Black boxes and open secrets: trilogues as 'politicised diplomacy'.

Why do EU actors promote secluded fora of decision making even as they have committed themselves to open and public lawmaking? How do they perceive and reconcile the ensuing tensions in practice? These questions, arising amidst growing public controversy, point to a blind spot in the scholarly agenda on EU lawmaking, which has overwhelmingly focused on the games institutions play. From an interpretivist perspective, we argue that rules are ‘made’ not by detached officials, but by practitioners puzzling out the meaning of their actions in their everyday experiences. Based on extensive interview material, the article captures trilogues as ‘politicised diplomacy’ and shows how they have become a ‘permeable institution’, shaped by dense flows of exchange between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’. The article helps pinpoint to what extent and how trilogues challenge democratic norms; and it punctures the myth of trilogues as quiet politics dominated by producer interests

The European Parliament as a developing legislature: coming of age in trilogues?

This article examines the institutionalization of the European Parliament-as-a-legislature. It draws on the political development scholarship to conceptualize institutionalization and highlight the role of the environment in the development and decay of political institutions. On this premise, we argue that the political significance of the European Parliament (EP) depends on its capacity to develop strong institutions enabling it to 'exist apart' from its environment. We identify the embrace of codecision as a critical moment of the institutionalization of the EP-as-a-legislature and explore the value of the political development perspective in a comparative-historical study of trilogues in the EP. We present a typology of institutionalization of trilogues and argue that a model of generic parliamentary approach to trilogues is taking roots. While substantiating the thesis of the EP as a potentially autonomous institution, our findings also call for research into the resilience and sources of institutional patterns of trilogues

Trump Country

Baggrundssektionen indledes med Sten Rynnings og Christilla Roederer-Rynnings status over præsident Donald Trumps første tid i Det Hvide Hus

Brexit complicates the EU's efforts to reform its Common Agricultural Policy

The UK leaves the EU just as the bloc is debating the future shape of its largest spending policy, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), in the context of negotiating its future budget spending and priorities as part of its Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for the period 2021-2027. As Alan Matthews (Trinity College Dublin) and Christilla Roederer-Rynning (University of Southern Denmark) argue, Brexit has complicated these negotiations because it has sharpened the redistributive conflict between net contributors and net recipients and created uncertainty over future trade flows and market conditions. Ironically, if the UK does successfully implement its new farm policy paradigm of public money for public goods after Brexit, this could be a more powerful influence on future CAP reform than the UK could have hoped to exercise by remaining a member

What Common Agricultural Policy after Brexit?

Suppose we were in 2028: what would the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) look like then? Would it be significantly different from the policy we know today? How, and why? And to what extent would Brexit have catalyzed these changes? The CAP is one of the founding policies of the EU and a strategic lever to address critical 21st century challenges such as climate change and the rising demand for food at the global level. It also has an important role in Europe to address the growing urban-rural divide and its potentially destabilizing impact on European politics. In this article, we examine the impact of Brexit from a political-economic perspective emphasizing the multi-level context within which the CAP is embedded. As an EU member state, the UK found a way to partly accommodate the CAP to its needs even though this policy was a source of intense UK dissatisfaction with the EU. Post-Brexit, the budgetary and market implications of the UK’s departure may favour positions that support a return to a more traditional policy of farm income support. On the other hand, more radical farm policies in England and Wales could partly offset these effects by setting the agenda for continued CAP reform, if they are seen to be successful

Power at the expense of diffuse interests? The European Parliament as a legitimacy-seeking institution.

Has the European Parliament (EP)’s acquisition of legislative powers diluted its traditional support for diffuse interests? This article considers the various arguments that challenge the EP’s reputation as a champion of diffuse interests and advances an alternative interpretation grounded in the idea of the EP as a legitimacy seeking institution. These arguments are explored in light of EP strategies of public engagement. Whilst previous analyses have been centred on the EP itself, we broaden the empirical focus to examine patterns of diffuse interest engagement with the EP. We find variance in the way diffuse advocates engage with the EP, and identify a driver of differentiation among NGO advocates of diffuse interests organized at EU level. We draw on interviews with NGOs, representatives from EU political institutions, as well as data from the Transparency Register to assess NGO/EP interactions

Missing in Action? France and the Politicization of Trade and Investment Agreements

Negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) and for the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada have provoked massive mobilization throughout Europe, both on the streets and online. Yet France, long at the epicenter of anti-globalization and anti-Americanism, has played a surprisingly modest role in the mobilization campaign against these agreements. This article asks why France did not contribute to anti-TTIP mobilization and, more broadly, how patterns of French mobilization over trade have changed over the past two decades. Using comparative-historical analysis, we explore to what extent this puzzling French reaction can be traced to changing attitudes towards the US, agenda-shaping by the French government, and transformations in the venues and techniques of social mobilization. We thus contribute to the growing literature on the politicization of trade agreements and offer insights into the links between domestic and international politics

The culture of trilogues.

There is surprisingly little knowledge about the informal 'trilogues' that play a pivotal role in almost 90 per cent of European Union legislation. This article maps out previously uncharted practices and explores their role in constituting the Parliament and Council as legislators. It proceeds by taking stock of the knowledge that actors in Parliament, the Council and the Commission have acquired and use to make sense of, and act in, trilogues. Our findings qualify the widespread belief that trilogues have drawn Parliament into unfamiliar territory of diplomatic culture, at a cost to political efficacy and democratic functions. Trilogues today are underpinned by norms, standard operating procedures and practices linking formal and informal institutions. They have imparted Parliament with a sharpened consciousness of its role and identity as a 'normal' parliament, while leaving the Council frustrated and less confident. Parliament has seen in norms of public accountability a means to develop leverage over the Council

A living legislature: the EP as an ordinary legislator.

This paper explores possibilities of cooperation between rationalist and sociological insights by examining the institutionalization of legislative powers in the European Parliament (EP). By this, we refer to the social processes unfolding as the EP goes from being a de jure legislator (in virtue of its constitutional empowerment in successive EU treaties), to becoming a living legislator (in virtue of its everyday engagement in EU ordinary legislation subject to the so-called co-decision procedure). Between 1994 and 2014, the number of policy areas constitutionally subject to co-decision was multiplied by five, putting the EP on par with the Council of Ministers ('Council') in a broad range of domains ranging from highly redistributive types of policies such as the Common Agricultural Policy to technically arcane policies in the domain of financial regulation and harmonization. During the course of the 7th term, the EP had passed 488 legislative acts under co-decision (European Parliament, 2014a). In legislating, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) develop and mobilize a collection of norms, which regulate their collective behavior while infusing it with purpose. In this paper, we are interested in tracing and explaining this developing body of norms, drawing on the rich theoretical scholarship on norms

In the shadow of public opinion: the European Parliament, civil society organizations and the politicization of trilogues.

This article examines the relations between the European Parliament (EP) and civil society organizations (CSOs) in the EU’s legislative process. It focuses specifically on legislative trilogues, an informal institution bringing together the representatives of the EP, Council, and Commission in a secluded setting to conclude legislative agreements. Trilogues have become the modus operandi and an absolutely pivotal part of the EU lawmaking process: they are where the deals are made. While secluded decision-making offers plenty of opportunities for EU institutions to depoliticize lawmaking, we argue that trilogues have become politicized, partly from the relationship between the European Parliament and civil society organisations. We flesh out this argument on the basis of insights from the politicization and the historical institutionalist literatures, advance two ideal types of trilogue politics, and explore these types on the basis of a preliminary examination of a comprehensive interview material