Abstract:

With the establishment of the single market trade within the European Union expanded and as the EU enlarged with time, the European Union became one of the most important economic and political community of the world with its 28 member countries and a population over 500 million. The Common Commercial Policy is among the principal common policies established by the EU. This policy determines the external trade policy that EU member states apply between themselves and to third countries and forms the basis of the strategies that they would follow. Common Commercial Policy became exclusive competence of the  Union with the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty” that came into force on December 1st 2009 after long and complicated works. Even though the Lisbon Treaty foresaw to carry CCP to a supranational structure in practice, we argue in this article that as member states have different positions and opinions in the negotiations of the Free Trade Agreements, the intergovernmental process is dominant instead of the foreseen supranational process. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Agreement that is currently being negotiated between the European Union and the United States of America is analysed in particular and either critics regarding the lack of transparency in the negotiations, the public opinion, the reports that leaked in the press or the results of the survey that we conducted with the European Parliament members; these all support concretely our hypothesis. This study analyses the supranational process that was designed for the commercial policy of the Union with the Lisbon Treaty, from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership perspective and put forth the different functioning and aspects of the common commercial policy and shows that the European Commission does not have exclusive competence within free trade and investment agreements.

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