Conclusion: Evaluating the forces of interstitial institutional change

Abstract

The articles in this volume provide evidence supporting the claim that organisational actors within the EU do engage in contestation over competences over a wide variety of legislative and policy-making procedures. Far from defining EU politics, treaty texts are only their beginning. The articles also provide evidence that informal changes may be translated into treaty change at a later date, although the evidence for this is more mixed. The various authors seek to take our initial arguments as a starting point to build on and point to important ways in which these arguments can be amended or extended. Nonetheless, it is clear that closer attention to processes of contestation and of interstitial change holds great promise as an approach to the understanding of EU politics.

Notes

1. It is an open question whether a narrower version of incompleteness, or the more radical version that Moury's findings point to, provide the better basis for future research (however, we note that the research agendas generated by the two are by no means mutually exclusive).

2. Only recently has the objective to contain delegation/comitology as opposed to legislation gained high agenda priority for the Parliament.