National Actors in the Post-Lisbon EU: Should We Expect a Change of National Strategies?

National Actors in the Post-Lisbon EU:Should We Expect a Change ofNational Strategies?

BĚLA PLECHANOVOVÁ

5The Treaty of Lisbon’s institutional modifications narrowed the options for memberstates within the formal decision-making rules, mainly due to the broadening of theordinary legislative procedure. This paper hypothesises that the actors in EUinstitutions seek to strengthen their influence through coordination across the EUlegislative institutions, along either national or political party lines. The research data

10consist of co-decision files that include information on the national and political identi-ties of all the relevant actors in the legislative process in 2004–2011. Statistical testsassess the likelihood of changes in the dynamics of the legislative process as related tothe affiliation of the actors after Lisbon. The results show a clear difference in the post-Lisbon legislative process, indicating that the political party identity of the actors may

15play a more significant role, although other factors must be considered as well.

The Treaty of Lisbon (ToL) introduced institutional modifications that changedthe balance of power among European Union institutions and their member

20states. The application of the most contentious institutional adjustments – thechange of the decision-making rule for the Council and decrease of the numberof commissioners below the number of EU member states – was postponed ordismissed owing to the extreme political sensitivity of these issues. Assessingthe effects of the institutional changes introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon, i.e.

25changes in the everyday legislative decision-making of EU institutions, maythus seem a premature undertaking. Still, some changes have already takenplace, namely the introduction of the ordinary legislative procedure (OLP), i.e.co-decision of the European Parliament (EP) and qualified majority (QM) vot-ing in the Council. These changes increased the role of the EP and reduced the

30relative power of any individual member state (Felsenthal and Machover 2004a;Napel and Widgrén 2010). We may assume national governments will react to

Correspondence Address: [email protected]

West European Politics, 2013Vol. 36, No. 6, 1199–1220, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2013.826026

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FWEP 826026 QA: AM11 September 2013 Revision

this change by looking for alternative avenues to consolidate their position andto retain their influence on outcomes generated by the legislative process.

This paper assesses whether this institutional change has influenced the5 behaviour of actors in the three main institutions – the Commission, EP and

Council – regarding inter-institutional relations in the legislative process.Assuming each actor in the three EU institutions has basically two main affilia-tions – the national government and political party – I expect that the changeof the institutional setting of the policy-making process may lead to changes in

10 these actors’ strategic behaviour. If so, the changes should be reflected in thedynamics of the legislative process.

Are the actors more inclined to be influenced by their government’s posi-tion, i.e. the logic of coalition-building in the Council, or do they hope for bet-ter results when they seek to harmonise their position with their EP political

15 group? The paper analyses the legislative proposals under co-decision proce-dure submitted by the Barroso I and Barroso II Commissions during the 2004to mid-2011 period. Looking for change in the dynamics of the legislative pro-cess, it reviews the level of resistance of the EP and the Council – i.e. thenumber of readings these proposals had to pass in both institutions – and

20 examines how it is related to the national and political identity of the keyactors; the commissioner primarily responsible for the legislation, the rappor-teur of the Committee of the European Parliament and the Presidency of theCouncil. Which patterns emerge and do we capture any signs of change fol-lowing the ToL’s implementation? The results of the analysis show a difference

25 between the periods before and after Lisbon, both in the content of the legisla-tion and in the level of resistance it meets in the EU institutions. While in theperiod preceding the application of the Treaty of Lisbon we saw clear,long-term patterns of relations among the actors from particular groups ofmember states – be they north–south (Mattila 2004) or north–south–east

30 (Naurin 2008), payers–receivers (Zimmer et al. 2005), old–new (Thomson2011) or core–periphery (Plechanovová 2011) patterns, in the most recent per-iod a new pattern, where the EP political group affiliation of the actors playsmore significant role in inter-institutional dealings, seems to be emerging.

The paper is structured as follows: the next section explains the approach35 to the identities of the actors of the legislative process and the theoretical

assumptions about the actors’ behaviour, and it presents the hypotheses. Thethird section introduces the research design and data. The last two sectionspresent the analysis and discussion regarding our hypotheses.

