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The Saga Continues: contestation of EU trade
policy
L. Johan Eliasson & Patricia Garcia-Duran
To cite this article: L. Johan Eliasson & Patricia Garcia-Duran (2020) The Saga
Continues: contestation of EU trade policy, Global Affairs, 6:4-5, 433-450, DOI:
10.1080/23340460.2021.1885987
To link to this article:  https://doi.org/10.1080/23340460.2021.1885987
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CONTESTATION OF EU FOREIGN POLICY
The Saga Continues: contestation of EU trade policy
L. Johan Eliassona and Patricia Garcia-Duranb
aPolitical Science and Economics, East Stroudsburg University, East Stroudsburg, PA, USA; bEconomic
History, Institutions and Policies, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
ABSTRACT
Trade policy constitutes a significant part of the European Union’s
(EU) foreign policy. The EU’s emphasis on global trade
liberalization in the 21st century is most evident through its ever
increasing number of modern, deep, bilateral trade agreements.
However, aspects of EU trade policy and bilateral agreements are
hotly contested. We examine this by comparing the rhetoric
employed by European civil society organizations from 2013
through 2020. While the focus of contestation and the rhetorical
strategy remained fairly consistent, the effects of contestation
(politicization, institutionalization of new processes) changed,
largely due to the presence or absence of negotiations on a deep
trade agreement with an economic and political equal perceived
to have greater bargaining power. This study contributes to the
literature on norm contestation and politicization by providing
empirical evidence that mere contestation is insufficient for
politicization, and by showing show that perceived bargaining
strength influences trade politicization.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 15 September 2020
Accepted 27 January 2021
KEYWORDS
EU; contestation; trade
policy; civil society; external
relations; values
1. Introduction
The European Union (EU) pursues bilateral and regional preferential trade agreements
(PTA) with both developing and developed economies, where most negotiations with
developed countries focus on new generation, “deep” trade agreements that address pri-
marily “behind-the-border”, regulatory and normative issues, such as intellectual prop-
erty, labour and environmental standards, procurement, competition, investment
protection, and various kinds of regulatory compatibility or convergence. The EU
insists that deep agreements are both compatible with, and help promote, multilateralism
(meaning a rules-based international trade system, European Commission, 2006, 2015a),
and has also employed geopolitical arguments to boost support for its trade agreements,
insisting they can help counter geopolitical challengers, fight climate change, defend
democratic values, manage globalization and promote better governance (European
Commission, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c, 2014d, 2014e; 2015a; 2017, p. 7,9; Lecocq and
Zubek this issue). Trade policy, in particular trade agreements, is therefore not only
part of the EU’s external action agenda but also the larger EU foreign policy toolbox,
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
CONTACT L. Johan Eliasson jeliasson@esu.edu
GLOBAL AFFAIRS
2020, VOL. 6, NOS. 4–5, 433–450
https://doi.org/10.1080/23340460.2021.1885987
and thus needs to be included when assessing contestation of EU foreign policy (Intro-
duction, this issue; Puglierin, 2019).
The widening scope of trade agreements has attracted the attention of many European
civil society organizations (CSOs), and while their concerns have not been the strategic
use of trade policy, they have increasingly argued that the EU’s trade policy generally, and
especially specific agreements, contain threats to European norms and values (DeVille &
Siles-Brügge, 2015; Eliasson & Garcia-Duran Huet, 2019; Gheyle, 2019). These concerns
were on full display during the 2013–2016 negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and
Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the United States (US), and during Member States’
domestic approval process of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement
(CETA) between the EU and Canada, in 2016 (Gheyle, 2019;Young, 2017a). CSOs inten-
sified their engagement and amended traditional lobbying techniques by harnessing new
technologies and media, which in turn enabled greater activism and helped facilitate
public awareness (Bauer, 2016; Gheyle, 2019). While some ideologically left-leaning pol-
itical parties across Europe have long opposed liberalization through trade because of its
perceived anchoring in neo-liberal globalization (cf. Bauer, 2016), the “permissive con-
sensus” that had largely reigned over EU trade policy (Hooghe & Marks, 2009) ended
with TTIP.
The “why and how” of politicization over TTIP and CETA, as well as its impact on EU
trade policy, have been the subject of several special issues (De Bièvre, Garcia-Duran,
Eliasson, & Costa, 2020; Laursen & Roederer-Rynning, 2017; Young, 2017b), books
(DeVille & Siles-Brügge, 2015; Eliasson & Garcia-Duran Huet, 2019; Gheyle, 2019;
Young, 2017a) and individual articles (e.g. De Bièvre, Gstöhl, & Van Ommeren, 2018;
Fabry, Garbasso, & Pardo, 2014). This literature shows that contestation was mainly
internal to the EU, and that the focus of contestation was on “deep” provisions of the
proposed agreements, rather than the removal of traditional, at-the-border, trade bar-
riers. Politicization of trade policy occurred mainly due to three factors (none of them
sufficient on their own): CSOs activism, the depth of the agreements, and the perception
of the US as having superior bargaining power and being a country dominated by cor-
porate interests. Since there was little contestation of other trade agreements negotiated
during this time period (e.g. with Vietnam and Japan, De Bièvre et al., 2020), the debate is
whether the politicization surrounding TTIP (and by extension CETA) was particular
and unique (Eliasson & Garcia-Duran Huet, 2019; Gheyle, 2019; Young, 2017a).
