CITIZENS’ INVOLVEMENT IN THE EUROPEAN UNION COMMON COMMERCIAL POLICY

Abstract

The starting point of this contribution is, first, a factual observation and, second, a normative finding. Free trade agreements today often enjoys a high degree of public attention including controversial deliberations among and within political parties and have thus obviously turned into a politicized area of law. It is recognized that traditional concepts of democratic legitimacy developed under the conditions of the nation-state alone constitute an inadequate approach for legitimizing the respective transnational steering regimes. Rather, those scholars who are sympathetic towards a conceptual change of legitimacy favor more complex approaches comprising of ’input-oriented’ as well as ’output-oriented’ elements; legitimizing factors that are more appropriately qualified as alternatives to, or surrogates for, democratic legitimacy and find their overarching normative basis in the republican constitutional principle. Against this background, the contribution assesses the possibilities for the involvement of the general public as well as individual non-state actors in the two main phases of EU FTAs. This includes an evaluation of the direct and indirect participatory option during the negotiations of these agreements. Moreover, the contribution attempts to identify and assess the venues for participation by interested and affected nonstate actors in the implementation and continued progressive development of EU FTAs

Keywords

• european union
• economic relations
• trade agreement
• law
• investment