Too Complex or Too Ambitious?
|4. The European Commission and Challenges to FTA Enforcement: From PROs to solution-chasing
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1When negotiating an FTA, political ratification obstacles (PROs) and enforcement challenges are particularly intricate to anticipate. This section makes a case that the nature of emerging PROs fully manifests itself only in the aftermath of concluding an FTA, and especially as the ratification process is triggered. In the face of similar constraints, we make sense of how the Commission can be expected to implement ex post FTA adjustments in view of rescuing negotiated texts from a domestic veto. We refer to this process as “solution-chasing” (Cairney 2020: 199).
4.1 EU trade policy and the limits of win-set anticipation
- 1 Interview with DG Trade official. Brussels, 2 March 2020.
2International negotiation literature has traditionally placed emphasis on policymakers’ level of information over domestic preferences, and on the role uncertainty plays in the conclusion of international agreements. Janusch (2016), for instance, makes a case for the relationship existing between a negotiator’s inability to anticipate win-set misfits and bargaining failures. To him, “uncertainty is a necessary condition for negotiation breakdowns, because, given complete information, actors could anticipate the failure of international negotiations and would not even start them” (502). In the context of new-generation FTAs, anticipation of domestic interests by the Commission can undoubtedly allow to adjust particularly contentious provisions ahead of signing. Yet, we suggest that the actual nature of ratification debates will only emerge contingently, once bargaining outcomes are publicly known. Constituents whose interests have been poorly addressed, will turn into veto players. Going back to investment-protection in the CETA, that was the case when the Commission had to convince Canada to replace the ISDS dispute-settlement mechanism in light of “a huge public controversy on this issue.”1 Yet, despite public consultations having been held as bargaining was ongoing, the regional Parliament of Wallonia still demanded a series of ex post safeguards on the newly introduced investment court system (ICS), threatening to resort to its veto powers (Van der Loo 2016). A number of additional provisions were included in a Joint Interpretative Instrument (JII) approved by the Council only three days ahead of the CETA’s signing, on 27 October 2016 (Council of the European Union 2016c). As we argued earlier, ratification issues are largely dictated by the degree of politicisation of FTA debates (technical discussions vs. public contestation), which in turn depends on the types of domestic actors involved (business vs. advocacy groups). This is not to suggest that the nature of ratification debates is dominated by contingency and prevailing narratives. Rather, it is to point at how domestic discontent can be conceived as a function of the multiple and by no means compatible stakes that different constituents hold in a given trade policy domain. Overall, however keen the Commission may be on anticipating PROs, the presence of different stakes in the same policy issue will still lead a given share of constituents to challenge the way an FTA addresses it.
3Against this background, there are two main public-management realities that prevent the Commission from having a full picture of how an FTA will be received. First, the unfeasibility of consulting with civil society during negotiations, due to the secrecy of bargaining, implies that individual DG-Trade units will lack a full picture of how each negotiated item will be received at home. Second, we suggest that trade negotiations pose a public-management challenge to the extent that the Commission will hardly be able to accurately predict emerging PROs on narrowly contentious issues until domestic ratification debates are commenced.
- 2 Interview with DG Trade official. Brussels, 2 March 2020.
- 3 Interview with advocacy member of the CETA DAG. 15 May 2020.
4With respect to the former point, DG Trade can keep the temperature of domestic stakes, especially when it comes to key institutional veto players like the Council and the EP (Keukeleire and Delreux 2014). By periodically debriefing the INTA, as well as the Council Trade Policy Committee (TPC), the Commission can make sure negotiations are carried out in line with the position of the key institutional actors ultimately in charge of ratification. However, consultations with the Council and the EP tend to only marginally include civil society and advocacy groups. An interviewed Commission official indirectly pointed at this public-management reality, observing how, as opposed to the Expert Group on Trade Agreements, which gathers civil society and stakeholders, “[…] the Trade Policy Committee is a better instrument to accompany negotiations as such.”2 On the other side, an advocacy member of the CETA Domestic Advisory Group (DAG) acknowledged how keeping track of negotiations proved the most problematic endeavour, as the high secrecy of bargaining offered NGOs little chance to contribute to decision-making.3 While not enjoying direct veto powers, civil-society advocates can pose important PROs, especially in terms of the high resonance their campaigns acquire, and of the wide mobilisations they often lead to.
