It is true that security and Schengen go hand in hand: Strategic manoeuvring in the multi-layered activity type of European Parliamentary debates

In this essay, I highlight the strategic discursive choices made by a politician who is arguing in pursuit of several goals. As a case in point, I examine an argumentative exchange from the European Parliament (EP), a venue where it is typical that politicians attempt to achieve several institutional goals. In analysing the exchange, which is part of the debate on the Conclusions of the European Summit of March 2012, I identify the positions taken, reconstruct the standpoints and arguments advanced, and analyse the discursive choices made in light of the different goals pursued. In the analysis, I am guided by the findings of an earlier examination of another EP debate, a debate on immigration in early 2011 (Mohammed, 2013). The arguers’ discursive choices are analysed using the pragma-dialectical concepts of strategic manoeuvring and activity types (van Eemeren, 2010). The analysis enhances the understanding of the argumentative practice in EP debates as a multi-layered activity type in which several initial disagreements are discussed simultaneously and shows that the reconstruction of the argumentative exchanges as a series of several simultaneous discussions is necessary in order to capture the strategic design of argumentative moves.