Backgrounding agency in EU institution instruments: a linguistic and argumentative perspective

This paper investigates how EU institutions use the periphrastic passive to manage agency and responsibility in policymaking. Combining pragma-dialectical and micro-linguistic approaches, it explores how passive becomes a discursive strategy to negotiate the relationship problem/solution in contexts characterized by complex environmental and social challenges. The analysis is based on the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles, which serves as a case study to illustrate broader argumentative and linguistic patterns observable across policy domains. Results reveal that periphrastic passives most often appear in argumentative segments, typically connected to final-instrumental/termination and definition loci. The findings shed light on how linguistic backgrounding supports argumentation in institutional discourse and frames responsibility in EU sustainability policy, with implications beyond the textile sector.