5Secondly, seeking to anticipate domestic preferences and most feasible win-sets still faces limitations in the reality of EU trade policymaking. This is especially true when it comes to civil-society interest groups. Unsurprisingly, as partisan contestation qualifies as a matter of public debate (Culpepper 2010), it only discloses its full potential once the terms of a deal enter the public domain – usually, when bargaining is concluded. For instance, following the signing and disclosure of the EU-Mercosur FTA in Principle (in June 2019), bottom-up contestations among civil society and national MPs led both the Austrian and Irish Parliaments to signal their intention to reject the agreement. In the case of Austria, the legislature even passed a binding resolution preventing the government from backing ratification in the Council (Moens 2020; Wax 2019). Similar vetoes have emerged as a function of “three-level games” dictated by genuinely national dynamics amid specific economic sectors and civil society, and occurring regardless of both Vienna and Dublin monitoring Mercosur negotiations in the COREPER and the TPC (Patterson 1997). Overall, Brussels will hardly be aware of which domestic actors will mobilise against which FTA provisions, or of the more or less politicised nature of resulting debates.
4.2 From PROs to solution-chasing
6In light of the above discussion, we now move to considering how the Commission can address emerging PROs domestically, once negotiations are concluded. To that end, the disclosure of an FTA for signing represents a “moment of truth,” when the “problem streams” salient to different domestic veto players can be fully manifested, and intertwine with the Commission “solutions stream” (Kingdon 1984). To that end, we suggest that DG Trade can act as a policy entrepreneur in facilitating this convergence, by involving veto players in processes of FTA review, adjustment, and safeguard-formulation that can improve prospects of ratification. We refer to similar Commission initiatives as instances of “solution-chasing,” a process this section elaborates upon (Cairney 2020: 199).
7The inclusion of veto players in the “rescuing” of an FTA is coherent with a more refined conceptualisation of this category of actors in trade policy. Emphasis has been traditionally placed on the negative correlation between the presence of various domestic veto players and the conclusion of trade agreements (Mansfield et al. 2007, 2008). Here, we embrace a different viewpoint, stressing how veto players can be better conceived as shapers rather than mere “sinkers” of negotiated FTAs. As argued by Allee and Elsig (2017), “it is important to move beyond simply thinking about whether veto players prevent trade and other agreements, but to consider how they affect what is specified in the many new agreements we see” (541). We aim to contribute to this theoretical standpoint by empirically enquiring into which types of veto players and domestic ratification debates can effectively push the Commission to revise FTA provisions in view of ratification.
- 4 Interview with civil-society advocate and member of the CETA DAG. 15 May 2020.
