policy and commercial tools in the manner of diplomacy. The new trade agenda touches upon the areas that are part of the domestic social fabric and they then therefore are most sensitive to external interference.
             As the longest and deepest integrated policy in the EU, external trade composes a critical test for the impending debate over the apportioning of power between the center and the states. The idea of "common voice", "common interest" and "common destiny" are in and of themselves linked. Therefore, whether a policy entity can project congruity of purpose externally is a key test of the degree of integration between its constituting elements. (Denza 1996) Above all, the debate over trade authority has been a reflection and a test of a larger ideological battle over European integration. The member states' position over this issue has been a function of both their distinct trade interests and their ideological propensities regarding sovereignty transfers. The weight between these two motivations has shifted in the past decade, for both structural and conjunctural reasons. This has reflected itself in a shift between economic and sovereignty concerns over the years.
             Since the signing of the Treaty of Rome, European integration has consistently been that of progressive expansionism of over an even broader range of policy areas, from research and development to the environment to the Single European Act in 1986 to the Maastricht Treaty in 1991. Nonetheless, most of these areas have not been fully transferred to the level of the EC. Conversely, a few policies have been under Community amenability from the beginning.
             When it came to trade, the Treaty of Rome was a revolutionary document. It not only contained broad injunctions for achieving free trade internally, but it also granted the new supranational entity an external personality with the authority to elaborate, negotiate and enforce a...