Consensus and compromise become ordinary – but at what cost? A critical analysis of the impact of the changing norms of codecision upon European Parliament committees

Abstract

Committees are the repositories of policy expertise within the European Parliament and have played a key role in shaping the institution's influence. However, they face a number of challenges, two of which are explored in this contribution: the use of early agreements under codecision; and the involvement of multiple committees in decision-making. Hypotheses about the likely impact of these twin challenges are developed and tested against the European Climate Change Package. Analysis reveals both conflict and the erosion of the lead committee's influence in one case, which raises questions about the ability of committees to continue to fulfil their expertise function. However, the overall picture to emerge is one of successful inter-committee co-operation.

Keywords:

• Climate change
• codecision
• early agreements
• European Parliament committees
• shared competence

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This contribution is an output from ESRC grant RES-000-22-2304. An earlier version was presented at the ECPR Sixth Pan-European Conference on EU Politics, 13–15 September 2012, University of Tampere, Finland. I would like to thank the interviewees, my fellow editors, Anne Rasmussen and Christine Reh, and the contributors to this collection who have offered numerous helpful comments and suggestions on how to improve this contribution. Thanks are also owed to Andreas Warntjen for his robust critique at the ECPR, the members of the POLIS reading group at the University of Leeds, Simon Lightfoot and Neil Carter, who offered comments and suggestions on more than one occasion, and finally to the referees for their constructive advice.

Notes

For the purposes of this contribution the term ‘early agreement’ refers to the adoption of legislation at first reading unless otherwise specified.

In EP6 (2004-2009), the associated committee procedure was used 139 times out of 1,675 reports; in EP7 (2009-2014) up to July 2012, there were 82 applications for associated committee procedure out of 1,172 reports. These figures have been supplied by the EP's data services, who note that there may be some double counting within the data so they may not be completely accurate but give a good sense that the process has been used on roughly 8 per cent of procedures.

The COD reference gives a list of all relevant official documents when input as the procedure reference on URL http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil.

The proposal for a directive on fuel quality had been slated for agreement under the Slovenian Presidency in June 2008, but divisions within the Council saw it pushed into the French Presidency in the latter half of 2008 and included in the wider Climate Change package.

Email exchange February 2009 with Environmental non-governmental orgaziation (NGO) activist.

Rule 47 in the 2004–2009 EP session (European Parliament 2004b), but Rule 50 in the 2009–2014 session (European Parliament 2011a).

Interview, August 2012, with Chris Davies, ALDE MEP.

Interview, August 2012, with Chris Davies, ALDE MEP.

Interviews, January 2009, with official in EP Secretariat and official in PES Secretariat.

Interview, January 2009, with official in EP Secretariat.

Langen, EP Debates 16/12/08, A6-419/2008.

Interviews, January 2009, with official in EP Secretariat; August 2012 with Chris Davies MEP.