The parliamentarization of EU trade policy: unveiling the European Parliament’s involvement in EU-MERCOSUR trade negotiations

ABSTRACT

Over the past decades the European Parliament (EP) has achieved a prominent position in the European Union’s decision-making process. Although EP consent has been a requirement for the final approval of EU trade agreements since the Treaty of Lisbon, its role in the process of negotiating these agreements remains unclear. In order to illustrate this context with a case study, we will investigate the ongoing trade negotiations between the EU and the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR), which have started in 1999 and were temporarily suspended between 2004 and 2010. The degree of autonomy parliamentarians have to deviate from the European Commission’s position is verified, as well as their information clearance level and the degree of political polarization associated with this agreement. Therefore, this research intends to assess how parliamentarians seek to influence trade agreements while the negotiations are still in course, thus strengthening the parliamentarization of EU trade policies.

KEYWORDS:

• European Union
• European Parliament
• MERCOSUR
• EU-MERCOSUR trade agreement
• parliamentarization

ORCID

Karina L. Pasquariello Mariano http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4559-918X

Bruno Theodoro Luciano http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1276-6076

Notes

1 71.5% of the members of the Delegation for relations with the Federative Republic of Brazil are also members of the EP’s delegation for relations with MERCOSUR countries.

2 For more information on EP’s delegation for relations with Brazil, see http://www.europarl.europa.eu/delegations/en/d-br/home.html

3 Explanation of votes of this parliamentary resolution was retrieved from http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=CRE&reference=20061012&secondRef=ITEM-008&language=EN&ring=A6-2006-0302#4-148

4 The content of the resolutions presented by the political groups are available at http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?lang=en&reference=2012/2924(RSP)

5 More details on the debate over the EU-MERCOSUR agreement can be found at http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=CRE&reference=20160510&secondRef=ITEM-013&format=XML&language=EN