%0 Journal Article 
%A Guimarães, Maria Helena
%A Egan, Michelle
%T Subnational mobilization and political countermovement in EU trade policy in Belgium, Germany and Spain

%D 2025
%@ 2341-0868
%U http://hdl.handle.net/10498/37571
%X While subnational governments in federal systems are often treated as potentially
autonomous policy jurisdictions, central governments have traditionally held exclusive authority
over trade policy. Yet the widening scope of trade agreements that encroach on domestic regulatory
policies including government procurement, health services, or investor protection has led subnational entities to increasingly demand a say in their negotiation and ratification. Concerns about the
impact on their competences, coupled with arguments that specific agreements threaten European
norms and values, has unleashed new forms of conflict between national and subnational entities.
Drawing on Polanyi’s double movement concept, we show how EU trade policy has fostered a
political countermovement where subnational jurisdictions deploy strategies to protect from the
effects of trade liberalization and to defend their decentralized authority. We address subnational
opposition to CETA and TTIP agreements using three contrasting cases —Belgium, Germany, and
Spain— to illustrate diverse opposition patterns to EU trade liberalization —from ex ante efforts to
shape trade negotiation outcomes to ex post opposition exercising veto power. The article argues
that allocation of constitutional powers and party politics shape these different oppositional strategies and point to a paradox —EU efforts to speak with “one voice” generate contestation trade-offs at the subnational level in which tensions across multiple levels have evolved around establishing
greater social autonomy and control over market processes.

%K trade
%K countermovement
%K Polanyi
%K Belgium
%K Germany
%K Spain
%K subnational
%K comercio
%K contramovimiento
%K Polanyi
%K Bélgica
%K Alemania
%K España
%~ Universidad de Cádiz