Euractiv | 28 February 2026
The EU’s smaller-is-better moment
by Sofia Sanchez Manzanaro
Von der Leyen’s second Commission has styled itself as the down-to-earth successor to the Green Deal, dispensing with environmental ideals, ubiquitous red tape, and spending millions in public money to roll back legislation agreed sometimes only a matter of months ago.
This thinking filters into trade, too. Senior Commission officials have been signalling that policy must become more pragmatic and laser-focused in the face of unprecedented global tensions. The imperatives of the present are ushering in an era of smaller deals, founded less on ambition and more pragmatism – at least rhetorically.
Toning down the high talk certainly helps keep anti-trade constituencies on side as Brussels accelerates negotiations with Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand – alongside an Australia deal widely seen as nearing completion.
EU trade chief Maroš Šefčovič put it plainly to MEPs this week: FTAs are heavy, slow and politically fraught. “Negotiating a free trade agreement is an enormous effort, and it sometimes takes a very long time,” he said.
To make the point, he held up the printed New Zealand FTA – the “simplest one” – which is “a bulk like this,” mimicking a thick stack of paper.
Over time, Šefčovič added, the EU has made agreements even more complex by embedding commitments on human rights, climate and the Paris Agreement – and by turning those into “essential elements”, meaning deals can be suspended over breaches.
“In a new dynamic world, we’ve been looking for what could be new products on the DG Trade or Commission shelves … to avoid the heavy procedure of the free trade agreement, which has to follow the templates,” he said.
Enter the mini-deal.
A replacement?
In reality, the deals Šefčovič pointed to – such as the Clean Trade and Investment Partnership with South Africa – look less like replacements for FTAs and more like extensions of relationships already in place. They are often add-ons, not substitutes.
Nicolas Köhler-Suzuki, advisor for trade and economic security at the Jacques Delors Foundation, argues the shift is driven less by ideology than by arithmetic. The EU’s traditional FTA map is already close to saturation.
“Our network of agreements is already so wide – which country in the world do we still have?” he said.
Much of the low-hanging fruit has already been harvested, since the EU sits at the centre of one of the densest trade networks globally.
The question is no longer how many comprehensive FTAs can be added, but what comes next – digital trade, regulatory cooperation, supply-chain partnerships – without overhauling the full FTA machinery.
At the same time, Köhler-Suzuki is sceptical that Brussels will follow Washington’s path of narrow, legally fragile trade pacts that stretch – or openly sidestep – World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.
The basic principle of a WTO-compliant FTA is that it must cover “substantially all trade”, which means that, in theory, there is no pick and choose – countries can’t eliminate tariffs on machinery while maintaining full protection for agriculture. Yet the US has drifted in that direction for several years.
The Pandora’s box was opened, he argues, in 2019 when the US signed a limited trade agreement with Japan that lowered tariffs only on a narrow set of agricultural and industrial goods. The deal triggered questions at the WTO over its compatibility with the rules governing FTAs, but Washington showed little interest in legal nuance.
But enforcement in a strained multilateral system is delicate. Few governments are eager to police breaches when their own compliance record may not withstand scrutiny, Köhler-Suzuki added.
The EU itself would openly breach WTO design were it to implement the – now paralysed – Turnberry deal, which lowers tariffs on a limited number of US goods.
The mother of all mini-deals
One might be minded to describe the EU–India agreement as the “mother of all mini-deals” – particularly given its pared-back architecture compared with some recent EU agreements.
But Brussels may not need to overtly bend the rules to scale down its traditional FTA template. The carve-outs are evident – energy, raw materials and government procurement were excluded from the India deal. Sensitive agricultural products such as sugar, beef, rice and dairy were also off the table. Trade and sustainability provisions are lighter and reportedly non-enforceable.
Given all this, why not just call it a mini-deal?
Köhler-Suzuki finds the label unhelpful, arguing that the agreement with Delhi does not follow the trajectory that made EU FTAs progressively “deeper and wider”, but it remains comprehensive by historical standards.
A senior EU official conceded privately on conclusion day that it was “obviously not the most ambitious” deal Brussels has concluded, citing the exceptionality of negotiating with a vast, politically sensitive and historically protectionist partner.
If gaining some leverage in India explains the EU’s willing to bend its trade terms, it is unlikely this can serve as a template for other regions. But if pragmatism becomes the organising principle of EU trade policy, others will test how far Brussels is prepared to bend.
Mini-deals – or less ambitious deals – may therefore be less a revolution than a symptom: a Commission navigating a saturated trade map, tougher geopolitics and a fraying multilateral system, trying to remain pragmatic without openly unravelling the rules it insists it still defends.
