<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>This article examines the determinants of voting patterns within the European Parliament for EU trade legislations including EU trade agreements. Given that trade is a very sensitive issue for particular Member States, our question is to verify whether members of European Parliament (MEP) tend to vote in line with their political affiliation or national identity prevails in voting for trade-related issues. Our results from EU trade agreements with Korea and Columbia/Peru show that MEPs tend to vote with others in their political groups in trade legislations and their voting pattern is not very different from the overall voting pattern observed in other policy areas. This trend is confirmed by both the comparison of intra-voting cohesion index and the empirical test based on the probit model. Country-specific variables do not explain well the voting behavior of MEPs in trade issues. However, it is noteworthy that some MEPs voted in line with their national interests in case of EU-Korea FTA.</p></abstract>

This article examines the determinants of voting patterns within the European Parliament for EU trade legislations including EU trade agreements. Given that trade is a very sensitive issue for particular Member States, our question is to verify whether members of European Parliament (MEP) tend to vote in line with their political affiliation or national identity prevails in voting for trade-related issues. Our results from EU trade agreements with Korea and Columbia/Peru show that MEPs tend to vote with others in their political groups in trade legislations and their voting pattern is not very different from the overall voting pattern observed in other policy areas. This trend is confirmed by both the comparison of intra-voting cohesion index and the empirical test based on the probit model. Country-specific variables do not explain well the voting behavior of MEPs in trade issues. However, it is noteworthy that some MEPs voted in line with their national interests in case of EU-Korea FTA.

European Affiliations or National Interests? Analyses of Voting Patterns on Trade Policy in European Parliament

TalTech Journal of European Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

This article examines the determinants of voting patterns within the European Parliament for EU trade legislations including EU trade agreements. Given that...

European Affiliations or National Interests? Analyses of Voting Patterns on Trade Policy in European Parliament

Published Online: Dec 31, 2019

Page range: 19 - 48

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/bjes-2019-0036

Keywords
European Parliament, free trade agreement, national identity, political affiliation, probit model, voting pattern

© 2019 Yoo-Duk Kang, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

European Affiliations or National Interests? Analyses of Voting Patterns on Trade Policy in European Parliament

Published Online: Dec 31, 2019

Page range: 19 - 48

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/bjes-2019-0036

KeywordsEuropean Parliament, free trade agreement, national identity, political affiliation, probit model, voting pattern

© 2019 Yoo-Duk Kang, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
European Parliament, free trade agreement, national identity, political affiliation, probit model, voting pattern