Opening up by closing off: how increased transparency triggers informalisation in EU decision-making

ABSTRACT

With transparency for EU trade negotiations becoming a high-profile topic this past decade, its connection with EU inter-institutional politics has become more consequential. In response to the changed role of the European Parliament and the need to better inform the public debate, the European Commission has significantly reformed its transparency policy for trade negotiations. At the same time however, an institutional process of informalisation at the EU level has enfolded. This study uses process-tracing methodology to determine how the increased transparency caused this informalisation in the case of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations. It thereby seeks to uncover a widely-occurring yet surprisingly underexplored process of institutional change that follows from increased transparency. Contrary to earlier accounts of correlations between transparency and informalisation, the author finds that both concepts are not necessarily contradictory. Instead, informality can in fact contribute to transparency goals and help legitimise decision-making.

KEYWORDS:

• European Union
• informality
• Trade
• transparency
• TTIP

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Prof. Drs. Bart Kerremans and Johan Adriaensen, my colleagues at LINES, the editors and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful remarks and suggestions, which helped shape the article as it currently stands. While their identity will remain anonymous, I also extend my gratitude to the interviewees and the INTA secretariat in particular for sharing their valuable time and insights. Any errors remain the sole responsibility of the author. The research was funded by a PhD Fellowship of the Research Foundation Flanders.

Disclosure statement

The author has never received any type of remuneration from the European Union institutions prior to or during the research.

ORCID

Evelyn Coremans http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2848-963X

Notes

1 Negotiations started mid-2013 and were officially on hold since November 2016. A new mandate was issued at the end of 2018 and negotiations have resumed since then.

2 As discussed in more detail below, informalisation is the systematic and structured use of informal practices in inter-institutional decision-making.

3 The details of the research design can be found in section 2 of the online appendix.

4 Detailed information about the data collection and analysis – including the document reference list – can be found in section 1 of the online appendix.

5 This definition covers both institutional and public transparency, the former referring to information exchange between institutional actors, whereas the latter covers information exchange between institutions and the broader public (Coremans 2017). This article will mainly focus on institutional transparency but the connection with public transparency and the normative relevance of this will be discussed in the conclusion.

6 Increased transparency may also create or aggravate transaction costs from ‘credible commitment’ strategies and ‘conflicting preferences’ (Pollack 2002). For the sake of theoretical clarity, those transaction costs are not discussed here.

7 Because of the sensitive nature of evasion tendencies or indifference to transparency rules, it is extremely unlikely that I will find any other types of evidence besides interview references. By using interview questions that explicitly test for evasion tendencies or indifference, it should be possible to get an insight into whether or not such tendencies are present, especially because the nature of the interviewees’ responsibilities with regards to TTIP does not suggest any motive for twisting the facts (see section 1 of the online appendix).

8 The EU Restreint category is generally the highest category of documents in EU trade policy, as there are hardly any classified documents produced in this policy field (Interview April 2016, Parliament official).

9 For a useful discussion on legitimacy and accountability in the case of TTIP, see Gheyle and De Ville (2017).

10 Ideally however, a representative democracy system should allow the Parliament to act as an interlocutor with the broader public, thereby preventing duplication of transaction costs for communication as well as supporting efforts for public transparency.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek [Grant Number Aspirant].

Notes on contributors

Evelyn Coremans

Evelyn Coremans is a PhD researcher and FWO Fellow at Leuven International and European Studies (LINES) Institute, KU Leuven, Belgium.