The four cases and their outcomes

Zusammenfassung

The four cases analyzed in part two have a surprising outcome: only in one case (Metric Labeling) did U.S. pressure cause a complete withdrawal of a planned European directive. The remaining three cases have illustrated how the EU unilaterally adopted new regulations while showing little consideration for U.S. economic interests or regulatory cooperation respectively. This is a most surprising result as critical voices in IPE would have predicted a much more influential role of U.S. economic interests in the European decision making process. In two of the cases (WEEE, ODS), the U.S. government had the majority of business actors as well as major EU Member States on its side, but still failed to change the European regulation.