The role of individual member states in the formulation of EU trade policy: the case of Belgium

(Ferdi De Ville, Ghent University)

This paper introduces a new project that will analyse the trade policy formulation in a federal EU Member State, namely Belgium. It is thereby filling a gap in the literature on EU trade policy, which has largely neglected the internal decision-making processes on trade policy inside Member States.

This paper presents the framework used in this project, where theories of Europeanisation, multi-level governance and principal-agent are applied to the role of member-states in one of the most integrated policy domains of the European Union. Next to the enquiry of the decision-making processes in Belgium on EU trade policy, the following questions will be addressed using the aforementioned theoretical and analytical tools: have Belgian governments allocated resources and staff away from trade policy-making because of the power of the European Commission in this domain?; how have the Belgian subnational governments been involved in the Belgian decision-making processes concerning the European Common Commercial Policy?; and have Belgian interest groups redirected their lobbying activities from the national to the subnational and/or the supranational levels?