This article contributes to this debate by assessing what happened after politicization
peaked. We show that CSOs continued to contest trade policy in the period 2017–19.
There was similar contestation in both periods, one with politicization (2013–16) and
one without (2017–2019), indicating that negotiating a deep trade agreement with a pol-
itical and economic equal that is perceived as having greater bargaining power is a poli-
ticization trigger (De Bièvre & Poletti, 2020, call for research on triggers).1 The next
section presents our theory and methodology. The third and fourth sections cover the
two periods of contestation, 2013–2016 and 2017–2019, revealing significant continuity
in rhetorical contestation. While in 2017–2019 mass popular mobilization was conspicu-
ously absent, social media campaigns dwindled, and mainstream media rarely discussed
the pros and cons of specific EU agreements (except Brexit-related trade), we find con-
tinued contestation by CSOs on certain issues, and an elevation of others; disappoint-
ment with the impact achieved on many issues, but also acceptance of some of the
434 L. J. ELIASSON AND P. GARCIA-DURAN
changes made by the Commission. The fifth section discusses the implications of these
findings.
2. Theory and methodology
To better understand internal contestation of EU trade policy (and how it relates to EU
external relations), we assess the rhetorical contestation of EU trade policy by three CSOs
both during TTIP negotiations (2013–2016) and the following three years (2017–2019).
Contestation, politicization, and rhetorical strategies
Contestation, Wiener (2014) explains, is “a way to voice difference of experience, expec-
tation and opinion” (p. 11), for the purpose of defining “the meaning-in-use of the norms
that govern a political community” (p. 10). This implies the right to contest fundamental
norms (e.g. human rights, democracy) as well as standardized procedures, such as rules,
technical standards, and processes (cf. Wiener, 2014 in Johansson-Nogués, Vlaskamp, &
Barbé, 2020, p. 6). Laursen and Roederer-Rynning (2017) characterize twenty-first
century trade policy as “contentious market regulation”, which entails continuous inter-
actions between societal actors and regulators. Contestation is thus embedded in debates
on trade policy.
However, contestation is not the same as politicization. Contestation is associated with
acts of contention over specific norms, while politicization implies a combination of
competing policy preferences (polarization), increased salience and an expansion and
mobilization of the number of participants for the purpose of affecting policy (Zürn,
Binder, & Ecker-Ehrhardt, 2012, p. 71; cf. De Wilde, 2011; De Wilde, Leupold, &
Schmidtke, 2016; and Gheyle, 2019). Hutter, Grande, and Kriesi (2016) specifically
emphasizes that “politicization finds it expression in decidedly public, mainly mass-
mediated debates”. (p. 346). We place particular emphasis on the expansion and mass
mobilization of participants, including public engagement, as a crucial link between con-
testation and politicization. Contestation (competitive claims) is thus part of, but can also
occur without, politicization.
Rhetoric, a type of argumentation, is the art of persuasion; of making competitive
claims aimed at third parties. When doing so a person or group often uses specifically
chosen phrases and words, making rhetoric “primarily an awareness of the language
choices we make” (Purdue, 2018; cf. Grube, 2016, p. 534). Rhetoric, written or spoken,
can also be used to “… encourage each other to understand things from one another’s
perspectives”.(Purdue, 2018). As a distinct theory and practice of persuasive communi-
cation, rhetoric is not a discussion, nor a dialectic; when the target audience is a third
party – the public – rhetoric becomes a counterpart to dialectic (Finlayson, 2013, p.
317ff). Dür (2019) finds that interest groups can shape public opinion in line with
their preferences via well-structured arguments. Arguments are statements supportive
of specific ideas, which “can change others’ beliefs, and the weight they give to these
ideas” (cf. Dür, 2019, p. 516).
Humans are also more receptive to messages from groups they trust, and more recep-
tive to fear-based, rather than positive, messaging; later-in-time information also remains
more relevant than earlier information (Franck, 2014; Kensinger, 2011). CSOs generally
GLOBAL AFFAIRS 435
enjoy higher public trust than the EU, national governments, or corporations, placing
them in a better position to shape public opinion (Edelman, 2012; Eurobarometer,
2013, 2014a, 2014b). Finally, making an issue salient to the target audience is critical
for mobilization. Thus, the messaging must tap into and appeal to cultural and societal
norms and existing beliefs in order to generate the desired response (cf. Buffet & Heuser,
1998; Möller-Jensen, 1988). Rhetorical argumentation, as applied in this paper, is thus the
verbal or written manifestation of preferences and ideas for the purpose of persuading a
third party.
Rhetorical success requires a strategy, and Hirschman (1991) identifies three rhetori-
cal strategies useful to opponents of a proposed change or reform.2 The “perversity
thesis” holds that the proposed change would only “serve to exacerbate the condition
one wishes to remedy…” (p. 7) because there will be unintended consequences or
side-effects due to imperfect foresight. The “futility thesis” is the argument that attempts
at social transformation would fail to change society because the basic structures of
society are unchangeable, thus “… human actions pursuing a given aim are nullified”
(p. 72). Finally, the “jeopardy thesis” is an argument where “the cost of the proposed
change or reform is too high because it endangers some previous, precious accomplish-
ment” (p. 7); while the proposed change may be desirable, it involves unacceptable costs
(p. 81). The jeopardy thesis is based on the assumption that there are high, often unac-
ceptably high, costs associated with losing the perceived benefits of the status quo, with
the latter seen as the result of “older hard-won conquests or accomplishments” (p. 84).