National Actors in the European Union’s Legislative Process

40 Who are the national actors in the EU’s legislative process? All individualswho take part in the EU’s political process have multiple loyalties. For exam-ple, the minister of a national government is the representative of the memberstate within the supreme decision-making body, the Council. At the same time,s/he is, almost invariably, a member of a national political party attached to an

1200 B. Plechanovová


5EP political group. The minister’s behaviour is determined by this dualidentity, which may result in diverse steps in different contexts. Next to thesemost likely strongest loyalties, the minister meets on a regular basis with col-leagues in the Council, a collective body, to find agreements on legislative actsand other agenda tasks. A similar pattern applies to the members of other EU

10institutions: members of the Commission form a supranational body, but eachof them are nominated by a national government, and the majority are high-profile members of the national political party. These will decide the futurepolitical appointment of the commissioner after s/he leaves office. Also, as EPmembers come from the national political arena, they have to consider the

15national context of their positions towards European legislation, especiallybecause the electoral connection between MEPs and citizens is extremely weak(Hix and Høyland 2013). Which of these loyalties and concerns prevail?Which of the two affiliations plays a more important role for the actors? Partypolitical cleavage plays a significant role in EU politics (Hix et al. 2007), espe-

20cially in the EP, and recently in the Council as well (Hagemann and Høyland2008). Nevertheless, recent empirical studies indicate that the national dimen-sion of EU politics remains very strong. National identity influences how theactors in EU institutions behave in decision-making processes.

The ToL changed the inter-institutional balance in the EU in more than one25respect. Following Farrell and Héritier’s (2004) theoretical argument that inter-

organisational rules constituting the relations between organisations affect theposition of individual actors within intra-organisational relations, I outline theToL’s expected impacts on the inter-organisational level and the anticipatedimplications for individual actors.

30First, the co-decision procedure gives more power to the EP at the expenseof the Commission (Tsebelis and Garrett 2000). In addition, it is the mostcapacity-demanding for all three institutions. As the scope of the OLP acrosspolicy areas almost doubled with the ToL, the Commission has to pay moreattention to the distribution of preferences within the EP when proposing new

35legislation – next to the constellation in the Council. Whichever way the Com-mission(er) might choose to reflect it (e.g. by early communication with theleadership of EP political groups or relevant EP committee chairs etc.), allentail additional costs for her.

40H1: The change of the procedure resulting from the ToL will result in alower number of legislative proposals under OLP launched by the Commis-sion, at least in a medium-term perspective.

Second, all three institutions are motivated to lower their costs in the45legislative process through trialogues, an informal procedure leading to early

agreements between the Council and the EP. There is a strong, growing trendof early agreements, especially with co-decision files through the last decade(Rasmussen 2011). As a result, the share of co-decision legislation adoptedafter the first reading in the EP has grown enormously. For the Commission

National Actors in the Post-Lisbon EU 1201


5 the procedure partly compensates for the relative decline of its influenceunder co-decision. The EP is the weakest partner in the inter-institutionaltriangle; moreover, it is in the phase when it is at its weakest. The EP negoti-ators do not have the backing of the first reading opinion of the plenary,representing only the opinion of the negotiating team where the rapporteur

10 supposedly has a particularly important role. The perspective of the concilia-tion procedure is the only credible threat the EP possesses, but given thecosts and risks of the second reading majority threshold against the Council’scommon position (Hagemann and Høyland 2010), early agreements are stillpreferable. For the Council, the most influential of the inter-institutional trian-

15 gle, the procedure offers an opportunity for the Council presidency to shapepolicy proposals in a common position while providing better control of thetiming of the process. It saves costs for all Council members. The enlarge-ment process also added to the incentives for more effective decision-making(Thomson and Hosli 2006).

20H2: Broadening the OLP’s scope will further enhance the application ofearly agreements, resulting in a growing share of first reading decisions.

Third, inter-institutional shifts translate into adjustments that influence the25 position of member states. Changes in the decision-making rule for the Council

to be implemented in 2014 will further enhance the strategic power of the EP(Napel and Widgrén 2010). Each individual member state’s ability to influencethe outcome of the legislative process will decrease, with the exception of thefour largest members: Germany, France, the UK and Italy. Therefore, the actors

30 are likely to reconsider their long-term strategy. As a relatively short periodhas passed since the application of the ToL, there may be only scarce evidenceof changes in their behaviour. Which avenues will the actors take?

I assume that all the actors are motivated to cooperate across institutions.The commissioner aims to achieve policy change and to minimise the risks of

35 unwanted shifts in the policy content of the proposals. The MEP seeks to influ-ence the policy proposal towards the ideal point of her party group or thenational party. Finally, the minister aims to secure the national interest in thepolicy area, either by being part of the winning coalition where her demandsare granted or by being part of the blocking coalition that would prevent the

40 policy change. The second alternative is highly unlikely, as the Commissionlaunches the proposal only when the support of the QM in the Council isdeemed negotiable (Haege and Toshkov 2011). All the actors are motivated tolower their costs in the legislative process. I further assume that none of theactors in the three institutions would support policy change if there is a

45 national consensus against it back home.So, if any cooperation/coordination of the actors across institutions exists,

it may unfold in either the national or political dimension. Both dimensionswere studied in recent literature, which focused mainly on one dimension(Mühlböck 2013) or were based on a relatively narrow segment of the



