THE MINORITY POLITICAL GROUPS IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: An analysis of its influence through the discussion about the Mercosur-European Union Agreement from 2015 to 2022

• Grant number: 22/05937-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Effective date (Start): May 01, 2023
• Effective date (End): June 30, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - International Politics
• Principal Investigator: Arthur Roberto Capella Giannattasio
• Grantee: Beatriz Gabriele Butsher Cruz
• Host Institution: Instituto de Relações Internacionais (IRI). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The European Parliament gained new powers after the Treaty of Lisbon, one of them being the power to vote on an equal footing with the Council of the European Union, including on matters of trade agreements. The European Parliament is made up of political groups and members of the European Parliament vote according to these groups. Therefore, what we intend to do in this work is to analyze the participation of minority political groups in the European Parliament and investigate whether they influenced the discussions and votes in the European Parliament about the Mercosur-European Union Agreement thus being able to understand if these groups have power to influence major issues within Parliament. The research will be carried out qualitatively through documents made available by the European Parliament and the political groups, as well as secondary sources from bibliographies on the most relevant subjects for the research.