In sum, effective rhetorical contestation requires a strategy, with messaging aimed at
shaping third party (public) opinions and eliciting its support. Assessing contestation
through the lens of a rhetorical strategy helps us understand why CSOs feared trade
negotiations with certain partners would entail unacceptable compromises and costs,
and why trade policy generally should not be allowed to undermine existing norms
and values.
CSOs selection and qualitative content analysis
CSOs played a vital role commencing contestation over TTIP and CETA and were
pivotal to the politicization that ensued (Bauer, 2016; DeVille & Siles-Brügge, 2015;
Gheyle, 2019; Siles-Brügge, 2017). The opposition groups whose rhetoric we most
closely examine include Friends of the Earth (FOEE), the European Consumer Organiz-
ation (BEUC), and Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO). They were chosen because
they have a widespread support-base, possess experience with trade issues, were
present at stakeholder sessions held during TTIP negotiating rounds, and are among
the most active CSOs in Brussels; BEUC and FOEE are two of the 10 most active
CSOs in Brussels (Bauer, 2019), and CEO’s budget and staff nearly matches that of
FOEE. Moreover, between the three they cover the reformist-rejectionist spectrum.
BEUC is reformist, meaning support for trade agreements is contingent on the
inclusion of guarantees on protecting human and plant health, the curtailment of corpor-
ate power and regulatory convergence, and removal of investor protection, all in order to
prevent a “race to the bottom” on standards. Reformists also tend to engage in insider
lobbying and participate in public debates with trade supporters; they assume a less con-
frontational social media campaign than rejectionists (cf. Gortanutti, 2016). Rejectionist
436 L. J. ELIASSON AND P. GARCIA-DURAN
CSOs (FOEE and CEO) oppose modern trade agreements under nearly all circum-
stances, premised on arguments that modern trade policies are the manifestation of
exploitative globalization, neo-liberalism and a threat to sovereignty (cf. Hopewell, 2015).
We recognize that groups other than CEO, BEUC, and FOEE were active. For
example, Greenpeace (rejectionist) contributed to street protests in 2013–2016 and has
subsequently continued to contest trade policy. We claim only to have a representative
sample of CSOs. Nevertheless, research citing activities and statements of other CSOs
that would fall within the reformist and rejectionist groups reveal they espoused argu-
ments very similar to those of our chosen CSOs (Bauer, 2016; Buonanno, 2017;
Gheyle, 2019).
To analyse these CSOs’ rhetoric we apply a qualitative content analysis. This method
allows us to identify CSOs’ main arguments and possible variations both within and
between the two periods under analysis. In the words of Zhang and Wildemuth (2005,
p. 1), “Qualitative content analysis goes beyond merely counting words or extracting
objective content from texts to examine meanings, themes and patterns that may be
manifest or latent in a particular text” (cf. Kohlbacher, 2006). For our assessment of
CSOs we used four randomly selected speeches, press releases, and communiques with
“TTIP”, “transatlantic trade”, “EU-US trade”, “ISDS (Investor-State Dispute Settle-
ment)”, “trade agreement” or “investment court” in the title from each organization,
every year for the years 2013 through 2016. This represents 37.2% (16/43) of BEUC’s
press releases, public statements, or reports on trade; the figure for CEO is 34% (16/
47), and for FOEE 14.54% (16/110). For the years 2017–2019 we used four randomly
selected speeches, press releases, or communiques per year, per CSO, with “trade”
“trade policy”, “trade agreements”, “CETA”, “Investment”, or “Investment court” in
the title, plus a 2018 joint statement on EU trade and democracy, signed by all three
CSOs.3 This represents 41.3% (12/29) of BEUC’s press releases, public statements, and
reports in 2017–2019; the figure for CEO is 27.9% (12/43), and for FOEE 40% (12/30).
This totals 85 documents (the list is available on figshare). Each document is referenced
by organizational abbreviation, year, a letter (A-E, representing the first through fifth
document), and page (where applicable). The texts were read by two people, and in
both time periods we looked for arguments using any of the rhetorical theses. Very
few arguments fit the perversity or utility thesis; the overwhelming majority fit the jeo-
pardy thesis, which dominated CSOs’ rhetorical contestation.4
3. 2013–2016 contestation and politicization
As soon as TTIP negotiations were announced in 2013 there was a steadily rising chorus
from CSOs claiming that an agreement with the US would undermine EU standards and
safety regulations, as well as governments’ abilities to regulate in the public interest. The
issues on which they chose to campaign partly reflected past experiences (campaigning
against investor treaties and globalization), recognition that food and food standards
are important to EU citizens (Echols, 1998; Eurobarometer, 2010; Personal Communi-
cation, Brussels, 9 May, 2016), and the need to use an effective rhetorical strategy. Not-
withstanding local differences (e.g. Gheyle, 2020; van Loon, 2020), the rhetorical
contestation of TTIP and CETA entailed constructing a trans-EU rhetorical strategy
penetrating domestic and supranational levels (cf. Siles-Brügge & Strange, 2020).
