Abstract
Since the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty, the European Parliament wields the power of consent over international (trade) agreements, enabling it to threaten a veto. Due to the extensive financial and reputational costs associated with a veto, the European Commission (hereinafter Commission) was expected to read these threats effectively. However, the Commission’s responses to such threats have varied greatly. Building on a fine-grained causal mechanism derived from information processing theory and an extensive process-tracing analysis of seven free trade agreements post-Lisbon, we explain why the Commission has responded differently to looming vetoes. Our analysis reveals that the variation in Commission responses derives from imperfections in its information-processing system, the ‘early-warning system,’ which had to be adapted to the new institutional equilibrium post-Lisbon. Because of this adaption process, factors exogenous to the parliamentary context (‘externalities’) as well as internal uncertainties (‘internalities’) add constant unpredictability to the Commission’s reading of the European Parliament.
Highlights
With the power to reject international trade agreements, the European Parliament received a costly ‘whip’ to sanction the EU negotiator during the final ratification stage
information processing the‐ ory (IPT) assumes that consequences of both correct and incorrect information processing produce positive and negative feedback loops, meaning that human beings learn from their past experi‐ ences (Jones & Baumgartner, 2012, p. 3; Workman et al, 2009, p. 81)
Already prior to the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty, the Commission anticipated that the rule changes intro‐ duced by the Lisbon Treaty would result in a new insti‐ tutional equilibrium
Summary
With the power to reject international trade agreements, the European Parliament (hereinafter EP) received a costly ‘whip’ to sanction the EU negotiator during the final ratification stage. We deduce the role of ‘internalities’ (factors internal to the EU institutional context) and ‘externalities’ (factors external to the EU institutional context) that necessitate a constant updat‐ ing of the Commission’s information‐processing system Because of this continuous refinement pro‐ cess under constant uncertainty, we argue that reading veto threats resembles efforts to hit ‘moving targets,’ explaining the recurrent stand‐offs between EP and Commission late in the negotiations. The EP’s more prominent role post‐Lisbon in EU trade policy informed debates on parliamentary assertion, and provided a new test case for principal‐agent scholars scrutinising inter‐institutional dynamics in trade nego‐ tiations The former tradition is useful in shedding light on the EP’s motivations and strategies to expand and apply its power. Gives due attention to the communicative action through which parliamentary power is asserted
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