Episode 118: Trade Policy 3.0 – Three Scenarios for Tomorrowland with Lucian Cernat

Global Economy Podcast

ECIPE

Business

4.2 • 5 Ratings

🗓️ 25 November 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of our Global Economy Podcast, our Director, Oscar Guinea, talks with Lucian Cernat* about the latter’s new paper, Trade Policy 3.0: Three Scenarios for Tomorrowland. Their conversation outlines the evolution from trade policy 1.0 to 3.0 and how geopolitical tensions, resilience, and economic security shape today’s landscape. They cover the WTO’s role, lessons from COVID-19, and three future scenarios (immunity, sclerosis, and contagion), offering insights into the shifting global trade environment. You can read a transcript of the chat here. Read Lucian’s study here. Lucian Cernat is the Head of Trade in Goods, Tariff Negotiations, Technical Barriers to Trade, Customs and Rules of Origin at DG TRADE in the European Commission. Previously, he held the position of Head of Global Regulatory Cooperation and International Procurement Negotiation at the European Commission. Until 2008, he held various positions at the United Nations in Geneva dealing with trade and development issues. He has authored more than 20 publications on the development impact of trade policies, WTO negotiations, EU preferential market access, regional trade agreements, competition policy, corporate governance. Prior to his UN experience, he has been a Trade Diplomat with the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and part of the negotiating team of bilateral FTAs with the EuroMed area and Baltic countries, preceding Romania’s accession to the EU. Lucian Cernat obtained a PhD from University of Manchester and a postgraduate diploma from Oxford University. He is also the author of Europeanization, Varieties of Capitalism and Economic Performance in Central and Eastern Europe (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). *Disclaimer: the opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guest and do not represent an official position by the European Commission.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to E-Sype Global Economy podcast. My name is Oskie Gini. I am director at EZEIPE.
0:18.7	A guest today is Lucian Cernat.
0:23.9	Lucian is head of unit at Digitrade in the European Commission and the author of several studies and papers.
0:27.4	And today he joined us to talk about his latest paper.
0:31.0	Trade Policy 3.0.
0:33.1	Three scenarios for Tomorrowland.
0:35.3	You can download and read the paper at the Eastside website.
0:39.7	Lucien, welcome to our podcast. Thank you, Oscar, and hello everyone, whoever is listening to us.
0:47.6	Good. Let's start with the questions. In your paper, you describe three generations of trade policy. 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0.
0:59.7	What defines each phase and what has really changed from one to the next?
1:05.6	Yes, indeed. I think that's the fundamental question behind the paper and I would like to try to explain
1:13.6	why I think this is a very good framework of analysis to separate the long history of international
1:20.6	trading to three distinct periods.
1:24.6	In a nutshell, each of them is shaped by a different set of economic realities.
1:31.3	Trade Policy 1.0, we have the traditional post-war model that was centered on macroeconomic objectives.
1:41.3	So I think macroeconomics was the key defining logic behind. And trade
1:48.2	policymakers and academics alike were perhaps most interested in the impact of tariff liberalization,
1:55.8	classical market access, ways in which we could advance the multilateral rulemaking.
2:03.6	So essentially the core assumption was that reducing border barriers would maximize welfare
2:09.9	gains and frankly for several decades, for many decades, that logic held.
2:17.2	Then we entered trade policy 2.0 essentially at the same time with the rise of global supply chains.
2:25.3	Once firms engage in international trade, they started to fragment and slice production across borders,
	...

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