Parliamentary Approval of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement: a Challenge or an Opportunity for the Multilevel Parliamentary Field?

The recent politicisation of international trade poses a significant challenge but also an opportunity for the multilevel parliamentary field in Europe (national parliaments and the EP). On one hand, Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) generated heated debates at the national and the supranational level. Parliamentary parties have been therefore confronted with a challenge to respond, accommodate and represent these conflicting interests. On the other hand, the process of oversight and approval of FTAs constitutes a unique opportunity for the multilevel parliamentary field to narrow the accountability gap in the area of international trade. In order to investigate the problem in more detail, the article poses the following questions: is the conflict over international trade explained by any of the socio-economic cleavages? Or does trade generate a new distinctive conflict line, namely between the mainstream and populism? To what extend are national and supranational (EP) conflict lines convergent or divergent? In the empirical dimension, the article investigates the approval process of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) by the European Parliament and national parliaments. CETA has been recognized as a mixed agreement which requires approval of the EP and national parliaments. The statistical model employed in the article analyses the vote outcome in the EP and national parliaments that have completed the approval process so far. The positions of political parties regarding social cleavages were estimated on the basis of the Manifesto database.