Working Paper #2008-048
Agenda Disputes and Strategic Venue Preferences: The Doha Crisis and Europe’s Flight to Regionalism
Agenda-setting disputes have become increasingly central to the conduct
of multilateral trade negotiations. Introducing some simple concepts
from Negotiations Theory, we focus on the dynamic interplay between the
Doha Round’s agenda setting and bargaining stages, underlining their
implications for the European Union’s evolving win-set in the
negotiations. We argue that, by successful enshrining a narrow agenda,
key developing countries reduced the set of possible final settlements
that were both multilaterally viable and attractive from the point of
view of key European interests. In an attempt to avoid imposing
concentrated costs on those interests, the European Commission has
responded by pursuing its best alternative to a multilateral agreement,
shifting negotiating resources away from the multilateral table and
towards regional FTA negotiations.
- Keywords
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- Trade Policy-making
- Doha Round
- EU
- sectoral lobbying
- trade negotiations UNU-MERIT Working Papers ISSN 1871-9872
- JEL codes
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- F13
Cite this as
APA 7th ed.Toro, F. (2008). Agenda Disputes and Strategic Venue Preferences: The Doha Crisis and Europe’s Flight to Regionalism (UNU-MERIT Working Paper No. 2008-048). UNU-MERIT. https://unu-merit.nl/publications/working-papers/abstract/?id=3504