Evading Vetoes: Exiting the Politicized Decision Trap in EU Trade Policy

The EU has famously been described as plagued by a ‘joint decision trap’: Member States are obliged to work together yet have difficulties making comprehensive steps forward given high decision-making thresholds. This contribution states that against the background of the politicization of European integration, the prospect of a ‘politicized decision trap’ (PDT) emerges, where de facto veto positions develop that cannot easily be accommodated in the spotlight. To account for the observation that deadlock is often avoided, even in the face of visible conflict, the literature on exiting the JDT is rehabilitated by categorizing mechanisms as ‘anticipating’, ‘engaging’ or ‘defusing’ vetoes. Empirically, this framework is applied to EU trade policy, as several EU trade agreements in the past decade were (expected to become) confronted with the PDT, yet experienced remarkable resilience. By reviewing contemporary EU trade literature, various mechanisms are identified that have helped the EU evade the PDT