GLOBAL AFFAIRS 437
CSOs needed topics, issues, and associations that could, in the context of TTIP
negotiations, be made salient to a large European population. As one CSO represen-
tative said “something to raise fears and capture attention” (Personal Communi-
cation, 9 May, 2016). To this effect, groups such as Campact provided anti-TTIP
groups with slogans, key words, and, importantly, effective issue associations, gener-
ated through queries to targeted emails from their own expansive list (Personal Com-
munication, Brussels, 16 May, 2016 & Berlin, 7 June, 2016). This helped shape CSOs’
rhetorical contestation, which came to focus primarily on three issue areas: standards
(in particular regarding food), investor protection, and transparency (the lack
thereof). CSOs would never directly target the norm of free trade, or the EU’s bilateral
approach; they never advocated for a shift to exclusive multilateralism, nor for pro-
tectionism. Open and fair trade, and free trade itself, remain popular with Europeans
(Eurobarometer, 2019). Instead they intended to convey a particular interpretation of
the negotiations, and the potential results thereof. As we show, CSOs focused on the
rhetoric of fear; fear of losing precious European achievements, and endangering the
hard-won benefits of the status quo (i.e. a jeopardy thesis). As such, CSOs did not take
a stand on the geopolitical benefits espoused by the European Commission.
Standards
CSOs consistently paired big business or corporations with something negative, implying
that the Commission was unable to withstand American pressure, thus jeopardizing
European standards, “the official language talks of ‘mutual recognition’ of standards or
so-called reduction of non-tariff barriers. However, for the EU, that could mean accept-
ing American standards in many areas, including food and agriculture, which are lower
than the EU’s” (CEO, May 22, 2013). This would be the tone for the next three years.
BEUC insisted that the Commission must support EU food standards, and FOEE
declared regulatory convergence a “…massive threat to environment, social and consu-
mer standards” (FOEE, 2013c).
American corporations were said to be challenging EU regulations, deeming them too
demanding. The implied message was that officials could not withstand the pressure from
corporations, and even though the Commission’s stated policy was to not compromise
EU regulations when pursuing trade liberalization (European Commission, 2015a,
p. 4), and had been for nearly two decades, the Commission would now cave to the migh-
tier Americans because
what is termed ‘regulatory coherence’.…means convergence around the lowest existing
standards in both the EU and the US, treating democratically determined rules on food
safety, local food systems and environmental protection as mere ‘barriers to trade’ to be
removed or sidestepped. (FOEE, 2013b).
American negotiators and corporations were said to be using negotiations to push open
EU fields to GM crop and circumvent EU restrictions, “TTIP offers the perfect vehicle to
bypass overwhelming opposition to GMOs by EU citizens… .”, “EU GMO safety stan-
dards are much stricter than in the US”, but TTIP would “… open the floodgate to
GMOs” (CEO, 2013a, 2013b; FOEE 2013b).
438 L. J. ELIASSON AND P. GARCIA-DURAN
Raising public salience on food became primarily an issue of presenting – in a sim-
plified and understandable fashion – the specifics of potentially altered sanitary and phy-
tosanitary standards (SPS) as a threat to Europeans’ health, because American standards
were said to be lower, threatening existing (higher) EU SPS standards (BEUC, 2014a,
2014b). Chlorinated chicken soon substituted for GMOs as the main danger stemming
from the lowering of standards. By summer 2014, BEUC insisted that “It is not
without reason that chlorinated chicken has emerged as a symbol of the detriments Euro-
pean consumers might face if a TTIP deal is signed… [t]he European approach to meat
safety is more efficient in protecting public health”, and “… the American approach is
‘[t]he easy fix’ to make up for poor farming and slaughter hygiene” (BEUC, 2014d).
FOEE, having argued from the start that TTIP would allow politics and profits to
guide food standards, called for a total secession of TTIP talks because “… pressure
from US trade officials and the US factory farm industry is already leading to a reduction
in food standards… […] TTIP is a bad deal for people and planet” (FOEE, 2015b, cf.
CEO, 2015a).
In 2016 BEUC continued attacking regulatory cooperation as a means of eroding
European standards to the benefit of lower American standards: “The regulatory ‘philos-
ophies’ informing chemicals legislation on either side of the Atlantic are too different…
The focus on reducing nontariff barriers thus in short raises concerns that TTIP will be
used as a backdoor mechanism to reduce protections” (BEUC, 2016a). By April, CEO and
FOEE argued that “the leaked TTIP text confirms that the United States [is] trying to
export its failed regulatory model… [regulatory cooperation] represents a direct attack
on democracy and the triumph of the ideology that what is good for big business is
good for society” (CEO, 2016d; BEUC, 2016c). TTIP was continuously framed as ensur-
ing, and legitimizing, the erosion of European food standards, thus sacrificing European
values and standards by jeopardizing the status quo (BEUC, 2016b; FOEE, 2016b; cf.
CEO, 2016c).
Investor protection
Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), is a process by which foreign investors can seek
apolitical redress in private tribunals when governments breach the terms of investment
agreements. CSOs framed ISDS as enabling American companies to sue European gov-
ernments over any public policy that could reduce corporate profits, such as the precau-
tionary and Polluter Pays principles, or new environmental or public health laws (BEUC,
2013b). ISDS was presented as evidence of corporate favouritizm since “U.S. and EU
property rights laws and courts are robust, there is no pretext for granting foreign inves-
tors superior rights to domestic firms or subjecting our judicial systems to tribunals
empowered to raid our Treasuries” (CEO, 2013c; FOEE, 2013c).
Assertions that ISDS was “Allowing corporations to sue governments in secret courts
over policies they don’t like” and “threatening public services” quickly became mantras,
continuously repeated in protests and panel discussions, as well as in YouTube videos,
tweets, position papers, reports, and press releases (Eliasson & Garcia-Duran, 2018).
