Trade and Diplomacy: The Belgian Case

Abstract

Economic diplomacy is no brand new contemporary phenomenon. Since the early days, securing economic interests has always been one of the twin core tasks of diplomacy, alongside military or security diplomacy. Economic and military diplomacy can be viewed as two linked DNA-chains, alternately gaining prominence to the apparent detriment of the other, with the latter evidently not disappearing but temporarily taking a back seat. In the 1990s, economic diplomacy gained the upper hand. A 1998 survey has pointed out that ministries of foreign affairs all over the world were somewhat suddenly rediscovering the importance of economic diplomacy.1 Diplomats of many countries made no secret of the fact that their prime task was to look after the commercial interests of the state they represent. Ministries of foreign affairs (together or in competition with other departments) showed a remarkable aggressiveness with regard to bilateral commercial activities. Economic diplomacy in the 1990s can easily be compared in intensity and in scope with the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries’ commercial diplomacy. When seen through a historical prism, the reasons behind this recurrence appear quite easy to grasp. Economic diplomacy takes prominence when an acceleration in globalization is accompanied by an absence of agreed rules of conduct and the emergence of new items on the trade agenda as a result of an industrial revolution. New opportunities, challenges, but also threats abound. In a precarious and highly competitive international environment, firms turn to their governments for support. Governments have no choice but to further their companies’ interests, otherwise other firms would benefit. An intensive economic diplomacy is the result, strengthening the role of the state—notwithstanding all assumptions of its near demise due to globalization—be it at the end of the nineteenth or at the end of the twentieth century. Put in simple terms, when …