5legislative output, where a certain level of open contestation was already usedas a parameter for case selection (DEU project) (e.g. Costello and Thomson2011). The relevance of the national dimension was already identified incertain inter-institutional contexts, especially when the early agreements wereconcluded (Costello and Thomson 2011; Rasmussen 2011), as well as in the

10area of non-legislative decisions such as the process of Commission investiture(Napel and Widgrén 2008) and the policy positioning of the Commission(Wonka 2008), finding the national links significant. Also, research on therelationship of the EP rapporteur with regard to her national party and theparty leading the coalition government has proved the relevance of these ties

15(Høyland 2006; Raunio 2000). The party political cleavage was already identi-fied in individual EU institutions’ decision-making but has not been verified ininter-institutional relations (Kluver and Sagarzazu 2013; Mühlböck 2013; Veen2011). Therefore, both dimensions play a role in intra-institutional relationsand in certain contexts of inter-institutional relations.

20

H3: Actors in all three institutions are motivated to coordinate theirposition on legislative proposals.

H3a: Actors will seek to enhance their chances to influence the policyproposal by coordination with other actors across the EU institutions

25along the national link, following their member state’s positioning incoalition-building in the Council.

The coalition-building pattern in the Council is understood in a behaviouralsense, i.e. identifying the members of the most probable winning coalitions

30based on their voting records and statements in the Council. Most successfuldeals are struck among these member states. All member states aim primarilyto join the winning coalition, and they succeed in most cases, althoughsystematic information on the distribution of their original preferences islacking.

35H3b: The actors will seek to enhance their chances to influence the pol-icy proposal by coordination with other actors across the EU institu-tions along the political party link.

40The actors consider their chances to influence legislation as higher if theyrely on political party cooperation or coordination within the EP politicalgroup. There is already some evidence of such links. Alignments within theEP are mostly based on a grand coalition of the two largest political groups,but the median position in the EP and the distances between the party groups

45vary across policy areas (Hix and Høyland 2013). Given the expectation thatthe institutional changes introduced by the ToL will strengthen the EP, we mayassume that there is an incentive for the actors to further coordination alongthe political dimension.



H4: If either or both strategies show in the actors’ behaviour, this should5 manifest itself in the lower level of contestation in the final stage of deci-

sion-making in the Council.

As there is insufficient information on the policy positioning of all theactors across all policy areas, we may only hope for indirect evidence. If the

10 actors coordinate their behaviour more intensively along one or both dimen-sions, we would expect the resistance of the EP and/or Council to diminish.

Research Design

To investigate the behaviour of actors in the legislative process and changes inpre- and post-Lisbon periods, two models are constructed. In the absence of

15 information on the form and intensity of communication among the actors, Ioperationalise the actors’ level of coordination across the institutions as resis-tance of the legislative bodies, i.e. the dependent variable. Should the actorscoordinate their positions and achieve the majority needed for adoption in aparticular institution, there should be evidence of lower resistance by the legis-

20 lative bodies. Resistance is measured as a cumulative score of readings in theEP and Council exceeding the minimum of one reading in each of these insti-tutions needed for the adoption. For example, the Proposal for a Regulationon Statistics on the Structure and Activity of Foreign Affiliates was adopted inthe first reading, both in the EP and the Council; consequently, the value of

25 the resistance variable is zero, i.e. (1 + 1) � 2. The Proposal for a Directiveon Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment was discussed in the Councilfour times and went through two readings in the EP. The value of resistancevariable is then four, i.e. (4 + 2) � 2. The non-zero value of the resistance var-iable indicates that at least one of the legislative chambers has a majority of

30 members who intended to change the policy proposal, indicating a lower levelof coordination.

The independent variables identify the actors in the legislative process: thecommissioner primarily responsible for the file, the rapporteur of the EPcommittee, the prime minister of the country holding the presidency, and the

35 minister taking the decision in the Council. Each of these actors is classifiedby a group of the EU member states that may predict the position of therespective member state in the Council’s coalition-building, and by the politicalparty defined by the EP political group. All these actors are endowed with sub-stantial means that affect the prospects of the legislation. The Commission(er)

40 decides if, when and how the policy is initiated and controls the proposalcontent up to the legislators’ final decision. The EP rapporteur drafts the reportfor the committee decision presented to the EP plenary. S/he is the key personwho proposes amendments, negotiates in the trialogue and guides debates inthe EP (Costello and Thomson 2010). The prime minister presiding over the

45 EU Council sets the priorities of her member state for the six-month term.The main power of the presidency lies with time management (to spur or delay



the proposal) and the leadership role in Council bargaining. Finally, the minis-ter who makes the decision in the Council thus presents the position of hergovernment towards the final deal on the proposal. Her position results from

5the government mandate, which may be influenced by both the national andpolitical party considerations.

