Geopoliticization and Support for Free Trade in the European Parliament: From Rhetorical Shift to Voting Results

Abstract Strategic and security considerations have become increasingly prominent in trade policy debates, fuelling both liberal and protectionist arguments. However, the extent to which this geopoliticization influences legislative trade attitudes in the European Parliament (EP) remains underexplored. Whilst existing accounts emphasize ideology and economic conditions as the primary drivers of Members of the European Parliament's trade preferences, this study examines how geopoliticization interacts with these determinants across different stages of the legislative process. Drawing on a mixed‐methods analysis of plenary debates and roll‐call votes from the EP's seventh, eighth and ninth terms, it combines dictionary‐based text analysis with voting data to trace when and how geopoliticization matters. The findings show that geopoliticization is increasingly present in parliamentary debates and is deployed in systematically different ways across political groups and trade partners. In voting behaviour, geopoliticization is associated with higher support for trade files, particularly when agreements involve allied countries. Taken together, the results highlight geopoliticization as a conditional but consequential factor in European Union trade politics and support for free trade.