Normative Power Europe? The European Union in the Negotiations on a Free Trade Agreement with India

Abstract

This article examines the European Union (EU) as an actor in international trade negotiations and calls into question constructivist notions of the European Union as a 'Normative Power'. The article argues out of an institutionalist perspective that the distribution of competences between Commission, Council and European Parliament (EP) in EU trade policy systematically privileges strategic and economic interests over normative objectives. Drawing on a principal-agent approach, it analyses the case of the EU-India negotiations on a free trade agreement. Results suggest that the close cooperation between Council and Commission before and during the negotiations prevent EU trade policy to be more guided by normative objectives. The European Parliament, as the voice of normative concerns, could influence negotiations, due to the EP's new powers in the ratification process. However, since the EP is institutionally excluded from the agenda-setting-process and can hardly control the Commission during the bargaining process, it capacities to set the negotiation goals ex ante are very constrained. Only when negotiations are in full play can the EP try to kick questionable demands off the EU's trade agenda and strive for normative aims. Therefore, issues like the inclusion of human rights and labour and environmental clauses seemed to have gained some importance, while economic development concerns hardly seem to influence the EU's trade negotiations.