During the last decade Europe has been transformed both politically and commercially. The establishment of a genuinely single marketplace in the context of an expanding membership has enabled the European Union greatly to enhance its role on the world stage. In the areas of trade and commercial policy the Union increasingly speaks with one voice. As a result of the Maastricht Treaty on Economic and Political Union of 1993, a process has been set in motion whereby the embryonic mechanisms of a common foreign policy (European Political Cooperation or EPC) are gradually evolving into a more...