The power surplus: Brussels calling, legal empathy and the trade-regulation nexus

The EU may not be a superpower but it holds a �power surplus� when it comes to the trade-regulatory nexus. The strategic challenges posed by the deployment of this power surplus are the subject of this paper, which argues that in order to be a responsible regulatory power and positively influence the multilateral agenda, the EU needs to develop a coherent overall approach to the external dimension of its regulatory policies. In this spirit, and in most cases, the EU would be ill advised to project itself as a model or to seek to �weaponise� its regulatory powers in pursuit of unrelated foreign policy goals. Instead, it should wield this power to enhance the regulatory compatibility between its own and others� jurisdictions through cooperation rather than relying on the passive market-based influence of the so-called Brussels effect. This is simply a way to be faithful to its core defining philosophy of legal empathy. The CEPS Policy Insight by authors Ignacio Garcia Bercero and Kalypso Nicola�dis offers a typology of different forms of external EU regulatory impact, a discussion of the risks of either underuse or overuse of the regulatory power surplus, and considers the �good global governance� model implied by a principled geopolitical role. It moves on to discuss a unifying conceptual framework to encompass this approach, under the umbrella of �managed mutual recognition� as the operationalisation of legal empathy. It concludes with six specific suggestions as to how the EU can best exercise its regulatory power through a closer integration of trade and regulatory policies.