Two alternative models are constructed and tested on the data onco-decision files initiated by both Barroso colleges before and after the ToL.The first model assumes the behaviour of legislative actors is influenced by the

10expected position of their member state in the coalition formation in theCouncil. I use social network analysis to search for a core–periphery pattern inthe positioning of Council members. The concept supports the facts that thevoting behaviour of member governments in the Council shows weak structureand that contestation is rare and often isolated, with the resulting pattern rela-

15tively stable and lasting (Plechanovova 2011). It identifies actors who are mostoften dispensable for the winning coalition as the periphery. The method findsthe line dividing the Council’s most probable winners from its most probablelosers by looking for the biggest gap between the densities of the partitions ofthe distance matrix (Hojman and Szeidl 2008) based on votes and negative

20statements presented by the member states in the Council. This particular pat-tern is selected as a base reference for the test of the eventual change because,compared to other already identified patterns of cleavages (north/south; north/south/east; payers/receivers; old/new), the model is purely behavioural in nat-ure; there is no embedded assumption that the identified core and periphery

25subsume specific substantial policy preferences or identities. The only theoreti-cal assumption behind the core–periphery model is that all the actors have along-term aim to be part of the winning coalition as often as possible, i.e. tobe part of the core. The repeated mode of bargaining and decision-makingpushes all the actors to build strong coalition potential. Coalition potential is

30difficult to define; the number of votes in the Council – or the voting power(e.g. Felsenthal and Machover 2004b) – provides the foundation but is influ-enced by other, potentially intangible factors such as bargaining skills, historyof coalition deals and trust (e.g. Hayes-Renshaw et al. 2006).

Therefore, the model’s strictly behavioural, empirical character is an35advantage, as testing policy preferences is notoriously difficult (e.g. Mattila

2009; Thomson 2006). Moreover, there is no clear consensus on the interpreta-tion of the results in this area of research. The core–periphery model identifiedby social network analysis is descriptive. It recognises the actors with the high-est density of relations in the adjacency matrix, i.e. the matching positions

40towards the legislation on the agenda, as the core, and the group with the low-est density of relations as the periphery (see online Appendix). The core groupincludes the member states that are the most probable members of the winningcoalitions in the Council. The periphery group comprises the member statesthat most probably end up on the losing side when the legislation is contested.

45They do not represent a blocking minority coalition, as they have closerrelations to the core members than to other members of the periphery. When



they contest legislation, they are often isolated or joined by any of the memberstates, more often of the core than of the periphery.

Each actor – the commissioner, rapporteur, prime minister holding the pres-5 idency of the Council and minister taking the position in the Council – is then

identified as being part of either the core or periphery1 during the pre- andpost-Lisbon periods. The model controls for the dissent of periphery memberstates in the Council, indicating which actors influence legislative processdynamics and whether the pattern changed after the ToL. In general, if all three

10 actors were from the core group and their coordination via the national dimen-sion was perfect, resistance would be at its lowest, while contest from theperiphery group would be more probable.

The second model assigns a political party affiliation to each of the actorsdefined by the EP’s political groups. It follows logic similar to the first model

15 in that it tries to find the influence of the actors’ party affiliation on the levelof resistance while controlling for dissent by governments affiliated with aparticular party group. All independent variables are coded as dummies.

An important issue of the research design is the threshold of where to splitthe data into pre- and post-Lisbon periods. It is evident that the periods, as

20 divided by the date of the ToL implementation, are not equal, mainly in thenumber of acts where the legislative process was completed. I decided to movethe threshold which splits the data to be closer to the date after which allactors involved in the legislative process could have expected that the legisla-tion would be decided according to the ToL provisions at the moment when it

25 reached the floor of the EP for the first reading decision (Table 1).2 Theoreti-cally speaking, the commissioner introducing a consultation file in February2008 to be re-coded into a co-decision by the ToL knew that the legal basis ofthe file would change within less than a year. To minimise the number of legis-lative proposals affected by this perspective, the Commission launched only a

30 small number of files during the 2008–2009 period, which faced the prospectof the change to OLP.

