Ratification of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA): Towards A New Structure of Political Conflict?

Abstract

Has the high-profile public opposition to recent EU trade agreements supplanted the traditional socio-economic pattern of competition in European trade policy with a value-driven one? This article draws on new data analysing the outcome of the ratification process of a mixed free trade agreement (CETA) in the European Parliament and in all national parliaments that have so far completed ratification. With help of a logistic regression model analysing the vote-outcome, this article demonstrates that despite high social salience, economic considerations remain prominent. Values (TAN-GAL cleavage) were relevant but played a different role than expected. Against the expectation, green parties associated with the GAL-spectrum voted against CETA demonstrating that party preferences on specific values do not necessarily coincide or generate the same policy preference.