Regional Representation in the European Parliament: Parliamentary Questions on Geographical Indications

Martijn Huysmans and Niels Gheyle

Economics and Politics, 2025, vol. 37, issue 2, 724-734

Abstract: The European Parliament represents the citizens of the European Union. However, individual Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) also face incentives to represent more narrow regional economic interests. Geographical Indications (GIs) such as Asiago or Champagne are an ideal policy area to study regional representation. Their defined regions provide clear incentives and a reliable measurement of regional representation. This article codes and analyses the written questions on GIs posed by MEPs during the period 2009–2019. Descriptively, we find that MEPs often mention products from their region. We also find that MEPs focus their questions on contentious products and on politicized free trade agreements. Contributing to the debate on representation in the European Parliament, we find evidence for more regional representation by MEPs from countries with regional lists for EP elections. We conclude with the implications of our research for representation in the European Union and the idea of transnational lists.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/ecpo.12337

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:ecopol:v:37:y:2025:i:2:p:724-734

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0954-1985

Access Statistics for this article

Economics and Politics is currently edited by Peter Rosendorff

More articles in Economics and Politics from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().