This panel will cover a wide range of topics connected by the common thread of explaining the past and future of European Union (EU) trade policy. Meunier and Poulsen set out to recast how and why Foreign Direct Investment, a central issue for global investment flows, wound up an exclusive competence only with the Lisbon Treaty. Frennhoff Larsen looks at Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) more broadly, uncovering how the Commission enhanced its bureaucratic capacity and uses precedent effects to shape the future of global trade. Her debate resonates well with an ongoing debate on the extent to which FTAs are interconnected. Gastinger takes a yet wider perspective on trade and argues that the Commission has used its competencies in trade to purposefully integrate the EU’s external dimension, making it the state-like global actor that many contemporary studies take as their starting point. Turning to a more forward-looking notion, Leuffen draws on the recent example of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) to argue that the politicization of FTAs challenges how trade politics had been conducted in Western Democracies in the past. Finally, Rosén focuses on the European Parliament (EP) and its role in EU trade policy post-Lisbon. She assesses the mark that the EP has left on EU trade policy and tackles whether it has successfully democratized this policy area. The panel will be of interest to scholars of trade policy, external relations and European integration more broadly.