The Geo-Economic Approach in the European Union Economic Policy

International Monetary Fund (IMF) experts have called geo-economic fragmentation a risky reversal of the process of economic globalization carried out by leading global players. This article examines the instruments of the economic policy of the European Union (EU) in this context. The purpose of the study is to refute the idea formed in official EU documents about the emergency nature of European protectionism and to expand understanding of the rejection of the EUʼs economic policy by its member states, despite its de jure approval. The analysis employs a retrospective method that provides a holistic view of supranational regulation, taking into account its past and present. The author uses the knowledge accumulated in Russian European studies, attributing the decisions of recent years to the manifestations of the deep protectionist essence of the EU. The article describes the recent political and legal acts of the European Union regulating its foreign economic relations and then examines documents on improvement within the EUʼ s internal market designed to offset the protectionist drift of foreign economic policy. The collected expert assessments, including from special issues of journals that proposed topics for discussion, focus on the adverse consequences of the current course for the EUʼ s economy. These include distortion of competition, raw material starvation, the likelihood of a new debt crisis, and the preservation of territorial imbalances. Along the way, the author addresses the mechanism of financial transactions between the supranational level of government and the member states, describing it as an effective way to achieve approval of the EUʼs economic policy but ineffective against negative results during its implementation. The analysis of the documents, supported by references to the history of European integration, leads the author to the conclusion about the resistance of the member states to strengthening the unity of the European market and to other measures of supranational economic policy to reduce risks to the national economy. Thus, using modern material, the author confirms the conclusion previously obtained by researchers of European integration about the eternal struggle of opposites in the EU – the supranational level of power against the partisan protectionism of the member states