Pulling the Strings: Party Group Coordinators in the European Parliament

Since its post-Lisbon increase in (legislative and non-legislative) powers, the European Parliament (EP) is more relevant than ever in the geographically diversified multilevel system of the EU. Party group coordinators occupy a crucial position in collective decision-making within the EP. However, knowledge about these pivotal actors is absent. This raises the question as to who these party group coordinators are, what they do, and what indeed makes a good coordinator. A new data set shows that in 2012, more than one-fifth of coordinators of the three largest and most influential groups are German, with British and Spanish coordinators ranking a distant second before Romanians. Among coordinators from NMS, only one-eighth were newcomers

Overriding the European Commission’s rulemaking? Practical experience in the European Union with post-Lisbon legislative vetoes with quasi-legislative acts. Bruges Political Research Papers 64 / 2017

Lisbon legislative vetoes to override the European Commission’s rulemaking. Using an original data set of legislative vetoes of Commission acts by both European legislators from December 2009 - April 2017, the contribution shows that levels of the formal exercise of the legislative veto to overrule the Commission’s regulatory policies are very low. Particularly interesting, the level of exercise of legislative veto provisions has not increased significantly since the Lisbon Treaty came into effect, suggesting that the ways in which the Treaty formally augmented the powers of legislative scrutiny have not resulted in appreciably greater formal exercise of these powers ultima ratio. Moreover, no significant differences appear between the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament

Globalisation, European Integration and Social Protection – Patterns of Change or Continuity?

The adoption of a new instrument of governance in the EU – the open-method-of-coordination - has renewed the notion of convergence/divergence across EU member states. This paper examines the role of European integration in shaping and changing social welfare systems and investigates whether these patterns of change or continuity follow welfare state regime typologies. Embedded in the Europeanisation, convergence and welfare state regime literature, we rely on recent 2007 OECD social expenditure data. Controlled for cyclical and demographic effects this study shows that since 1991 social expenditures of EU member states have converged and increased on average, whereas non - EU member states have diverged. To examine whether these trends can be explained by changes in welfare regimes dendograms offer a useful means. Although we find a link between the type of regime and the long-term type trajectory more generally, these regime patterns appear to be in flow. This study finds in particular some empirical evidence for the loss in momentum of the Scandinavian regime pattern.social expenditures, convergence, Europeanisation, welfare state regimes, cluster analysis

Lost in Translation or Full Steam Ahead: The Transposition of EU Transport Directives across Member States

This study supplements extant literature on implementation in the European Union (EU). The quantitative analysis, which covers the EU transport acquis, reveals five main findings. First, the EU has a transposition deficit in this area, with almost 70% of all national legal instruments causing problems. Second, transposition delay is multifaceted. The results provide strong support for the assertion that distinguishing between the outcomes of the transposition process (on time, short delay or long delay) is a useful method of investigation. Third, factors specific to European directives (level of discretion and transposition deadline) and domestic-level factors (national transposition package and number of veto players) have different effects on the length of delay. Furthermore, the timing of general elections in member states as well as policy (sub)sector-related accidents influence the timeliness of national transposition processes

Transposition of EU Transport policy directives. Why so much diversity?

Session 1: Governance in the European Unio

The European Parliament and the Future of Comitology after Lisbon: Lessons to be drawn from the Regulatory Procedure with Scrutiny for Delegated Acts

The history of comitology – the system of implementation committees that control the Commission in the execution of delegated powers – has been characterised by institutional tensions. The crux of these tensions has often been the role of the European Parliament and its quest to be granted powers equal to those of the Council. Over time this tension has been resolved through a series of inter-institutional agreements and Comitology Decisions, essentially giving the Parliament incremental increases in power. This process came to a head with the 2006 Comitology reform and the introduction of the regulatory procedure with scrutiny (RPS). After just over three years of experience with the RPS procedure, and having revised the entire acquis communautaire, the Treaty of Lisbon made has made it redundant through the creation of Delegated Acts (Article 290 TFEU), which gives the Parliament equal rights of oversight. This article aims to evaluate the practical implications that Delegated Acts will entail for the Parliament, principally by using the four years of experience with the RPS to better understand the challenges ahead. This analysis will be of interest to those following the study of comitology, formal and informal interinstitutional relations, and also to practitioners who will have to work with Delegated Acts in the future

Representatives of whom? Party group coordinators in the European Parliament

We investigate the role of party group coordinators on committees in the European Parliament. Tying in with previous work on committee and rapporteurship assignment, we focus on key party political actors in legislative politics. Party group coordinators are the nexus mediating between individual MEPs, national party delegations that citizens voted for, and the European party group. They assign rapporteurships and compile voting instructions along which MEPs vote very cohesively. Against this backdrop, and in line with partisan theory, we expect the party leadership to closely monitor their performance. Drawing on a novel dataset comprising information on coordinators in the four biggest political groups in EP6 (2004-2009) and EP7 (2009-2014), we provide evidence that coordinators are indeed representatives of the leadership and that more disloyal coordinators are replaced. Since coordinators are essential checks on rapporteurs and shadow rapporteurs, these findings alleviate concerns about possible agency drift in trilogues and committee specialisation in general

A dearth of legislative vetoes: why the Council and Parliament have been reluctant to veto Commission legislation

Several reforms have taken place at the EU level to try and address the criticism that EU decision-making suffers from a democratic deficit. Drawing on recent research, Michael Kaeding and Kevin M. Stack assess one such reform: the provision of powers for the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament to veto so called ‘secondary legislation’ put forward by the European Commission. They find that the use of these veto powers has been extremely limited, although this does not necessarily mean the reforms have been ineffective, but rather that they may have impacted on the bargaining dynamics of informal negotiations between the institutions

New member states are structurally underrepresented in important rapporteur positions in the European Parliament

In the European Parliament, a ‘rapporteur’ is an MEP appointed to oversee the drafting and presentation of reports. This role is highly important in the Parliament, with rapporteurs being elected to the position by their fellow MEPs. But does the distribution of these appointments favour certain states over others? Steffen Hurka, Michael Kaeding and Lukas Obholzer present findings from a study of the allocation of rapporteurs in the 2009-14 parliament. They find that new member states that joined in the 2004 and 2007 enlargements were underrepresented among rapporteurs and were therefore less able to influence EU legislation than older member states

Pharmacovigilance in the European Union: Practical Implementation across Member States

Comparative Politics; Political Economy; European Union Politics; Drug Safety and Pharmacovigilanc