Codecision and its discontents: Intra-organisational politics and institutional reform in the European Parliament

This paper investigates a recent trend in EU legislative politics: the de facto shift of decision making from public inclusive to informal secluded arenas, and the subsequent adoption of legislation at first reading. Previous research has explained why fast-track legislation occurs and evaluated its democratic consequences. This study focuses on how the EP has responded to the steep increase in informal and fast-tracked legislation. First, we show how fast-track legislation has informalised legislative decision-making, transformed inter-organisational relations, and created new asymmetrical opportunities and constraints. Second, we theorise the political discontents in response to this transformation. Drawing on rational choice institutionalism and bargaining theory, we argue, first, that actors will seek to redress asymmetrical opportunities through institutional reform; that attempts of redress will centre on the control of negotiation authority and information flows; and that institutional reform will be highly contested. Second, we suggest that the chances of successful redress will be low in the EP as a decentralised organisation unless two conditions are met: 1) the extent of fast-track legislation reaches a critical level, and 2) the organisation goes through a period of wider reform; the former will facilitate reform through the increased visibility of disempowerment and reputational costs; the latter through package deals in a multi-issue negotiation space, and/or the strategic evocation of collective parliamentary norms. Third, we probe our argument by analysing how the EP’s rules pertaining to codecision have been contested, negotiated and reformed from the introduction of fast-track legislation in 1999 to the adoption of the Code of Conduct for Negotiating Codecision Files in 2009. Based on qualitative document analysis and semi-structured elite interviews, our paper offers a first systematic analysis of how fast-track legislation has impacted on intraorganisational politics and reform in the EP

The growth of informal EU decision-making has empowered centrist parties

Legislative decision-making in the European Union is increasingly shifting toward informal secluded arenas, to allow for the early adoption of laws. Edoardo Bressanelli, Christel Koop and Christine Reh assess the implications of this trend for the behaviour of political parties in the European Parliament. They find that informalisation has strengthened the cohesion of the three centrist groups (EPP, S&D and ALDE), which have become more effective in delivering their members’ votes and in limiting defections. However, the authors argue that this increase in cohesion should not be taken as unconditionally good news for EU democracy

Symptomatic Isolated Pleural Effusion as an Atypical Presentation of Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome

Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) presents in ~33% of ovarian stimulation cycles with clinical manifestations varying from mild to severe. Its pathogenesis is unknown. Pleural effusion is reported in ~10% of severe OHSS cases and is usually associated with marked ascites. The isolated finding of pleural effusions without ascites, as the main presenting symptom of OHSS is not frequently reported and its pathogenesis is also unknown. We describe two unusual cases of OHSS where dyspnea secondary to unilateral pleural effusion was the only presenting symptom. By reporting our experience, we would like to heighten physicians' awareness in detecting these cases early, as it is our belief that the incidence of pleural effusion in the absence of most commonly recognized risk factors for OHSS may be underestimated and may significantly compromise the health of the patient if treatment is not initiated in a reasonable amount of time

Role of Innate Immunity in the Pathogenesis of Chronic Rhinosinusitis: Progress and New Avenues

Chronic rhinosinusitis is a heterogeneous and multifactorial disease with unknown etiology. Aberrant responses to microorganisms have been suggested to play a role in the pathophysiology of the disease. Research has focused on the presence, detection, response to, and eradication of these potential threats. Main topics seem to center on the contribution of structural cells such as epithelium and fibroblasts, on the consequences of activation of pattern-recognition receptors, and on the role of antimicrobial agents. This research should be viewed not only in the light of a comparison between healthy and diseased individuals, but also in a comparison between patients who do or do not respond to treatment. New players that could play a role in the pathophysiology seem to surface at regular intervals, adding to our understanding (and the complexity) of the disease and opening new avenues that may help fight this incapacitating disease

The Convention on the Future of Europe: Extended Working Group or Constitutional Assembly? Research Papers in Law, 4/2005

From the Introduction. “We are a Convention. We are not an Intergovernmental Conference because we have not been given a mandate by Governments to negotiate on their behalf the solutions which we propose. We are not a Parliament because we are not elected by citizens to draft legislative texts. […] We are a Convention. What does this mean? A Convention is a group of men and women meeting for the sole purpose of preparing a joint proposal. […] It is a task modest in form but immense in content, for if it succeeds in accordance with our mandate, it will light up the future of Europe”.1 In his speech inaugurating the Convention process on 26 February 2002 in Brussels, Convention President VALÉRY GISCARD D’ESTAING raises three issues: first, he refers to the Convention’s nature and method; second, he talks of the Convention’s aim and output; and, third, he evokes the Convention’s historic and symbolic significance. All three aspects have been amply discussed in the past two years by politicians and academics analysing whether the Convention’s purpose and instruments differ fundamentally from those of previous reform rounds; whether the input into and output of the Convention process qualitatively improves European Treaty revision; and whether the Convention as an institution lived up to its symbolic and normative load, reflected in comparisons with “Philadelphia” or references to a “constitutional moment”.

