This paper aims to clarify the existence and growing importance of informal technical meetings or ITMs in the EU’s Common Commercial Policy. It does so by going back to the foundations of the Principal-Agent (PA) model and analysing the limits of information asymmetry between principal and agent. From a PA perspective the systematic occurrence of ITMs is puzzling. These meetings are fully led by the Commission’s Directorate General Trade and – similarly to the Council TPC – provide an exclusive setting for Member States and Commission to discuss on-going international trade negotiations. With no legal basis, formal register, invitations, agendas, minutes, attendance lists, written reports or press briefings afterwards, ITMs are the only truly informal forum in EU CCP. In a context where information asymmetry is considered an essential strategic tool for the Commission-as-agent to obtain goals deviating from those of its principals, ITMs organised by the agent himself appear rather counterintuitive from a PA perspective: why would the Commission organise additional control mechanisms for Member States to exploit? The Member-States-as-principals in turn adhere increasing importance to this fully agent-controlled forum, although they already have extensive control opportunities through the Council TPC. From this puzzling observation, the paper looks into the PA logic of information asymmetry and its interaction with the strategic advantages of principal control and agent discretion. By adding a resource dependency argument, it demonstrates how a one-way street conception of control fails to acknowledge the necessity of mutual, informal information exchange between principal and agent induced by interdependency and incomplete contracting. Through interviews with trade policy officials and fieldwork, the authors find that by organising ITMs the Commission actively seeks to manage information asymmetry so as to limit the risk of involuntary defection by the Member States at the conclusion of international trade agreements.
