Small Firms as the Main Beneficiaries of Trade Agreements? A Framing Analysis of European Commission Discourse

In recent years, debate about the distributive consequences of trade liberalisation has intensified on both sides of the Atlantic. Within the European Union (EU), a strong politicisation of trade policy occurred in the wake of the launch of negotiations on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the United States (US). These talks were effectively portrayed by critics of the agreements as ‘made for and by big business’, a master frame that succeeded in bringing together a broad coalition of civil society organisations. In this article, we show how the European Commission developed and communicated a counter-frame stipulating that TTIP and similar trade agreements are inclusive of and especially valuable to small firms. Based on a framing analysis of official documents and speeches, we analyse the rationale of this frame and how it has been communicated through story-telling. We show that this positive frame has only partially been mirrored in the positions of associations representing small firms themselves. The debate on the inclusive benefits and redistributive effects of trade agreements, including between enterprises of different sizes, continues within academia, politics, and society.