European Union Import Quotas on Chinese Textile and Clothing Exports in 2005: A Panic-Driven Commission or Rational Explanations?

Based upon a narrative policy analysis, the aim of this paper is to answer two questions: (1) Why did the EU re-introduce import quotas on Chinese textile and clothing exports in 2005 after promising to lift them? (2) Why did the EU (partly) abolish these quotas a couple of months later? The rational choice inspired model put forward in this paper assumes that the EU’s political system is a partial asymmetrical political equilibrium in which decisions taken by decision makers are a product of a supply and demand. By using this model, it is explained how the lifting of quotas on Chinese textile and clothing exports to WTO members on 1 January, 2005 and the political situation surrounding the French referendum on the Constitutional Treaty on 29 May, 2005, constitute key events in the decision making process.