Throughout 2014–2016, CEO and BEUC published policy papers opposing ISDS; its
inclusion in TTIP meant “privileging foreign companies” and “threatening public
policy”, “granting of exorbitant rights to foreign corporations”, sending a message that
GLOBAL AFFAIRS 439
it would cost the public dearly (BEUC, 2013d; CEO, 2013c; BEUC 2015d, 1; FOEE,
2015a).
Even after the Commission’s 2015 proposed modernization of ISDS (with extensive
curtailments on how, when, and where investors could challenge government decisions,
and later a permanent court, as part of an Investor Court System, (ICS)), CSOs argued it
still “attacked consumer safeguards” and “threatened public policy measures” because
“different reservations and exemptions in CETA and TTIP are inadequate…” (CEO,
November 17, 2015; BEUC, January 22, 2016, 15; CEO, February 22, 2016).
Transparency
Most citizens are unaware of how negotiations transpire, and even though the textual
proposals in previous trade negotiations had never publicized, asserting a lack of trans-
parency in these particular negotiations allowed for a number of inferences. Thus, “they
[The Commission] must be hiding something”, “what are they afraid of?”, “they are cir-
cumventing democracy”, quickly became part of the common rhetoric of opposition
CSOs (BEUC, 2014a, 2016d; CEO, 2013b, 2013d; FOEE, 2013d, 2014c; Personal com-
munication, Brussels, 9 May 2016). As with the other two issues, there is consistency
in the rhetoric. CSOs continued asserting that secrecy benefitted corporations, and
that the Commission was vague, unclear, and – notwithstanding the Commission’s
unprecedented step of releasing its negotiating mandate – “a barrier to transparency”
(BEUC, 2014c, p.3; CEO, 2015b). CSO continued insisting that “information was with-
held from reaching the public”, and that leaked negotiating texts (by Greenpeace in 2016)
meant the public could not trust the Commission’s reassurances that EU standards would
remain unaffected (BEUC, 2016a, p. 15; cf. FOEE, 2016a).
In sum, despite the EU halting negotiations on ISDS and the Commission publishing
its own negotiating texts, the jeopardy thesis dominated, with CSOs presenting similar
arguments that the “secretly negotiated” TTIP would lower food safety standards,
benefit large firms, and weaken or remove safety regulations. The CSO campaign led
to increased public salience, polarization and unprecedented mass mobilization
(Deutsche Welle, 2015; Schroeder, 2017, p. 1; cf. Young, 2019), seen in, for example, a
European Citizens Initiative to stop TTIP garnering over 3 million signatures; nearly 3
million people protesting against TTIP and CETA on the streets of Europe in 2014
and 2015, and more than one anti-TTIP event being held every day in Germany in
2015 (Bauer, 2016). CETA was politicized because, as CSOs argued, it was a “backdoor”
for American companies into the EU.
CSOs dominated social media and search engine results. 90% of Twitter and Youtube
posts were anti-TTIP (Ciofu & Nicolae, 2016), and European Google searches on TTIP
peaked around the time of negotiating rounds and opposition-led street protests (100%
of Austrians who received their information primarily online opposed TTIP, Eliasson &
Garcia-Duran, 2019), all of which helped generate mass mobilization against TTIP. EU
wide public support for TTIP dropped from 59% in 2014–51% in 2016, when it was 17%
in Germany and 30% in Austria; support stood at 49% in Italy and France. Surveys asking
about specific issues, such as food safety, also showed a clear majority opposing an agree-
ment with the US (Eurobarometer, 2016; Pew, 2014; Yougov, 2015). The mobilization
against TTIP was the largest in EU history; millions marched and protested against
440 L. J. ELIASSON AND P. GARCIA-DURAN
TTIP across Europe in 2015 and 2016. A number of European governments called for
abolishing ISDS in CETA by late 2014, and thereafter began questioning TTIP, with
France calling for a cessation to negotiations by mid-2016, referencing protests and con-
cerns expressed by CSOs (Barbière, 2015; Nguyen, 2016). CSOs’ ability to shape the
debate was further evidenced by Commission staff who expressed disappointment
with governments’ lack of advocacy and support for the Commission when negotiating
TTIP (Personal Communication, Brussels and Berlin, April and June 2016.)
In late 2016 the Commission had moved from heralding its “progressive trade agree-
ments” (CETA) to presenting them as means of “managing globalization”, where
“shaping globalisation is also about ensuring that people in Europe feel they have
influence over the global rules that are affecting them” (European Commission, 2016,
p. 1). The Commission wanted to assure sceptics that the EU’s new trade strategy,
Trade For All, addressed the “widespread concern that trade policy is more about the
large companies and the investors than about individual European citizens”, and that
it was “a trade policy which is in tune with European values” (European Commission,
2015b, pp. 4–5). Aside from removing ISDS in TTIP and CETA, the Commission also
enhanced the civil society dialogue, began publishing negotiating texts, reaffirmed its
dedication to upholding EU food, health, and safety standards, and made upholding
European values a key part of EU trade policy (Eliasson & Garcia-Duran, 2019; European
Commission, 2015a). However, contestation and politicization did not stop the EU from
pursuing deep bilateral agreements with others partners who, while powerful, were not
perceived by CSOs as economic and political equals.
