Looking for the correlation between EU international trade policy and its dual-use export controls outreach programme: the WMD clause coherence

The contribution aims at identifying a correlation between the European Union (EU) international trade policy - limited to mixed agreements between the EU and third countries - and the dual-use export controls outreach programme implemented by the EU, called P2P (Partner to Partner) programme for dual-use goods. The first part sets out preliminary definitions to clarify what it is meant by mixed agreements and to identify the geographical scope of both variables: EU mixed agreements signed/being negotiated worldwide and third countries part of the EU P2P programme. It follows an analytical comparison which, by overlapping the geographical scope of the two variables, looks for countries part of the P2P which have also signed a trade agreement (TA) with the EU. At this stage of the analysis, the inclusion of a WMD non-proliferation clause in these agreements is inquired as proof of coherency between EU international trade policy and export controls priorities. The inclusion or non-inclusion of the WMD non-proliferation clause, as well as the date of the agreements are considered as tools seeking to identify the underlying logic driving the (co)relation between EU international trade and its dual-use export controls programme.
The last part of the paper seeks to test the correlation in practice, by comparing the outcomes of the P2P in two different countries, Kazakhstan and Jordan.
The final aim of the analysis is the identification of the independent variable, which means to answer the question: is EU international trade policy serving dual-use export controls’ objectives
or is it the opposite?