Foreign trade of the EU: trends in the sanctions period

The article continued studies of the evolution of external trade relations of the European Union at the beginning of the 21st century. Consideration of the important trends shown in commodity trade of the EU with partners outside the block in recent years, which were marked by entering of the anti-Russian sanctions and response countermeasures, became the main objective of the carried-out analysis. For the first time, based on the study of the latest statistical data and the actual materials shifts in the EU foreign trade contacts with so-called third countries in the years of sanctions are revealed. At the same time, in this article such methods of scientific research, as the comparative analysis and generalization, induction and analogies have been widely used on the base of system approach. Within this research, the emphasis is placed on determination of trends in commodity trade between the two oldest and traditional partners - the European Union and the Russian Federation, which is going through a difficult period of significant chilling.