Sustainability as an external relationship strategy of the EU

Abstract

Observing the international universe, and the circumstances that make it up in the early years of this still young 21st century, it is interesting to approach the analysis of multilateral processes, both those that gave rise to the formation of multilateral organizations of a global nature and those that allowed the formation of regional integration processes between states, such as the EU and Mercosur. But when analyzing the processes of economic integration, which in general have the purpose of fomenting, improving or promoting economic development, today it is unavoidable to consider a variable that is the fundamental basis for this sought-after development, this variable present today in the actions and human concerns of all nature, is sustainability, not only environmental sustainability but sustainability as the axis of all commercial economic development. In this sense, in the present work we try to define the scope of the term sustainability, investigating it to know its treatment in the international order and its role in international trade. Once the central concepts that make up sustainability have been defined, the work will address the analysis of sustainability as a contributing factor in the search for balance in relations between States in the international order and in particular those economic and commercial relations that seek economic development and a joint economic growth where sustainability begins to be present as a defining factor of these relationships. Next, the article will investigate one of the Strategic Association Treaties between regional blocks of great importance, such as the European Union and Mercosur, which with its ratification would allow the formation of a market of more than 800 million consumers where sustainability becomes to be today an essential element for the definitive consolidation of this important Agreement. In order to complement the analysis of this Agreement and put it in context within the argumentation that this work proposes, an analysis of the Trade and Sustainability Chapter included in it will be carried out in the final part, considering it as a topic of great interest and a clear example related to the main theme of the work, and this is the way and manner in which the European Union relates to third States or Groups of Integrated States.