In Europe, there is increasing concern with how the operation of the Commission, Council of Ministers, and European Parliament is creating a democratic deficit. One institution that is generally considered central to the effective functioning of a democratic system, but tends to be neglected in these discussions, is the European Court of Justice (ECJ). After all, it is at least ostensibly the job of the legal system to ensure that no one is above the law, not even governments. This study applies a theory of judicial politics to identify under what conditions the ECJ can act as an effective democratic check in the European Union and how enlargement may affect that role.
The European Commission and borders : towards a framework of analysis -- Border controls : transforming territorial borders -- Free movement of people : functional borders transformation -- Social policy : constructing European identity -- ENP : post-modern external relations and the articulation of continental borders
In this article, we study spillovers in political trust between the national parliaments of 15 Member States and the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Central Bank in the period 2000–2015. We show that in most instances spillovers between the national parliaments and the European Commission and the European Parliament are bidirectional, asymmetric, and change over time and place. A corollary of these findings is that simultaneously achieving high level of trust in institutions at different levels of governance may require a deeper understanding of the complex inter-institutional relationships that exist in the EU multilevel governance setting.
This book assesses the impact of the May 2019 European elections as well as the Covid-19 pandemic on the EUs politics, institutions, and policies. Special attention is paid to the impact of these events on the different political forces as well as on the Unions institutional balance, its priorities and the reform of its budget and policies. Because of the many post-electoral uncertainties, the book also takes into account how the relations between the Parliament, the European Council and the new Commission have developed. Furthermore, it analyses the capacity of the von der Leyen Commission to implement an ambitious programme, especially in the context of an unfolding pandemic. The objective of this book is to study the 2019 electoral sequence (parliamentary elections, appointment of EU institutions leaders, investiture of the Commission, new legislative programme) and determine its influence on the main institutional and political challenges for the 2019-2024 legislature. In other words, the volume deals with the question of who holds the EUs leadership after the 2019 elections and how it handles the 2020-2021 pandemic. Olivier Costa is Director of European Political and Governance Studies at the College of Europe, Belgium, and Research Professor in Political Science and EU studies at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEVIPOF-Sciences Po, France. He is also Executive Editor of the Journal of European Integration. Steven Van Hecke is Assistant Professor in Comparative and EU Politics at the Public Governance Institute of the KU Leuven, Belgium, and Senior Research Fellow at the Leibniz-Institut fur Europaische Geschichte in Mainz, Germany.
This article argues that MEPs from national parties represented in the Council of Ministers are more active as rapporteurs on Codecision legislation than MEPs from national parties not represented in the Council. EP rapporteurs can be thought of as informed actors offering non-binding advice to the EP plenary. Expert committees and the Council presidency play a similar role in the Council. Compared with rapporteurs from parties not represented in the Council, EP rapporteurs from parties represented in the Council may incur lower costs in coordinating their proposals with the informed actors in the Council. If this is the case, they should be more interested in writing Codecision reports than are MEPs from parties not represented in the Council. This possibility is investigated using a data set consisting of all Codecision legislation initiated by the Commission between 1999 and 2004.
Almost all existing studies of conflict and coalitions inside the European Parliament (EP) rely on the statistical analysis of voting behaviour. Yet who proposes the alternatives put to vote? Which political groups jointly co-author legislative amendments? Which strategic considerations (if any) determine legislative coalition-building inside the EP? To answer these questions, this article analyses information on the proposer identity for all legislative amendments drafted in the sixth legislative period. My findings suggest that, when building coalitions, political groups consider the degree of inter-institutional conflict. However, despite the highly proportional rules of procedure, the rapporteur emerges as the most powerful player in proposal stage coalition-building. Other groups may successfully challenge the rapporteur only if they aim at pulling the draft report closer to the floor median. Those who are interested in pulling the outcome away from the median have little choice but to include the rapporteur as a member of their coalition. In this case, rapporteurs must strike a fine balance between convincing their fellow Members of the European Parliament of the strategic exigency of deviating from the median and maintaining their credibility when bargaining with the members of the Council. If rapporteurs are too close to the Council, they forfeit their trustworthiness among their potential coalition partners.
This article contributes to existing debates on public opinion toward European integration by examining when and why fiscal transfers and public support are systematically related. Drawing on economic and identity-related theories, we develop and test hypotheses about the links between European Union fiscal transfers among countries and subnational jurisdictions, and citizens' support for European integration. Using a three-level analysis of residents in 143 regions in 16 European Union member states, we find a positive effect of European Union transfers among both countries and subnational jurisdictions on support for European integration among those with a European communal identity. We also find that this effect increases the more politically aware individuals are. The article sketches the broader implications of our findings for public opinion research on regional integration beyond the European Union.
The Council presidency holds direct responsibility for the Council's functioning and moves between EU member states via a six-month rotation scheme. We argue that this rotating Council presidency causes a lobbying cycle among interest groups at the European level, whereby national interest groups from the country holding the presidency temporarily become active at the European level. Using a unique dataset including almost 16,500 registrations of interest groups in the European Transparency Register over the 2008–2017 period, we confirm that holding the Council presidency increases the number of interest groups from that member state in the Transparency Register. We also find that national interest groups generally have a higher likelihood to exit the register following the end of their country's presidency.
