The Transparency-Secrecy Trade-off in European Union Trade Policy: Explaining Informalisation and Transparency in EU Decision-making on International Negotiations. KU Leuven
There exists today a wide-spread belief that decision-making in the European Union (EU) mainly takes place behind closed-doors, in secret backrooms and informal conversation in the corridors. In the case of EU trade policy, a perception of secretiveness due to the widespread use of informality has sparked extensive criticism from both public and parliamentary actors. At the same time however, the European Commission (Commission) as the main ...