Codecision in context: implications for the balance of power in the EU

Abstract

The paper analyzes the European Union's codecision procedure as a bargaining game between the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament. The relative influence of these institutions on legislative decision-making in the EU is assessed under a priori preference assumptions. In contrast to previous studies, we do not consider the codecision procedure in isolation but include several aspects of the EU's wider institutional framework. The finding that the Council is more influential than the Parliament due to its more conservative internal decision rule is robust to adding 'context' to the basic model, but the imbalance is considerably attenuated. JEL Classifications

Luxembourg in the Early Days of the EEC: Null Player or Not?

“…241 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union-prompt the Commission to submit a proposal. The Commission has therefore been regarded as a null player in several theoretical studies on the distribution of influence on EU legislation, including Crombez [39], Napel and Widgrén [40] and Maaser and Mayer [41]. A model of EU codecision which incorporates frictions, analogous to considering δ < 1 in non-cooperative models of legislative bargaining, would arguably be more accurate (but also quite tedious to analyze).…”