The Role of the European Parliament and the US Congress in Trade: When and in what ways do parliaments shape Trade Policy in the European Union and th

Building upon my MPhil dissertation work on the conditions leading to the actorness of the European Parliament in EU Trade and Investment post-Lisbon, I will undertake a comparative analysis of both the determinants and the impact of parliamentary involvement in trade and investment in the EU and the US. I hypothesise that in the case of the EP, the four conditions of actorness - authority, recognition, cohesiveness, and autonomy - developed by Jupille and Caporaso (1998) ought to be fulfilled for the EP to acquire centrality as a competing principal co-delegating authority, together with the Council, to the Commission to negotiate on its behalf.

At the same time, the strategic and economic salience of an agreement and its implications for EU citizens at large are hypothesised to determine the value placed by the EP on a particular agreement, in its role of scrutiny, and its consequent willingness to exert tight control over the agent. On the other hand, the assertion of Congress in trade is hypothesised to be determined primarily by the strategic and economic importance of the trade agreements being negotiated - that is if they directly affect the lives of constituents -, as well as by the presence or absence of a pro-trade liberalisation bipartisan majority or a majority tout court.

Whilst the constitutional authority, autonomy, and recognition of the US Congress as an actor in trade are less contested, the formation of a majority on trade issues is far from granted, as trade liberalisation has become increasingly contested.

In line with the existing literature on the post-Lisbon Trade policy role of the EP (Den Putte, De Ville & Orbie 2016; Meissner 2016; Krajewski 2013) this project endeavours to appraise the possible impact of the formal empowerment of the EP in the three phases of EU Trade and Investment policymaking: the negotiating mandate or 'formulation' phase, the negotiation rounds, and the ratification phases of EU Trade Policymaking. I hypothesise, that the EP's formal empowerment has allowed it to shape the EU Trade and Investment policy in ways that better reflect its identity and preferences, yet only when the afore developed set of conditions are strictly met.

The potential assertion of Congress in US trade policy will be similarly evaluated by analysing i. the process leading to the potential granting of Trade Promotion Authority by both branches of Congress to the Presidency (and at its request) to conduct fast-track trade negotiations conducive to binding Executive-Legislative agreements, ii. the scrutiny of the negotiations and iii. The ratification by both branches of Congress.

The granting of TPA in US trade policymaking is comparable to the mandate phase of EU trade policymaking: strict ex-ante conditions are set by Congress as principal that ought to be followed by the Presidency as agent when conducting trade negotiations with trade partners.

Strategic case-studies are most suitable for a comparative analysis of the determinants and impact of the involvement of the EP and Congress in EU and US trade policy. In particular, I will focus on executive-legislative relations in the conduct of trade policymaking in the trade and investment agreements negotiated between the world's three leading trade powers: the EU, the United States, and the People's Republic of China.

I will therefore analyse the role of the European Parliament and Congress in potentially shaping the negotiating position of their respective executives in the EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The TTIP, notwithstanding the Trump administration decision to interrupt negotiations with the EU in 2017, was uniquely prominent because of both the ambition of the agreement envisaged between the US and EU and its unprecedented politicisation, which explain the level of attention in the literature (Cf. Roedegger-Rynning 2017; De Ville & Gheyle 2023; Cremona 2015; Jancic 2016).