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Politics between science, law and sentiments: explaining the European Union's ban on trade in seal products

Towards the end of the last decade, the European Union passed a regulation banning seal products from the European common market. The final legislation deviated from the European Commission's more flexible proposal on key issues, and was therefore not an obvious outcome. Why did the Commission choose to support a conditional ban on seal products in the original proposal, and then why did the European Parliament later reverse the proposal in the second round. To explain the two different outcomes, the types of arguments put forward in the negotiations are analysed and their effectiveness at the different stages of the process is assessed. By identifying four ideal-types of arguments adhering to one of four logics, namely, appropriateness, justification, arguing, or consequentiality, I illustrate how arguments made following the logic of arguing were the most effective in the Commission, while arguments pertaining to a logic of appropriateness were most important in the Parliament.