Scientific and Political Narratives: Discursive Strategies in EU Agrifood Policies and Legislation

This article analyzes the European Commission’s justification of legislation through a modern dualistic framework, contrasting scientific (objective) and political (subjective) narratives: the political narrative, reflecting the will of the people, and the scientific narrative, grounded in technical harmonization, evidence, and data. The research focuses on the uses and strategic shifts in the Commission’s justifications, particularly the transition from scientific to political narratives. Despite claims of a "more political" Commission, as articulated in Juncker’s State of the Union addresses, we hypothesize that the Commission effectively operates within both narratives and strategically shifts its narrative register to enhance legitimacy. Our approach is interdisciplinary, combining EU law in context, legal philosophy, political science, and formal legislative motivation, alongside discursive analysis methods (Narrative Policy Framework). By analyzing various agrifood cases in which the Commission communicates across different forums (COFE, EC-Biotech and EC-Hormone litigation), with a particular focus on the proposal for a regulation on new genomic techniques (NGT), this article concludes that the Commission strategically utilizes both scientific and political narratives in a complementary manner, depending on the subject matter and the institutions involved.