4. 2017–2019 contestation post-politicization
After TTIP negotiations were “frozen” due to politicization and growing political scepti-
cism in Europe – along with diminished interest in the US – the focus of CSOs’ contesta-
tion shifted to trade policy broadly speaking, while also raising concerns with some
specific trade agreements and ongoing negotiations. CETA remained a target during
its domestic ratification processes,5 and the agreement with Japan (negotiations com-
menced in 2012, and the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement entered into
force in February 2019) was now also contested by rejectionist CSOs. Negotiations
with Australia and New Zealand (which began in 2019) raised concerns, as did the
return of “TTIP Light”, as CSOs branded a July 2018 agreement between Commission
President Juncker and US President Trump to “work on” a trade agreement to abolish
some non-tariff measures, subsidies, and all non-auto industrial tariffs (Pop, Salama, &
Davies, 2018).
While BEUC recognized the Commission’s willingness to embrace change in how it
negotiates trade agreements (2017a), it remained critical of many aspects, and other
CSOs instead insisted that “… the widespread public resistance to TTIP and CETA
has made it clear that European citizens want a change in trade policy. [because]
Trade and investment should not primarily serve economic interests…” (FOEE
2018a, p. 9; CEO 2017d) [instead] “..[agreements] should focus on how trade and invest-
ment can contribute to a healthy environment, decent work, a sustainable economy as
well as food and energy security…” and that to this end food protectionism was
deemed justifiable (FOEE 2018a, p. 23; cf. CEO, 2017a; cf. CEO 2019a). In other
GLOBAL AFFAIRS 441
words, CSOs deemed “appropriate” non-trade issues such as labour and environmental
protection suitable for inclusion in trade agreements. In 2018 BEUC, CEO and FOEE
joined more than 100 CSOs in a public statement on how to democratize EU trade
policy, arguing that trade agreements must
contribute to public interest objectives such as tackling climate change, securing decent jobs,
protecting citizens’ health, ensuring tax justice and financial stability. [and] support the
fulfilment and achievement of human rights and other treaties and agreements such as
the Paris Climate Treaty, ILO Standards, the Biodiversity convention, the Sustainable Devel-
opment Goals. (Civil Society Statement, 2018).
The Commission continued insisting that it sought “An open, progressive, trading
system, [but] without compromising standards or values”, where constituencies would
be served and EU foreign policy strengthened by harnessing the benefits from, and
manage the negative aspects of, globalization through trade policy (European Commis-
sion, 2017, p. 2, 4, & 2020). The Commission became “more conscientious” of its com-
munication as a result of TTIP (Personal communication, 22 May, 2018), and EU trade
policy was said to be a tool to manage and shape globalization (Garcia-Duran, Eliasson, &
Costa, 2020). However, CSOs were disappointed with their ability to influence policy
through the civil society advisory panel established in 2017 (Personal communication,
May, 2017; Drieghe, Orbie, Potjomkina, & Shahin, 2020), and contestation on the
same issues (standards, investor protection and transparency), with the addition of
environmental concerns, were clearly evident during the three years after TTIP.
Standards
One legacy of the politicization of TTIP was visible in CSOs’ consistent emphasis in
2017–2019 that regulatory convergence should be shunned, and that dialogues on
“product and services safety and enforcement” should occur outside of trade agreements
(BEUC, 2017d; cf. BEUC 2018a, p. 6; BEUC 2017a p. 3, 4). CETA (signed but not ratified
in 2017) was used by CSOs to explain how “elements like ‘regulatory cooperation’ …will
make it more difficult for politicians to make laws in the public interest” (FOE 2017c;
FOEE 2018a, p. 13). CEO informed the public that under preferential trade agreements
“big business will have the opportunity to weaken citizens’ environmental, social, and
financial protections by claiming that the latter are unnecessary burdens to trade”
(CEO 2017d, p. 3). When, after Trump and Juncker’s 2018 announcement, the Commis-
sion indicated it would only discuss regulatory cooperation with the US where existing
levels of protection were similar, and where each side’s regulations would be fully
respected, civil society responded that “The EU needs to guarantee to its citizens that
it will not start negotiating on Europe’s food safety standards with the US” (FOEE
2018d; cf. CEO 2019a). Though CSOs feared that even in a sectoral agreement “Many
of the ‘TTIP’ worries remain valid for the current EU-US negotiations and new ones
are emerging” (CEO, 2019c), the Commission was never given a mandate to negotiate
agricultural access or SPS standards, and no formal negotiations commenced.
While there was some CSO recognition of the EU’s response to demands during TTIP
negotiations, the period 2017–2019 included consistent emphases that preferential trade
agreements include only regulatory cooperation, not convergence; that agreements
ensure that “… the protection of public health and consumer interests shall be
442 L. J. ELIASSON AND P. GARCIA-DURAN
considered as legitimate reasons to regulate”, and that such guarantees be cross-refer-
enced throughout all chapters on goods and services (BEUC 2017a, p. 3; CEO, 2017a;
CEO 2019d, p. 6; cf. CEO 2019b).
Investment protection
A 2017 ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) declared investor
protection and portfolio investments a shared (Member State-EU) competence, leaving
the Commission to negotiate with Japan and others going forward without ISDS and
portfolio investments (CJEU, 2017); these would now be covered in separate agreements.
