The consequences of concluding codecision early: trilogues and intra-institutional bargaining success

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

One of the most important changes in the history of codecision has been the steep increase in early agreements since 1999. Early agreements have enhanced the efficiency of European Union legislation, but they have been criticized for giving a subset of actors disproportionate control over the legislative agenda and negotiation process. Yet, no study has systematically shown whether and how early agreements have indeed redistributed influence between actors within the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. Our contribution fills this gap by comparing actors’ bargaining success across readings under codecision in a dataset of salient files. Contrary to our theoretical predictions, we do not find evidence of distributional consequences when controlling for inter-institutional conflict and file characteristics. Where codecision is concluded early, the final legislative outcomes are not located closer to the policy positions held by the party group of the Parliament's rapporteur or by the Council Presidency.
Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of European Public Policy
Volume20
Issue number7
Pages (from-to)1006-1024
ISSN1350-1763
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Aug 2013

    Research areas

  • Bargaining success, codecision, early agreements, party groups, presidency, rapporteur

ID: 66282352