"The International Bargaining Power of the European Union in ‘Mixed’ Competence Negotiations: The Case of the 2000 Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety"

Studies of the European Union’s role in global policy negotiations typically focus either on international trade agreements, where the Community enjoys exclusive competence in negotiations, or on military and security accords, where member states take the diplomatic lead in international talks. Between these extremes are a number of issue negotiations in which Community officials and member state representatives speak jointly on behalf of the EU. We analyse one such ‘mixed competence’ case, the negotiations for a global Biosafety Protocol, to understand more about the EU’s behaviour and bargaining power in such settings. Rather than construct a new model for mixed competence cases, however, we aim for explanatory parsimony by applying an existing model designed to predict EU bargaining power in international trade negotiations (Meunier 2000). The analysis reveals that the trade model has considerable explanatory power for some of the outcomes found in the Biosafety Protocol negotiations, but incorrectly predicts that the EU will have no bargaining power. We then identify the sources of discrepancy between the model’s predictions and our empirical results to pinpoint the key differences between exclusive and mixed competence negotiations. We conclude the article by making suggestions for future model building and by reflecting on changes in the new Constitutional Treaty that may affect the EU’s bargaining power on the global stage. The paper is structured as follows. First, we briefly review the literature on the EU in global negotiations before presenting the key parameters and predictions of the Meunier model. Second, we demonstrate the differences between ‘exclusive’ and ‘mixed’ negotiation competences in the EU, and highlight environmental policy negotiations as an example of the latter. Third, we test the predictions of the Meunier model against the case of the Biosafety Protocol negotiations. While the model predicts no bargaining power for the EU in this type of case, we show, against expectations, the EU was a tough bargainer and achieved virtually all of its aims in the final agreement. Fourth, we discuss the potential sources of this discrepancy in the Meunier model and offer suggestions for future model building. The conclusion summarizes the paper and highlights several trends that may affect the EU’s behavior in forthcoming international negotiations