This approach to the question of the time threshold has both analytical andfactual merits. First, all legislation where the ToL implied the introduction of

TABLE 1LEGISLATION SUBMITTED BY THE COMMISSION (NOVEMBER 2004–JUNE 2011)

Barroso Iand II

Period(months)

Legislationsubmitted (COM)

Legislationunder CNS

Legislationunder COD

Legislationunder NLE

Freq. % Freq. % Freq. %

Pre-ToL 39.3 2,564 365 14.24 332 12.95 6 0.23Post-ToL 41.7 2,479 157 6.33 309 12.46 413 16.66Total 81 5,043 522 20.57 641 25.41 419 16.89

Note: Data divided into pre-/post-Lisbon periods by 7 February 2008. Legislation submitted by theCommission under co-decision procedure after that date would have been decided by both legisla-tive institutions – the EP and the Council – under the new rules of the ToL, if any changes wereapplicable. This threshold is used for testing the alternative models.



the OLP was expected to undergo the process of change of the legal basis.5Long before the ToL was signed in December 2007, the areas affected by this

change were known to decision-makers in the EU, namely the Commission.Although the Commission launched a number of proposals which had toundergo a change of the treaty basis as a consequence of the ToL, only a few(14 proposals) included a change in the decision-making procedure. Therefore,

10we may deduce that the Commission presented these proposals after the ToLwas signed but tried to minimise the number of those that would have changedthe position of the legislative actors. Second, analytically, shifting the thresholddate towards the date of signing the ToL allows us to split the dataset moreevenly, while the number of observations affected by the perceived difference

15remains small.Unsurprisingly, policy area influences resistance. The Council contains

different ‘cultures of consensus’ (Heisenberg 2005), as some formations aremore open to dissenting positions than others (Hayes-Renshaw and Wallace2006). Therefore, the policy areas in the analysis had to be represented in the

20data by more than 20 observations in at least one of the periods, and theproposals of a particular policy area had to be subject to contestation morethan five times to add to the data variance. After these criteria were applied,the number of observations was reduced to approximately 64 per cent of thecompleted proposals.

25Hypotheses H3a and H3b are tested by applying analysis of variance tocompare both periods regarding the influence of the actors’ national and politi-cal identities. I look for the differences of means of the dependent variable ofresistance as influenced by the independent variables of the two alternativemodels, pre- and post-Lisbon. In the first model, it is the actors’ allegiance to

30the core group, controlling for the proposal being contested in the Council byvote or negative statement by the periphery group member state at the sametime. If the commissioner is from the core group, the resistance should growwhen periphery group members contest the legislation. The EP rapporteur and/or presidency from the same group as the commissioner should moderate the

35level of resistance. The second model should work in a similar manner, asthe variables are the actors’ affiliation with the political groups of the EP andthe dissent in the Council of the governments headed by prime ministersattached to these political groups. The results of analysis should point to theindependent variables significantly influencing the value of resistance.

40Data and Descriptive Statistics

Data were collected from the PreLex database and the register of documents ofthe Council Secretariat. They are all the co-decision files adopted by theCommission after the Barroso I College came into office in November 2004up to the end of June 2011 and where the legislative process was concluded

45before the end of February 2012. Altogether, 590 legislative proposals whichentered the legislative process were identified. In 508 of these the process was



concluded. The mean duration of the co-decision procedure was 536 days.Some files, however, were subject to change of legal basis, mostly due to theToL, but of these, only a few resulted into the change of the legislative proce-

5 dure. However, these changes had a considerable influence on the duration offiles pending when the Treaty was implemented.

Before testing the alternative models, I inspect the data distribution as iden-tified by the independent variables (Table 2). Descriptive statistics illustrate thatthe legislative acts under a co-decision procedure are administered both in the

10 Commission and the EP in a way showing patterns of political control, notnecessarily reflecting the proportional representation, along either national orpolitical party lines. Distribution of the portfolios in the Commission is themain factor influencing this pattern. Large countries dominate control of theEU agenda: German, French, Italian and Spanish commissioners introduced

15 more than 33 per cent of the co-decision files. On the other hand, there is noco-decision file for which the British commissioner is primary responsible forthe period of 2004 to 2011, simply because both British commissioners, Man-delson and Ashton, were responsible for a policy area which did not fall underco-decision (trade and external action).

20 Regarding political representation, the distribution shows the prevalence ofthe three largest political groups. The Barroso I Commission had nine membersattached to the EPP group, eight members attached to PES and nine to ALDE,with one independent member. The Barroso II Commission brought a shift oftwo members in favour of the EPP at the cost of one post for socialists and

25 the loss of an independent member. Taking both terms (2004–2011) together,the EPP, PES (S&D) and ALDE had 37, 29 and 33 per cent of the posts in theCommission, respectively. Commissioners attached to the EPP launched 57 percent of the co-decision proposals, while those affiliated with PES and ALDEinitiated only 24 and 19 per cent, respectively. Although taking into account

30 the ‘Barroso factor’, i.e. the large number of files where the President is pri-marily responsible, the situation looks more proportional to the distribution ofseats in the EP (EPP 47 per cent, PES 29 per cent, ALDE 23 per cent). Still,there is a bias in favour of the EPP group at the cost of ALDE. No other polit-ical group was represented in the Commission during this period.

