The Unintended Consequences of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Negotiations

ABSTRACT

Although stalled since 2016, the negotiations on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) have had major unintended consequences. The TTIP led to demands from third countries to upgrade their trade relationship with the EU and to unprecedented politicisation. As second-order effects of the latter, it endangered the EU-Canada trade agreement and brought about reform of EU trade governance and amendments to EU trade policy positions. These unintended consequences occurred because of inflated expectations about and insufficient awareness of the different nature of TTIP with regard to scope and partner compared to other trade negotiations. In the meantime, EU trade policy has adapted to the new politics of trade, making unintended consequences less likely.

KEYWORDS:

• EU trade policy
• unintended consequences
• trade negotiations
• Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

Notes

1 The implicit theoretical perspective behind our overall analysis is historical institutionalism, however, there is not enough space to develop an elaborate theoretical interpretation of the empirical phenomena we describe, classify and explain. For an application of historical institutionalism to EU trade policy, see De Ville (2012).

2 The CSOs even fabricated an inflatable Trojan horse that was showcased on several campaign events in various countries.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ferdi De Ville

Ferdi De Ville is Associate Professor in European political economy at Ghent University, Belgium.

Niels Gheyle

Niels Gheyle is PhD candidate at the Center for EU-Studies at Ghent University, Belgium. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @NGheyle