Unpacking member state preferences in trade policy: a research agenda

In the field of European Union (EU) trade policy research, a large amount of fruitful work has focused on decision-making struggles at the European level. However, few studies have been devoted to the dynamics of preference formation within the Member States. There are no studies that systematically trace positions of EU Member States on trade issues over the years, and we know little of national decision making. Even basic information on governmental procedures is lacking, nor do we know much about the actions and viewpoints of domestic political or societal actors. Furthermore, only a handful of authors try to explain why country A took position X. Rather, Member State desiderata have remained largely exogenous to analyses while states have been treated as unitary actors. Building on an empirical and theoretical critique of the current literature, I argue that we need to complement the question of ‘Why “the EU” did-’, with analyses of ‘Why Member State X wanted-’. In other words: we need to open the black box of Member State preferences

From nada to Namur : national parliaments' involvement in trade politics, the case of Belgium

In the past years we have seen a somewhat paradoxical evolution in EU trade politics. While the Lisbon Treaty was meant to facilitate the adoption of trade agreements by bolstering the exclusive supranational competence of the European Union, (sub-)national Parliaments have now become more involved in trade policy than ever before. We investigate this shift in involvement across the Belgian parliaments. In the past fifteen years, both the Federal, Flemish and Walloon parliament paid little attention to EU trade policy. This has changed since 2014, especially in Wallonia but also in the other assemblies. Combining a variety of sources, we conclude that several interacting factors have fuelled this increase in Parliamentary involvement. First, TTIP and CETA contain ‘deep trade’ provisions that have alerted MPs. Second, TTIP has generated an unseen amount of mobilisation and contestation, and this has led politicians (especially on the left and in the opposition) to join the fray as well. Finally, the asymmetry between the Walloon and federal governing coalitions have favoured a more activist opposition by Wallonia, while Flanders’ centre-right coalition has remained supportive

EU trade policy : persistent liberalisation, contentious protectionism

How has EU trade policy responded to the protracted economic crisis starting in 2008? Unlike during the Great Depression of the 1930s, politicians have not resorted to protectionist measures to try to contain the downturn. The response has been just the opposite, with the dominant discourse arguing that in times of austerity and private deleveraging, trade liberalisation is indispensable for restoring growth. Adopting a historical-institutionalist perspective, we argue that the crisis has had an asymmetric effect on the two most important subsystems of EU trade policy. On the one hand, the EU took a leap forward on the path of bilateral free trade liberalisation by starting negotiations with the US, Canada and Japan. On the other hand, proposals to continue with permissive reforms for the adoption of trade defence easures and to give the EU more leverage vis-à-vis merging economies have been blocked. We thus conclude that EU trade policy after the crisis has shown asymmetric continuity, where the liberalisation trend has been resumed more radically while accompanying defensive reforms to ease the potential pain of liberalisation have run into a stalemate

Trade Policy in the Great Recession /

Master of Science in de algemene economi