35 In the EP, the situation is expectedly more proportional regarding represen-tation of political group members as rapporteurs for the EP committees; how-ever, we also find here a bias in favour of the largest political groups. EPP,PES and ALDE received approximately 85 per cent of all co-decision filesallocated to the EP committees, while their share of seats was 10 per cent

40 lower. The distribution of co-decision files across MEPs from various membercountries shows a disproportional pattern, e.g. less than 19 per cent of co-deci-sion files were allocated to rapporteurs from new member states, contrasted toa 27 per cent share of seats in the EP before Lisbon, increasing to 20 per centafter Lisbon in EP7 (cf. Kaeding and Hurka 2010).

45 Regarding the presidencies, most governments holding the EU presidencyduring the period had a prime minister of the EPP party – 78 per cent of



TABLE

2DIS

TRIB

UTIO

NOFTHE

CO-D

ECIS

ION

LEGIS

LATIV

EPROPOSALSAMONG

THE

LEGIS

LATIV

EACTORSAND

PARTY

GROUPS(B

YPERIO

DOF

ORIG

IN)

Com

mission

erEPrapporteur

Presidency

Pre-ToL

Post-ToL

Pre-ToL

Post-ToL

Pre-ToL

Post-ToL

Freq.

%Freq.

%Freq.

%Freq.

%Freq.

%Freq.

%

Core

253

55.97

114

82.61

153

34.46

6410

030

670

.67

3790

.24

Periphery

199

44.03

2417

.39

291

65.54

00

127

29.33

49.76

Total

452

100

138

100

444

100

6410

043

310

041

100

EPP

262

57.96

7856

.52

167

37.61

2031

.333

878

.137

90.2

PES

128

28.32

117.97

133

29.95

2234

.462

14.3

45.1

ALDE

6213

.72

4935

.51

7516

.89

710

.932

7.4

Green

245.41

23.1

00.0

NA

153.38

00.0

00.0

GUE

143.15

23.1

10.2

UEN

153.38

00.0

00.0

ECR

10.23

1117

.20

0.0

Total

452

100

138

100

444

100

6410

043

310

041

95.4

Note:

The

thresholdto

splitthedata

isthedate

theToL

comeinto

force,

i.e.

1Decem

ber2009.



co-decision files were adopted under the presidency of the government headedby the prime minister from a political party associated with the EPP. Only13 and 9 per cent were adopted under PES and ALDE presidencies,

5 respectively.The core group is identified by the analysis of voting records and negative

statements on the co-decision files presented in the EU Council, both beforethe ToL became effective and after, i.e. from 2004 to 2009 and from 2010 to2012. The group identification before Lisbon is in fact consistent with the

10 results of previous research, which looked for cleavages among the EU mem-ber states after the eastern enlargement (Hosli et al. 2011; Mattila 2009). Thecore–periphery analysis draws the line between two groups of actors by findingthe largest gap between the densities of the partitions of the matrix represent-ing all the pair-wise relations between the actors, i.e. the matching positions of

15 the EU member states (see Appendix). Seventeen member states were recogni-sed as the most probable members of the winning coalition in the Councilbefore the ToL, leaving Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland, theNetherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Sweden, Austria and Malta as those moreoften ending on the losing side of the division. The core – constituted more

20 often than not by South-East-Small-Receivers – commanded by 171 votes inthe Council and occupied 45.7 per cent of seats in the EP. The position of thecore in instigating and administering the co-decision proposals was even stron-ger. Almost 54 per cent of these proposals were presented by commissionersof core countries; as a significant part of the periphery was taken by Barroso’s

25 files, this figure is actually almost two-thirds. On the other hand, the positionof the MEPs from core countries in the EP rapporteurships was weaker com-pared to the number of seats they occupied in the EP (36.6 per cent of reports;45.7 per cent of seats).

Thirty-three per cent of the acts concluded before March 2012 were contested30 at least once in the Council, 76 per cent were adopted after the first reading in the

EP, 20 passed to the second reading and 4 per cent went to the third.

Analysis

First, I test Hypotheses H1 and H2 by inspecting the descriptive statistics onco-decision legislation. Both are in principle supported by the data, evidenced

35 by a marked drop in the output of legislation under OLP by the Commissionafter the ToL (Table 3, Figure 1). The growing tendency to adopt legislationunder OLP early continues as expected. Nevertheless, Figure 2 shows that thetrend may have reached its limits at 75–80 per cent. Second, an analysis ofvariance shows the variables influencing the level of resistance. The hypothesis

40 about the relevance of the core–periphery behavioural pattern in EU decision-making before the ToL is supported (Table 4, Model 1a). If the commissionerresponsible for the proposal was from the core group (as opposed to theperiphery group), the level of resistance was almost six times higher, but ifany of the periphery group contested the proposal in the Council, the level of



TABLE

3

LEGIS

LATIV

EOUTPUT

OFTHE

COMMIS

SIO

N–COMPARIS

ON

OVER

THE

EUROPEAN

PARLIA

MENT’S

LEGIS

LATIV

ETERMS,1994-2

011

EP

term

Legislation

submitted(C

OM)

Legislation

under

COD

Legislation

under

CNS

ACC+AVC+APP;NLE+APP

Freq.

total

Freq.

first2

years

%first

2years

Freq.

