Common international trade policy ofthe European Union has suffered delays and difficulties due to the diversified commercial interests and individual trade policies of the Member States. Reaching and maintaining a common position in international trade negotiations has therefore proved to be a cumbersome procedure for the Community institutions, especially in the recent example o f the Uruguay Round o f the General Agreement o f Tariffs and Trade (GATT). This work examines the way the EU can reach and maintain, in the most successful way, internal cohesion within the Community, so that a common trade policy can be exercised against third countries by overcoming the detrimental effects ofgeographical, economic and social diversity ofthe Member States. The theoretical approach adopted in the analysis ofthe subject is the two- level bargaining model which depends on the interaction between the international institutional level and the domestic level, taking into account both the Member States as central players, as well as the initiatives ofthe EU institutions and the intergovernmental bargaining between the Member States.