From Extra-Territorial Leverage and Transnational Environmental Protection to Distortions of Competition: The Level Playing Field in the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement

This article inquires to what extent the European Union (EU)–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) may help safeguard high levels of transnational environmental protection, taking into consideration potential reductions in UK levels of protection and the ensuing effects. The article encompasses an analysis of the Trade and Sustainable Development (TSD) Chapters in recent EU trade or trade and investment Agreements (FTAs); in this respect, it emphasises that the TCA’s provisions are innovative. However, the TCA has marked a shift from the EU’s initial attempts to exercise its extra-territorial leverage and push for high levels of transnational environmental protection to a focus on the stricto sensu economic level playing field. This narrow focus cannot possibly capture many aspects of environmental protection. The article thus concludes that, from an environmental perspective, the TCA’s provisions are far from ambitious. Further, it develops some considerations on the way forward for the EU institutions, as they start to rethink their approach to TSD Chapters.