An Agent Dependent on the EU Member States? The Determinants of the European Commission’s Legislative Success in the European Union

Abstract

For decades the European Commission’s possible legislative influence has interested scholars of EU studies, yet few empirical studies on the determinants of the Commission’s influence exist. This paper analyses quantitative data on 60 EU proposals to show to which degree rather endogenous resources of the Commission, external conditions determined by the EU member states or institutional constraints determine the Commission’s influence on EU legislation. Modeling the Commission as an agent having resources and strategic options, I demonstrate that the Commission’s ability to defend the content of its original proposals is to a large extent dependent on its principals, the member states. Endogenous resources of the Commission such as expertise and experience influence only to a small extent the legislative success of the Commission. Thus, this study allows gaining a deeper understanding on the factors influencing the European Commission’s influence on legislative affairs.

Key Words:

• European Commission
• legislation
• interinstitutional relations
• negotiations
• principle agent model
• intergovernmentalism

Notes

1. Economist (March 12-18 th 2005, p.36).

2. Article 251 und 252 Treaty of the European Communities.

3. Part of the Commission’s agenda-setting power also derives from its power to withdraw a proposal, if the Commission considers it to have been too distorted by the member states. However, this power is considered as not too strong, since the Commission has a reputation for considerable amendments to its proposals (Schmidt 2001, 126). Furthermore, the Council and the Parliament are entitled to assume part of this right of initiative by asking the Commission to propose a certain law. Again, the Commission generally has a reputation for being very receptive to these ideas.

4. In the case of the Commission, the control power of the member states are e.g., monitoring via comitology, by controlling with the help of other agents such as the European Court of Auditors and the European Court of Justice, by cutting its budget, and by revising the Commission’s mandate in treaty revisions (Kassim and Menon 2004).

5. The data can be ordered at http://www.dans.knaw.nl/databases/star/study/237/.

6. The data set contains 26 proposals subject to the codecision procedure and 40 proposals negotiated in the consultation procedure. Of these 66 proposals, 21 were voted with unanimity and 43 proposals with qualified majority.

7. For a more extensive discussion see (Thomson and Stokman 2006).

8. I calculated the models with and without the dichotomous negotiation issues in order to see whether an inclusion of these issues leads to an over-or underestimation of the distances between the actors, the outcome and the status quo. The results were mainly confirmed when the dichotomous issues were excluded so that I list the results including all issues.

9. I also implemented a variable which measures the number of staff per DG divided by the number of proposals initiated by a DG per year in order to account for the workload of the staff. The data for this were derived from Häge (2011). The variable turned out to be not significant, however positive. Results are available from the author upon request.

10. In 38 per cent of the positions which the member states’ governments assume, they assume the same position as the European Commission.

11. For an analysis of the influence of interest groups on the European Commission see (Klüver 2009)

12. Since the interview partners asked to stay anonymous, they are referred to with numbers.

13. One research project currently investigating this topic is conducted by Miriam Hartlapp at the Social Science Research Centre, Berlin: http://www.wzb.eu/zkd/peu/default.en.htm.

14. European Voice, 11–17 January 2007.