"The EU has been ambivalent regarding improvements to development objectives. Its main concern has been meeting trade policy goals, laid down in trade negotiations. Increasingly, the EU is choosing to define and defend the development-and-trade nexus within the trade liberalization paradigm, as development objectives are embedded in enforceable free trade agreements. While this could boost the role of social clauses or human rights provisions, the EU restrains itself from using its direct power on matters relating to social, environmental and human rights, resulting in subservient and vaguely defined development objectives."

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