8We expect solution-chasing to occur at two main levels. First, solutions can be attached directly to an FTA text, through bilaterally agreeing on institutional instruments complementing, specifying, or reviewing the content of specific chapters. That was the case with the CETA Joint Interpretative Instrument (JII), approved right in the aftermath of the text’s legal scrubbing, and only three days ahead of its signing, on 27 October 2016. This was largely dictated by pressures from the Parliament of Wallonia on investment-protection (Council of the European Union 2016c; Van der Loo 2016). An analogous policy device is found in the safeguard Regulation (511/2011) implemented by the EU in pursuit of Art. 3 of the KOREU (European Commission 2016; Official Journal of the European Union 2011). The latter allows the EU to monitor Korean duty drawbacks on automobile components imported from third countries for re-export (Elsig and Dupont 2012: 498). Secondly, solution-chasing can be enacted by setting up institutional structures tasked with the ex post monitoring and/or review of specific chapters and provisions within an FTA. As regards civil society, this is the case with bilateral Domestic Advisory Groups (DAGs) – established under the auspices of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) – which have been foreseen, inter alia, by the KOREU, the CETA, and the EU-Mercosur FTA – but are absent from both the EU-Singapore and EU-Vietnam agreements (European Economic and Social Committee 2020a; European Parliament 2019a; Orbie et al. 2016). DAGs are specifically in charge of monitoring and informing the review of trade and sustainable development (TSD) chapters. Under the CETA, for instance, the JII provides for the formal review of TSD, with the aim of making the latter more compatible with new commitments under the Paris Agreement (Council of the European Union 2016c). At the time of writing, the review mechanism is yet to be triggered, and the CETA DAG is pushing the Commission to trigger it.4
9We expect solution-chasing to occur in the aftermath of bargaining, when the terms of an FTA are met with the blame of veto players experiencing a utility loss as a result of specific provisions (or absence thereof). PROs can be posed by official-level veto players (the Council, the EP, and single Member States) enjoying direct veto powers, or by private veto players (e.g. advocacy and interest groups) lobbying institutional actors to reject an FTA. Further, more generic contestation can arise amid interest groups and civil society, which can stretch even beyond formal ratification. The distinction between official and private veto players is dictated by our assumption that the two will differ in the ways and extent to which they can push the Commission to review an FTA. In this light, a comparison of how the two categories affect solution-chasing will offer a more accurate understanding of which actors can effectively compel the Commission to revise the terms of a negotiated text.
10We expect solution-chasing to alternatively occur at three junctures: i) before the ordinary legislative procedure (OLP) is triggered for ratification; ii) between Council approval and EP consent; iii) following both Council and EP approval. In the case of mixed agreements, FTA provisions can also come to clash with more localistic and circumscribed interests, in the context of national-lever ratification debates. For example, national PROs to the CETA have materialised, inter alia, in the fear of hormone-laden Canadian beef accessing the Single Market, which nearly saw Dutch parliamentary opposition casting a veto on the Agreement (Khan 2020). Figure I below provides a graphic summary of the dynamics questioned by H2. It displays the evolution of an FTA between the start of bargaining and its long-term enforcement following solution-chasing dynamics. In the light of the above discussion, we put forward the following hypothesis (H2):
11H2(a): If official-level veto players mobilise against the terms of an FTA following negotiations, the Commission will resort to solution-chasing.
12H2(b): If private/advocacy veto players mobilise against the terms of an FTA following negotiations, the Commission will resort to solution-chasing.
Figure 1. Process of an FTA

The chart refers to processes underpinning the course of an FTA from the issuing of a negotiating mandate to its long-term enforcement. The horizontal dimension indicates time, while the vertical one indicates variation in win-set size. The negotiation phase refers to the period preceding FTA signing. Solution-chasing follows the signing and disclosure of an FTA, when PROs can push the Commission to review given FTA provisions. More generically, domestic contestation can stretch even beyond formal ratification, in case salient issues remain unaddressed. Ratification is indicated with a question mark because the chart refers to both exclusive-competence and mixed agreements. The latter can wait a long time before reaching full de jure ratification, remaining provisionally enforced.
Source: author.
Notes
1 Interview with DG Trade official. Brussels, 2 March 2020.
2 Interview with DG Trade official. Brussels, 2 March 2020.
3 Interview with advocacy member of the CETA DAG. 15 May 2020.
4 Interview with civil-society advocate and member of the CETA DAG. 15 May 2020.
Table des illustrations
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Titre | Figure 1. Process of an FTA |
Légende | The chart refers to processes underpinning the course of an FTA from the issuing of a negotiating mandate to its long-term enforcement. The horizontal dimension indicates time, while the vertical one indicates variation in win-set size. The negotiation phase refers to the period preceding FTA signing. Solution-chasing follows the signing and disclosure of an FTA, when PROs can push the Commission to review given FTA provisions. More generically, domestic contestation can stretch even beyond formal ratification, in case salient issues remain unaddressed. Ratification is indicated with a question mark because the chart refers to both exclusive-competence and mixed agreements. The latter can wait a long time before reaching full de jure ratification, remaining provisionally enforced. |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/iheid/docannexe/image/8119/img-1.png |
Fichier | image/png, 27k |
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