Linkage

The practice, common in international negotiation, of making agreement on one issue conditional upon the satisfactory resolution of another – without there being any link between the two issues.

Notes

EU compromises are often achieved by the linkage of completely different topics in one “parcel solution” or policy package. This happens particularly often with legislation from the Council of Ministers where 85% of all laws are agreed in working groups or among the ambassadors in Coreper.