There was some initial CSO recognition that the proposed ICS, including aMultilateral
Investment Court (MIC), was an “improvement” to ISDS (FOEE, 2018a), and “a step in the
right direction” (BEUC, 2017b), but therewere also calls for “clear provisions on carve outs
of public interestmeasures” (BEUC, 2017b), and lingering questions of the need for a “par-
allel dispute resolution system for trade agreements with partners that have a well-func-
tioning judicial system and respect the rule of law” (BEUC 2017b p. 2; cf. FOEE, 2018a).
CEOcalled the ICS provisions included inCETA “largely unchanged” from ISDS, contain-
ing “by and large the same far-reaching corporate privileges” (CEO 2017b. p. 10), while
FOEE (2017b) criticized CETA for providing “VIP rights to corporations while failing
to address defining challenges of our time such as rising inequalities and runaway
climate change” (cf. CEO, 2017d). Just like ISDS, ICS andMICwere said to result in “regu-
latory chill” by allowing companies to “threaten governments with lawsuits” (BEUC2018b
p. 2; cf. FOEE 2018a), undermining the democratic right to legislate for the public good.
CSOs targeted investor protections in ongoing negotiations with Australia (“… such
mechanisms should be excluded from any investment deal between the EU and Austra-
lia”. BEUC 2018a, p. 5), Japan (“There is no need for such court, when both Europe and
Japan have well-developed and functioning legal systems” BEUC 2018c) and Indonesia
(“Granting unjustified privileges to corporations and harming local economies and
small-scale farmers, the EU-Indonesian deal proves yet again that the EU is putting
profits over people in its trade strategy” FOEE 2018b)
The Commission hoped that a 30 April, 2019 CJEU opinion affirming the compatibil-
ity of ICS with EU law would neutralize the investor protection issue (European Com-
mission, 2019). However, contestation continued. “The EU is also pushing for a world
court for corporations, a kind of ISDS for the entire globe!” “ICS is the same as ISDS
…” (CEO 2019b; FOEE 2018c; cf. FOEE, 2019a). Criticism of the EU-Vietnam agree-
ment (signed in 2019) nicely sums up the prevailing sentiments over the three years
… the EU persists in pushing ISDS, re-branding it as the Investment Court System and pur-
suing its extension under the guise of the Multilateral Investment Court, which could lead to
many more cases of gravely unjust compensation claims by corporations that harm the
public interest. From Europe to Africa and from Latin America to Asia, ISDS has been
used as a corporate weapon against the public interest (FOEE 2019d).
Transparency
CSOs’ continued contestation of “secretly negotiated trade deals”, where “Big companies
are driving the negotiations, shaping the rules for global trade however they need to
GLOBAL AFFAIRS 443
maximise profits” (BEUC 2017b; CEO 2018d), was mixed with contained recognition of
improvements through the Commission’s transparency initiatives (e.g. BEUC, 2017a).
BEUC and FOEE acknowledged progress on inclusion when demanding “further” demo-
cratization of both trade negotiations and regulatory dialogues (BEUC2017d, p. 2), includ-
ing “better use of the civil society forum” for dialogue, discussion and adoption of
recommendations from stakeholders, and the involvement of “all stakeholders” (BEUC
2017c, p. 8; BEUC 2017a, p. 5; FOEE 2018a). CEO remained critical. Referencing
“TTIP-light” it argued “It is provoking to see EU negotiators once again keeping their
moves in the dark. There is even less transparency around the current negotiations than
there was around TTIP” (CEO 2019a, 2019c; cf. CEO 2018a). Thus, CSOs remained
largely unsatisfied with adjustments undertaken by the EU.
Contestation of trade policies from 2017 through 2019 did not lead tomassmobilization.
A CSO trade representative acknowledged in 2016 “we can’t get any of our national offices
interested in other agreements”. (Personal Communication, 16 May, 2016). Hosuk Lee-
Makiyama of the European Centre for International Political Economy found that, “Most
NGOs, among them several of the big ones, specifically told me, ‘Don’t contact us unless
it’s about TTIP,’” (in von der Burchard, 2016). During TTIP there was powerful rhetoric
about how the US threatened the EU, and how “the EU operates on a higher plane than
its cousin – the US is a nation-state characterized by unfettered capitalism, weak social pro-
tections, low environmental protections [and] selective human rights’ standards” (Buo-
nanno, 2017, p. 98). While contesting trade policy, CSOs did not actively mobilize and
organize massive protests during negotiations with other countries, for example over
ISDS with Vietnam, agriculture and food imports from Japan, or the total lack of transpar-
ency in all negotiations but TTIP. The European Parliament’s international trade committee
toldus they receivedonly “ahandful”of inquiries about negotiationswith JapanandCanada,
compared tohundreds aboutTTIP, andoneCSOtoldus “theywerenot our focus” (Personal
communication, 9 June, 2015&29May, 2016).Therewasnocitizens’ initiative, nor lobbying
of the European Parliament; there were no large-scale social media campaigns, nor any sig-
nificant street protests against either agreement.
5. Conclusion
When looking at contestation through the lens of a rhetorical strategy, we find continuity
in the internal contestation of EU trade policy from 2013 through 2019, and that CSOs
continuously demanded that trade policy not be allowed to undermine existing norms
and values. The jeopardy thesis used in 2013–2016 was premised on an asserted asymme-
trical transatlantic relationship, with the US being perceived and presented by CSOs as
both more powerful and extremely neo-liberal. To ensure that this was what the
public believed, CSOs employed a jeopardy thesis as their main strategy. A successful
strategy, the jeopardy thesis was still present in 2017–2019, when contestation focused
on preserving European standards, norms and values, despite the lack of negotiations
with the US, and certain reforms introduced by the Commission.