%

Freq.

first2

years

%first

2years

Freq.

%

Freq.

first2

years

%first

2years

Freq.

%

Freq.

first2

years

%first

2years

4thEP

3571

1,469

41.14

244

6.83

845.72

784

21.95

316

21.51

492

13.78

223

15.18

5thEP

3755

1,476

39.31

427

11.37

151

10.23

589

15.69

243

16.46

544

14.49

231

15.65

6thEP

3888

1,479

38.04

504

12.96

161

10.89

529

13.61

234

15.82

325

8.36

153

10.34

7thEP

1,471

176

11.96

422.86

425

28.89

Note:

COM

=allproposalsanddocuments

released

bytheCom

mission;CNS=legislativeproposalsunderconsultation

procedure;

COD

=legislativeproposals

underco-decision(ordinarylegislativeprocedure);AVC

=proposalsun

derassent

procedureof

theEP;APP=prop

osalsun

derassent

procedureby

theEP(special

legislativeprocedure);ACC=proposalsun

deragreem

ent,i.e.

decision

bytheCouncilon

ly.NLE=no

n-legislativeacts(new

catego

ryintroduced

byToL

,subsum

esAVC

andACCactsof

pre-Lisbonperiod).Datafrom

PreLex

database.



5 resistance was only three times higher. This indicates two things: a commis-sioner of the core group contributes most to the growth of resistance, but alsothe EP adds significantly. The explanation that the core group contributesnotably to resistance in the Council is refuted, as only a small number ofobservations with dissenting positions of the core members in the Council adds

10 to the mean. Coincidental allegiance of all three actors to the core does notlower resistance. However, high resistance is also explained by the fact thatcommissioners from the core countries were responsible for the highly conten-tious policy areas, e.g. home affairs, environment, social policy, internal mar-ket. The EP rapporteur did not appear as significant, contrary to the findings of

15 Thomson (2011), while the presidency played only a minor role. Altogether,the actors from the member states classified as periphery raised noticeableresistance through the EU institutions.

After the ToL, the core group expanded by two member states, with fewothers changing their position, but the group is considerably less cohesive

20 compared to the pre-Lisbon period, measured by the density matrix. Model1b-1 (Table 4) therefore drops significantly in explanatory power. Nonetheless,the coincidental affiliation of the actors with the core group moderates themean of resistance in an expected direction, i.e. if the rapporteur andpresidency are from the core group, resistance is lower. The commissioner

25 and rapporteur are significant predictors. If we allow the density of thecore–periphery ties to ease further, i.e. if we look for the most distant actors of

0

20

40

60

80

100

Freq

uenc

y

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011Year of adoption by the Commission

FIGURE 1CO-DECISION FILES INITIATED BY THE COMMISSION (NOVEMBER 2004–JUNE 2011)



the periphery in the EU Council, we find them using the degree of centralitymeasure (see Annex 3). I constructed an alternative model with the peripherycomprising only the most distant countries, Germany, the UK and the Nether-

5lands (Model 1b-2). The explanatory power of the model markedly improved.Both the commissioner and rapporteur of the core group tend to lower resis-tance. The presidency seems to work in an opposite direction, but that is dueto the Belgian presidency, which came out as an outlier, concluding a highnumber of co-decision files with a history of multiple readings in both the

10Council and EP. When at least one of the three periphery governments showeddissent in the Council, resistance rose by 60 per cent. This shows that the qual-ified majority rule may not play the role that is expected. The three most dis-tant periphery group member states do not control the blocking minority;nevertheless, their dissent in the Council implies a growing number of readings

15in both chambers. That indicates that once some of these member states have adissenting position on the legislative proposal, a blocking minority in theCouncil often in fact exists and prevents the adoption, as well as a majority inthe EP sending the proposal to the second reading. This assumption is sup-ported by information from the insiders of the Council negotiations who admit

20that the member governments often do not present their negative position tothe proposal if another member government, and especially one of the majorplayers, does the job.3

All co-decision files adopted (1999–2011)

Co-decision files introduced by Barroso Commissions before July 2011

20

40

60

80

100

% o

f EP'

s 1s

t rea

ding

ado

ptio

ns

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Year

FIGURE 2PERCENTAGE OF CO-DECISION FILES (OLP) ADOPTED AFTER FIRST READING

DECISION IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT (1999–2011)