How to Negotiate under Co-decision in the EU: Reforming Trilogues and First-Reading Agreements. CEPS Policy Brief No. 270, 8 May 2012

The Constitutional Affairs Committee is currently reviewing the European Parliament’s Rules of Procedure to increase the effectiveness, transparency and inclusiveness of first-reading agreements under co-decision. This policy brief takes a stand as to which rules should be adopted to achieve these objectives. Given the steep rise of early agreements and Parliament’s role as a guarantor of EU legitimacy, the authors place a premium on inclusiveness and transparency. The rules suggested are designed to maintain efficiency for technical proposals, facilitate effective decision-making on urgent files and increase the overall legitimacy of legislative decision-making in the EU

The impact of informalisation:Early agreements and voting cohesion in the European Parliament

First Published October 23, 2015EU legislative decision-making is increasingly shifted into informal secluded arenas. Scholars have explained this trend and analysed its consequences for bargaining success and democratic legitimacy. Yet, we know little about how informalisation affects legislative behaviour in the EP. This article contributes to closing the gap, by theorising and analysing the impact of ‘early agreements’ on cohesion. Given the reputational, political and transaction costs of failing an early agreement in plenary, we expect political groups to invest heavily in discipline and consensus, and legislators to comply in votes. Using a new dataset, combining Hix et al.’s roll-call data with original codecision data (1999-2011), we show that informalisation increases cohesion but only for centrist parties. Rapporteurships and votes on ‘costly’ legislative resolutions also matter, but do not mediate the effect of early agreement

The Politics of Preparation: Delegated decisions, arguing and constitutional choice in Europe

Defence date: 10 December 2007Examining board: Prof. Adrienne Héritier (EUI, Florence)(Supervisor) ; Prof. Frank Schimmelfennig (ETH, Zürich) ; Prof. Andy Smith (IEP, Bordeaux) ; Prof. Helen Wallace (EUI/RSCAS, Florence)This project investigates a ubiquitous yet under-studied phenomenon in national, European and global politics: delegated preparation, defined as those negotiations through which civil servants or experts "pre-cook" political choice in multi-level decision-processes. While examples are legion-reaching from legislative drafting in national ministries to the Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER) in the European Union (EU)- the project focuses on preparation in complex international negotiations, and chooses EU Intergovernmental Conferences (IGCs) as empirical case. Claiming that a look beyond the tip of the "decision-iceberg" will gain us deeper insights into how and by whom Europe has been constitutionalised, I tackle two wider questions: 1) What is preparation and what can it do? and 2) Under what conditions will preparation be effective? Linked to an understanding of international negotiation as a "thick" social process, I argue, first, that the key to preparatory effectiveness lies in a particular set of collective resources as a necessary condition, and in consensual preagreement as both necessary and sufficient. Second, with effective pre-decision-making thus hinging upon successful delegated arguing, a set of scope conditions favourable to persuasion are singled out. These include 1) a familiar, iterative and insulated social context as a pre-condition for the non-distortive use of arguments; 2) an issue's complexity as facilitating the resonance of expertise and novel ideas; and 3) a macronorm's constitutional-systemic nature as favouring factual arguments linked to the international system. The hypotheses are tested on the "Group of Government Representatives" (GoR), with units of observation chosen from the Amsterdam and Nice IGCs according to variation of issue complexity and constitutional-systemic nature. Process-tracing of five issues: the communitarisation of free movement, the integration of Schengen and the institutionalisation of flexibility (Amsterdam), as well as Commission reform and Council votes (Nice) confirms that delegated preparation plays a key role even in the "bastion of high politics" that is EU reform. Yet, empirical evidence shows that persuasion is less prominent than expected, and uncovers alternative mechanisms behind effective preparation,in particular accommodation, depoliticisation and systemic compensation

Is informal politics undemocratic? Trilogues, early agreements and the selection model of representation

Over the last two decades, the European Parliament (EP) has been empowered to make European Union (EU) legislation more inclusive, transparent and accountable. Yet, co-legislation has increased informalization and seclusion, as an ever-larger proportion of legislative acts is pre-agreed between Parliament and Council prior to first reading. This article asks under which conditions informalization is democratically problematic or tenable. So far, ‘early agreements’ have been criticized for their lack of transparency and accountability, their challenge to deliberation and inclusiveness, and their differential empowerment of ‘relais actors’. Little attention has been paid, however, to the representation of the parliamentary principal in trilogues. This article draws on Jane Mansbridge's selection model of representation to fill the gap; it argues that representation with a strong ‘selection core’ and a weak ‘sanction periphery’ is, prudentially, best-suited for bicameral bargaining, and it introduces normative standards that make the selection model democratically tenable. A close analysis of codecision's current practices and institutions shows that these fall short of ‘good deliberation at initial selection’ and of ‘narrative accountability’; ‘ease of maintenance and de-selection’ is approximated and ‘transparency in rationale’ is strengthened in the EP's 2012 Rules of Procedure. Future reform should, therefore, introduce two democratically crucial, yet hitherto neglected, measures: open deliberation about the appointment of rapporteurs; and reason-giving and justification (in addition to reporting back) by trilogue negotiators