There is now greater transparency in trade negotiations and more Commission meet-
ings with stakeholders; the new investment court system and bilateral investment pro-
visions are now negotiated separately, meaning trade agreements only require
approval by the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. While EU trade
444 L. J. ELIASSON AND P. GARCIA-DURAN
policy always included a degree of social purpose, the 2015 trade strategy Trade For All,
and a subsequent assessment of this strategy (European Commission, 2017), places Euro-
pean values and democracy on the same level as economic interests, thus cementing
trade’s role in furthering geopolitical goals as part of EU foreign policy. The Commission
also now insists that all trade agreements will include policy space to preserve and expand
social objectives.6
Our research contributes to the literature on norm contestation and politicization in
two ways, both addressing De Bièvre and Poletti’s (2020) research note on the theory of
various triggers of politicization. First, we add empirical evidence that contestation is not
a sufficient condition for trade politicization. While internal contestation of EU trade
policy appears regularized and permanent, politicization is not; there is no public engage-
ment, and CSOs have not called for large public protests or attempted a pan-European
mobilization since 2016. Far-right nationalist sentiments grew strong in many parts of
Europe during the period 2013–2019, yet support for free trade and globalization rose
(they should have fallen if causally related to politicization). The second contribution
refers to the importance of the US factor. We show that perceived bargaining strength
matters for politicization. In 2017–2019 there were no direct negotiations with an econ-
omic and political competitor perceived as having superior bargaining power, where the
potential costs (e.g. threats to environmental, social, product, and/or labour standards) of
an agreement would be perceived as too great. While the EU-Japan PTA is the largest the
EU has signed, there was no mass mobilization (the intermediate link to politicization),
because the agreement was not very deep (cf. Suzuki, 2017), and Japan was not perceived
as a threat to EU norms.
The key issue is thus not whether the partner is an economic or political competitor,
or whether trade policy should be used to achieve geopolitical objectives, rather, the key
finding is that CSOs can be expected to resist deep trade agreements with those perceived
to have more bargaining power. Hence, we should expect mass mobilization, and thus
politicization, if/when the EU negotiates a new generation, deep, agreement with a
partner perceived as having more bargaining power (currently the USA and China),
but not when negotiating with others.
Eurobarometer data (2019) also lends credence to CSOs’ continued contestation.
Ensuring that EU health and environmental standards are upheld, and that trade rules
apply equally to everyone, are two of the three most chosen responses (jobs is number
one) when asked about the purpose of EU trade policy, and support for these rose sub-
stantially from 2010–2019 (Eurobarometer, 2010, 2019). Slightly more than half of EU
citizens now believe that the EU conducts trade in a transparent fashion, while taking
into account social, environmental and human rights, but Europeans remain divided
on whether trade agreements hurt or benefit the EU (Eurobarometer, 2019). It is clear
that preserving European values, norms and standards remains important to Europeans,
and an important part of trade policy.
Notes
1. This also implies that trade policy contestation may challenge certain foreign policy objec-
tives, especially when working with partners perceived as having more bargaining power
than the EU.
GLOBAL AFFAIRS 445
2. While originally developed to explain domestic ideological argumentation, the rhetorical
theses, the strategies Hirschman presents, are themselves ideologically neutral, and
sufficiently developed conceptually to be utilized in different contexts, to explain other
developments.
3. We are interested in contestation over an extended time period, not reactions to crises,
therefore the choice of random speeches and press releases.
4. Arguments that fit the jeopardy thesis include those that conveyed “jeopardizing our
norms”, “lowering standards”, “costs outweigh benefits”, or “threatening existing values
and standards”.
5. Since 2009 trade agreements require approval by the Council of Ministers and the European
Parliament. But if deemed a “mixed agreement” by the Commission, it also requires ratifi-
cation in all EU Member States.
6. This indicates that the Commission interpreted the jeopardy thesis of CSOs as a demand for
preserving embedded liberalism (i.e., of a compromise between liberalism and social
demands, cf. Ruggie, 1982) rather than as a demand for protectionism.
Acknowledgements
This article is based upon work from COST Action ENTER CA 17119, supported by COST (Euro-
pean Cooperation in Science and Technology).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Funding
This work was supported by National R+D Plan of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Com-
petitiveness: [grant number CSO2016-79205-P]. Observatory of Foreign Policy [grant number
2017 SGR 693].
Supplementary information
The 93 civil society documents used in this study are listed and available in figshare, at
10.6084/m9.figshare.12954557.
Notes on contributors
Leif Johan Eliasson is Professor of Political Science at East Stroudsburg University. His research
focuses on European trade policy and transatlantic trade relations. In addition to three books,
he has published in journals such the Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of European Inte-
gration, World Economy, and the Journal of World Trade.
Patricia Garcia-Duran is Associate Professor at the University of Barcelona (Department of Econ-
omic History, Institutions and Policies and World Economy). She is also Researcher at the Obser-
vatory of European Foreign Policy at the Barcelona Institute of International Studies (IBEI). In
recent years, her work has focused on EU trade policy and the World Trade Organization. She
has published in several refereed journals, including the Journal of European Public Policy,
Journal of European Integration and the Journal of World Trade.
446 L. J. ELIASSON AND P. GARCIA-DURAN
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