Abstract:

Several decades that European Union (EU) following their environment policy strategies, first to seventh Environmental Action Programme (EAPs). At the beginning, EU focused on prevention and reduction the environment damage from economic activities. After that the idea was expand to conserve ecological equilibrium, environmental quality, sustainable development, climate change, biodiversity, health and green economy. It certain that environmental regulations had the impacts on domestic and international trade. The effects could be both positive and negative but the interesting thing is who really gain the advantage from this. EU trade partners faced the different experiences of environmental regulations due to their backgrounds. This paper aims to investigate who actually gain benefits from EU environmental regulations by review the empirical studies about the impact of EU environmental regulations on EU trade. The comparative analysis from the 3 groups of countries, EU members, EU trade partners from Developed Countries and EU trade partners from Developing countries and Least Developing countries presented the different effects they had. EU members obviously gained the benefits from this but not much to the central and Eastern European countries. Moreover, EU also gained more power in trade negotiation since Developing countries and Least Developing countries seeking for EU support to improve their environmental standards and tend to using economic diplomacy to solve problems.