Europarties’ election pledges and European Commission legislative priorities: An assessment of their overlap

Abstract

Utilizing a newly compiled data set, this article demonstrates that some election pledges made by the transnational Europarties are included among the European Commission priorities issued during the pre-legislative stage. The data set consists of 597 promises made by four transnational Europarties during the 2004 and 2009 European Parliament (EP) elections and of 698 subsequent Commission legislative intentions. Focusing on the time periods during the Barroso presidencies, the article’s findings suggest that (1) decision-making rules in the EP help us understand which transnational pledges are included in Commission priorities and (2) promises by two Europarties, such as the European People’s Party and the European Liberal and Democrat Party, are more likely to be considered by the Commission than those of other Europarties. Our results speak to scholarly debates on the place of the Europarties in the European Union inter-institutional relations and more broadly on the democratic legitimacy of the Union.

Beyond manifestos: Exploring how political campaigns use online advertisements to communicate policy information and pledges

“…In the EP elections, the individual parties that campaign on a national level are part of transnational europarties. Pledges made by these europarties are not part of this paper (but see Kostadinova and Giurcanu, 2019).…”

Missed opportunity to connect with European citizens? Europarties’ communication on Facebook during the 2019 European election campaign

“…By facilitating collective agreements and structuring the legislative process in the complex EU system, they perform meaningful tasks that no national party can (Clasen, 2020;Johansson, 2017;Peglis, 2015). Empirical studies have shown that Europarties impacted negotiation processes preceding EU Treaty reform decision-making (Johansson, 2017) and that some election pledges made by Europarties have been reflected in new legislative initiatives of the European Commission (Kostadinova & Giurcanu, 2020). In that light, Europarties indeed wield considerable political influence within the EU (Johansson & Raunio, 2019).…”

Power or Luck? The Limitations of the European Commission's Agenda Setting Power and Autonomous Policy Influence

“…In contrast, congruence in agenda priorities between the Commission and the other core EU actors is likely to have a positive effect on AWP priority initiative success. 7 Given the frequent exchanges between the Commission and the other EU institutions such an overlap of priorities is unlikely to be entirely coincidental and may well reflect the Commission's previous formal and informal efforts to push an agenda item (Kostadinova and Giurcanu, 2020). It is impossible to know how often such efforts by the Commission are successful, but, if one or more of the various actors has publicly supported a policy initiative on a topic included as a priority within the AWP it is more likely that the necessary agreement between the legislative decision makers is achievable.…”