The working paper examines the decision-making process of what has most likely been the most contentious European environmental policy-item in 2009: the regulation 443/2009 setting carbon dioxide emission performance standards for new passenger cars. In contrast to the empirical trend of rather stringent protection levels, where environmental front-runner countries, encouraged by the Commission and the European Parliament, are able to set the pace, the regulation in question was largely shaped by the most reluctant member state – Germany with its high-volume, premium car manufacturers.By process-tracing the legislative decision-making, the paper accounts for this lowest-common-denominator outcome. Commission and EP had "greener" preferences than the Council. Yet, both actors suffered from a of lack internal consistency, with national differences leading to strong in-fights between Commissioners and limiting the voting coherence of EP party-groups. The issue was therefore already highly politicized at the agenda-setting stage. This, and the fact that the dossier was handled in a fast-track procedure, curtailed Commission influence. In the Council negotiations, Germany was able to muster a potential blocking minority together with those, mostly east-European countries, were subsidiaries of German car companies are located. "Greener" member states were, however, not prepared to veto down the regulation although they criticized its lack of ambition.
Populist governments engage in "unpolitics" when the electoral incentives for doing so outweigh the distributive risks from policy failure. Studying the joint procurement of vaccines against Covid-19, I show that a group consisting of mostly populist governments led by Austria negotiated in bad faith, rejected compromise solutions, and obstructed joint problem-solving. They deployed these "unpolitical" tactics only once the legal framework for joint procurement was in place and the roll-out of the jointly ordered vaccines had begun. At this point, populist governments no longer faced the distributive risk of having limited access to affordable vaccines. By contrast, the electoral incentives for hard-nosed bargaining in bad faith increased, as the distributive issue of vaccine allocation became more salient and as populist governments came under pressure to deflect responsibility for having ordered insufficient vaccine doses.
This article recalls a distinction between research designs that focus on either the 'causes of effects' or the 'effects of causes' and compares it to a related but not identical distinction between the aims of developing and testing theoretical explanations. Using a study on environmental policy-making in the European Union as an example, the roles of process tracing and cross-case analysis in different combinations of these categories are highlighted. Adapted from the source document.
The working paper examines the decision-making process of what has most likely been the most contentious European environmental policy-item in 2009: the regulation 443/2009 setting carbon dioxide emission performance standards for new passenger cars. In contrast to the empirical trend of rather stringent protection levels, where environmental front-runner countries, encouraged by the Commission and the European Parliament, are able to set the pace, the regulation in question was largely shaped by the most reluctant member state's Germany with its high-volume, premium car manufacturers.By process-tracing the legislative decision-making, the paper accounts for this lowest-common-denominator outcome. Commission and EP had 'greener' preferences than the Council. Yet, both actors suffered from a of lack internal consistency, with national differences leading to strong in-fights between Commissioners and limiting the voting coherence of EP party-groups. The issue was therefore already highly politicized at the agenda-setting stage. This, and the fact that the dossier was handled in a fast-track procedure, curtailed Commission influence. In the Council negotiations, Germany was able to muster a potential blocking minority together with those, mostly east-European countries, were subsidiaries of German car companies are located. 'Greener' member states were, however, not prepared to veto down the regulation although they criticized its lack of ambition. ; Dieses Arbeitspapier untersucht den Entscheidungsprozess eines der am stärksten umstrittenen Gegenstände europäischer Umweltpolitik der vergangenen Jahre: Die Verordnung 443/2009 zur Verringerung der CO2-Emissionen von Personenkraftwagen. Im Gegensatz zu dem empirischen Trend eher strenger Schutzniveaus, bei dem die umweltpolitischen Spitzenreiter, unterstützt von Kommission und Europäischem Parlament (EP), die Leitlinien vorgeben, war die hier untersuchte Verordnung stark von den Vorstellungen des am wenigsten ambitionierten Mitgliedstaates geprägt, in diesem Fall Deutschland, mit seiner volkswirtschaftlich bedeutsamen und stark am Premium-Markt orientierten Automobilindustrie. Das Papier führt eine Prozessanalyse der Politikformulierung durch, um dieses Ergebnis aufzuklären. Obwohl Kommission und EP tatsächlich eine ambitionierte Verordnung befürworteten, konnten sie sich im interinstitutionellen Entscheidungsprozess letztlich nicht durchsetzen. Beide Akteure litten unter der geringen internen Kohärenz ihrer Positionen. Die nationalen Positionsunterschiede führten zu intensiven Konflikten zwischen den involvierten Generaldirektionen auf der einen, und schwacher Parteigruppendisziplin auf der anderen Seite. In den Ratsverhandlungen vermochte Deutschland gemeinsam mit den vorwiegend osteuropäischen Ländern, in denen Tochtergesellschaften und Produktionspartner deutscher Automobilhersteller ansässig sind, eine potentielle Sperrminorität herzustellen. Die 'grüneren' Mitgliedstaaten waren hingegen nicht bereit, die Verordnung abzulehnen, obwohl sie deren Anspruchsniveau als zu gering kritisierten. Der intensive Verteilungskonflikt im Lager der Automobilherstellerländer konnte mittels einer raffinierten Regelung zur Lastenteilung gemindert werden, machte aber dennoch eine Entscheidung auf höchster politischer Ebene notwendig.
AbstractIn the European Union (EU), agenda setting is formally centralized at the European Commission. During the last decade since the Lisbon Treaty, however, this agenda‐setting monopoly was challenged by other institutions against the backdrop of the Treaty change, intergovernmental crisis management, politicization, and more informal legislative bargaining. This symposium therefore surveys the emerging agenda‐setting powers of the EU's other main institutional actors in their relation to the Commission. The introduction provides a conceptual framework, distinguishing between procedural and discursive agenda‐setting power, as well as gatekeeping power and agenda leadership. Based on this typology, we argue that not only the European Council (agenda leadership) but even the Court of Justice of the EU (procedural agenda setting) and the European Parliament (discursive agenda setting) gained more influence on policy decisions through their informal agenda‐setting activities. The landscape has thus become variegated, and the Commission, although remaining center stage, now depends more strongly on interinstitutional alliances.
Environmental policy in a trap? -- Framework of analysis -- The energy efficiency directive: a tale of thwarted ambitions -- Efficient cars: the fuel-saving regulation -- Efficient appliances: the lamps regulation -- Bypassing joint-decision traps in EU environmental policy
