Interest group influence and interinstitutional power allocation in early second-reading agreements: a re-examination of aviation emissions trading

Abstract

ABSTRACT With the extension of codecision the European Parliament and the Council have pushed for a more rapid adoption of legislative acts. However, this increase in efficiency comes at a political price. It reduces opportunities for the Parliament to be perceived as an arena for political arbitrage. It may also change the playing field for different categories of stakeholders in normatively undesirable ways. This article addresses two widespread claims: business interests may be better equipped to influence the outcome of early adoptions than other groups; and the European Parliament's policy-making powers may not profit from early adoptions despite presumed gains in efficiency. The results of our case study provide some support for both: business stakeholders seem to adapt better to the more secluded setting; and the European Parliament is not achieving its initial goals in this early second-reading adoption.

KEY WORDS:

• Ccodecision
• Council
• early second reading agreements
• European Parliament
• lobbying.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The statements made in this article are strictly personal and cannot be interpreted as representing an official position of the European Parliament. The authors would like to thank Alexander Katsaitis, Randall E. Newnham and Els Vandenbosch for their comments on an earlier draft. We are also grateful to three anonymous reviewers for their critical observations and very helpful suggestions.

Notes

1 See Appendix B for statistics up to June 2013.

2 Official Journal L 8 of 13 January 2009, p. 3. Müller and Slominski (2013) provide a detailed account of the procedure. Further technical details may be found at http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?reference=2006/0304(COD)&l=en#finalAct.

Additional information

Biographical notes

Maja Andlovic is a former Robert Schuman Trainee of the European Parliament.

Wilhelm Lehmann is a research administrator at the European Parliament.