More than a broker: the commission in trilogues for geoeconomic instruments

As the EU seeks strategic autonomy, the European Commission is strengthening its supranational role through new trade defence instruments. While the Commission mediated the trilogue negotiations for the anti-coercion instrument (ACI) and the foreign direct investment screening framework (ISF), we lack an understanding of its strategy in these interinstitutional negotiations. This article investigates how the Commission brokers trilogues, exploring how it advances its preferences in new geoeconomic legislation. It theorises a causal mechanism for Commission strategies in trilogues and applies it to the negotiations for the ACI and ISF. Studying the involvement of the Commission in shaping the two instruments’ design (the micro processes) is central to understanding the increased role of the Commission in the macro processes of the EU’s ‘geoeconomic turn’. This article argues that the Commission uses its informational asymmetry strategically to lobby the co-legislators in trilogues. When their preferences diverge from those of the Commission, it invests political capital to reach compromises closer to its preferences. The process-tracing analysis builds on EU policy documents, secondary sources, and interviews with EU officials. This research demonstrates how the Commission is taking an increased role in the EU’s ambition to conduct foreign policy through trade.