The EU’s Position in the Trade-Food Security Nexus: Embedded Neoliberalism Reinforced

Abstract

The link between food security and trade has been the subject of continuous debate, which reveals a spectrum of different paradigms on the preferred relationship between the market and the state. Particularly during episodes of salience, paradigms come to the surface and are challenged, reinforced or reinvented. This article therefore zooms in on such episodes, to provide a more refined picture of how this nexus is perceived within the European Commission. Firstly, ideal types of paradigms applicable to the nexus are set out in an analytical framework. Secondly, this framework will be used to distinguish which ideas are dominant and whether variation exists between different Directorates-General (DGs) involved. The dominant policy paradigm is traced during the 2007–2008/2010 world food crisis, through an analysis of the EU’s Food Security Policy Framework (FSPF) (2010) and policy statements issued by different sections of the Commission. Subsequently two politicized cases in the ‘policy practise’ are analysed, namely EU milk exports to West Africa (2018) and EU safeguard measures on rice originating from Cambodia and Myanmar (2019). Finally, the EU’s ‘Farm to Fork’ future food strategy (2020) is discussed, which highlighted food security the midst of the Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) crisis. Throughout the analysis, an embedded neoliberal paradigm is identified, which entails a dominant free trade orientation combined with flanking policies and a focus on temporary measures under exceptional market conditions. food security, policy paradigms, EU trade, world food crisis, COVID-19