The European Union (EU) often conditions preferential access to its market on compliance with Non-Trade Policy Objectives (NTPOs), including human rights and labor and environmental standards. In this paper, we first systematically document the coverage of NTPOs across the main tools of EU trade policy: its (association and non-association) trade agreements and Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) programs. We then discuss the extent to which the EU can use these tools as a ‘carrot-and-stick’ mechanism to promote NTPOs in trading partners. We argue that, within trade agreements, the EU has limited scope to extend or restrict tariff preferences to ‘reward good behavior’ or ‘punish bad behavior’ on NTPOs, partly because multilateral rules require members to eliminate tariffs on substantially all trade. By contrast, GSP preferences are granted on a unilateral basis, and can thus more easily be extended or limited, depending on compliance with NTPOs. Our analysis also suggests that the commercial interests of the EU inhibit the full pursuit of NTPOs in its trade agreements and GSP programs.

中文翻译：

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欧盟贸易政策对非贸易政策目标的追求

欧盟 (EU) 通常以遵守非贸易政策目标 (NTPO) 为条件，以优惠准入其市场为条件，包括人权、劳工和环境标准。在本文中，我们首先系统地记录了 NTPO 在欧盟贸易政策主要工具中的覆盖范围：其（关联和非关联）贸易协定和普惠制 (GSP) 计划。然后，我们讨论了欧盟在多大程度上可以使用这些工具作为“胡萝卜加大棒”机制来促进贸易伙伴中的 NTPO。我们认为，在贸易协定中，欧盟在扩大或限制关税优惠以“奖励良好行为”或“惩罚不良行为”的 NTPO 的范围有限，部分原因是多边规则要求成员国消除几乎所有贸易的关税。相比之下，普惠制优惠是单方面授予的，因此可以更容易地扩展或限制，具体取决于对 NTPO 的遵守情况。我们的分析还表明，欧盟的商业利益阻碍了在其贸易协定和普惠制计划中全面推行 NTPO。