not optimal in fields such as efficiency, effectiveness, representation, and accountability. The Constitution offers a regulatory framework for a better performance of the EU. Unfortunately, the Constitution has been rejected in 2005 by the negative referendum in France and the Netherlands. On 23 June 2007, the heads of state of the EU decided to go ahead with a scaled down version of the Constitution. Implementation of this Reform Treaty is expected in 2009.

Suggested Citation

  • Huguette Laermans & Paul Roosens, 2007. "Regionalization And Regional Economic Cooperation European Integration," Economic Thought and Practice, Department of Economics and Business, University of Dubrovnik, vol. 16(2), pages 193-210, december.
    • Handle: RePEc:avo:emipdu:v:16:y:2007:i:2:p:193-210
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php/clanak/33525
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Broscheid, Andreas & Coen, David, 2006. "Lobbying systems in the European Union: A quantitative study," MPIfG Working Paper 06/3, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    2. Harry G. Johnson, 1965. "An Economic Theory of Protectionism, Tariff Bargaining, and the Formation of Customs Unions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 73(3), pages 256-256.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pachara Lochindaratn, 2007. "Market Size, Market Structure, and Welfare Improving Regional Economic Integration: The Computable General Equilibrium Modelling Approach," EcoMod2007 23900053, EcoMod.
    2. Lucian Cernat, 2003. "Assessing South–South Regional Integration: Same Issues, Many Metrics," UNCTAD Blue Series Papers 21, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
    3. Saggi, Kamal & Wong, Woan Foong & Yildiz, Halis Murat, 2017. "Preferential Trade Agreements and Rules of the Multilateral Trading System," MPRA Paper 76330, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Guglielmo Caporale & Christophe Rault & Robert Sova & Anamaria Sova, 2009. "On the bilateral trade effects of free trade agreements between the EU-15 and the CEEC-4 countries," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 145(3), pages 573-573, October.
    5. Paul Wonnacott & Ronald Wonnacott, 2005. "What's the Point of Reciprocal Trade Negotiations? Exports, Imports, and Gains from Trade," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 1-20, January.
    6. Kamal Saggi & Woan Foong Wong & Halis Murat Yildiz, 2022. "The role of non‐discrimination in a world of discriminatory preferential trade agreements," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(1), pages 174-212, February.
    7. John Tressler, 1978. "Political Goods and Trade Theory," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 22(1), pages 51-59, March.
    8. Lucian Cernat, 2001. "ASSESSING REGIONAL TRADE ARRANGEMENTS: ARE SOUTH–SOUTH RTAs MORE TRADE DIVERTING?," International Trade 0109001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Panagariya, A., 1997. "Preferential trading and the myth of natural trading partners," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 471-489, December.
    10. Breton, Albert & Salmon, Pierre, 2001. "External effects of domestic regulations: comparing internal and international barriers to trade," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 135-155, June.
    11. Hinnerk Gnutzmann & Arevik Gnutzmann‐Mkrtchyan, 2019. "The silent success of customs unions," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(1), pages 178-224, February.
    12. Langhammer, Rolf J. & Wößmann, Ludger, . "Erscheinungsformen regionaler Integrationsabkommen im weltwirtschaftlichen Ordnungsrahmen: Defizite und Dynamik," Chapters in Economics,, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    13. Krishna, Pravin & Bhagwati, Jagdish, 1997. "Necessarily welfare-enhancing customs unions with industrialization constraints: The Cooper-Massell-Johnson-Bhagwati conjecture," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 441-446, December.
    14. Paul Wonnacott & Ronald J. Wonnacott, 1982. "Free Trade between the United States and Canada: Fifteen Years Later," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 8(s1), pages 412-427, October.
    15. Jacques Fontanel, 1999. "L'entreprise globale dans l'économie de marché," Post-Print hal-03328184, HAL.
    16. Jacques Fontanel, 2007. "Introduction. L’essor des organisations économiques internationales," Post-Print hal-03326633, HAL.
    17. Barbara Dluhosch & Nikolai Ziegler, 2011. "The paradox of weakness in the politics of trade integration," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 325-354, December.
    18. Li, Chunding & Whalley, John, 2014. "China's potential future growth and gains from trade policy bargaining: Some numerical simulation results," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 65-78.
    19. Foroutan, Faezeh & Pritchett, Lant, 1993. "Intra-sub-Saharan African Trade: Is It Too Little?," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 2(1), pages 74-105, May.
    20. Hernán Vallejo, 2004. "Some Worrying Theoretical Consequences Of The Non-Linear Relationship Between The Economic Size Of Preferential Trade Agreements And Welfare," Documentos CEDE 3518, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    economic integration; customs union; producers; consumers; politicians; Constitution; Reform Treaty;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F49 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Other

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:avo:emipdu:v:16:y:2007:i:2:p:193-210. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Nebojsa Stojcic (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/oedubhr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.