TABLE

4MODEL

1–CORE/P

ERIP

HERY

–ANALYSIS

OFVARIA

NCE

Mod

el1a

–pre-ToL

Mod

el1b

-1–post-ToL

Mod

el1b

-2–post-ToL

Number

ofob

s.=20

0R2=0.3658

Number

ofob

s=10

1R2=0.1509

Number

ofob

s=10

1R2=0.3705

Roo

tMSE=1.5140

9AdjR2=0.35

28Roo

tMSE

=1.1614

5AdjR2=0.1155

Roo

tMSE=1.0000

7AdjR2=0.34

42

Sou

rce

df

Partial

SS

MS

FProb

>F

df

Partial

SS

MS

FProb

>F

df

Partial

SS

MS

FProb

>F

Mod

el4

257.84

1664

.460

428

.12

0.0000

423

.013

693

5.7534

234.27

0.0032

456

.500

9214

.125

2314

.12

0.0000

com-core

117

7.60

2917

7.60

2977

.47

0.0000

19.0370

619.0370

616.70

0.0111

10.3235

400.3235

400.32

0.5708

rapp-core

11.62

3049

1.6230

490.71

0.4011

18.9077

078.9077

076.60

0.0117

114

.320

2514

.320

2514

.32

0.0003

pres-core

12.98

2334

2.9823

341.30

0.2554

10.1992

870.1992

870.15

0.7016

145

.548

6645

.548

6645

.54

0.0000

peri-dis

126

.833

0026

.833

0011.70

0.0008

12.5616

92.5616

91.90

0.1714

11.6318

21.6318

21.63

0.2046

Residual

195

447.03

332.2924

7896

129.50

116

1.3489

796

96.013

931.0001

5Total

199

704.87

53.5420

8510

015

2.51

481.5251

4810

015

2.51

491.5251

5

Note:

com-core=commissioner

ofthecore

groupmem

berstate;

rapp-core=EPrapporteur

ofthecore

groupmem

berstate;

pres-core=presidency

ofthecore

groupmem

berstate;

peri-dis=mem

berstateof

theperipherygroupmaintains

dissenting

position

intheCouncil;sign.0.05

inbold.



TABLE

5MODEL

2–PARTY

POLIT

ICS(E

PGROUPS)–ANALYSIS

OFVARIA

NCE

Mod

el2a

–pre-ToL

Mod

el2b

–post-ToL

Number

ofob

s=20

0R2=0.2423

Number

ofob

s=10

0R2=0.3880

Roo

tMSE

=1.69

912AdjR2=0.1849

Roo

tMSE

=1.05

64AdjR2=0.2700

Sou

rce

df

Partial

SS

MS

FProb>F

df

Partial

SS

MS

FProb>F

Mod

el14

170.77

5312

.198

234.21

0.0000

1649

.123

053.67

0599

3.29

0.00

02com-part

246

.353

2823

.176

648.03

0.0005

21.34

1052

.67052

60.60

0.55

07rapp

-part

618

.333

163.0555

271.06

0.3893

719

.706

082.81

5155

2.52

0.02

11pres-part

27.565318

3.782659

1.31

0.2723

213.47379

6.346491

6.04

0.00

36EPP-dis

13.1299

713.1299

711.08

0.2991

17.34

649

7.34

649

6.58

0.01

21PES-dis

16.6707

036.6707

032.31

0.1302

11.53

4502

1.53

4502

1.37

0.24

43ALDE-dis

113

.273

5913

.273

594.60

0.0333

1.435

325

.43532

50.39

0.53

40ECR-dis

01

.076

712

.07671

20.07

0.79

38GUE-dis

114

.342

8914

.342

894.97

0.0270

1.667

663

.66766

30.60

0.44

14Residual

185

534.09

962.8870

2583

92.630

41.1160

29Total

199

704.87

53.5420

8599

Note:

com-part=Com

mission

er’s

EPpartygrou

p;rapp

-part=rapporteur’s

EPpartygroup;

pres-part=EPpartygroupof

theprim

eministerof

themem

berstates

holdingthepresidency;EPP-dis

=mem

bergovernmentheaded

byprim

eministeralignedwithEPPgroupmaintains

dissenting

position

intheCouncil;PES-dis

=mem

bergovernmentheaded

byprim

eministeralignedwithPES

(S&D)groupmaintains

dissenting

position

intheCouncil;ALDE-dis

=mem

bergovernment

headed

byprim

eministeralignedwithALDEgroupmaintains

dissenting

position

intheCouncil;ECR-dis=mem

bergovernmentheaded

byprim

eministeraligned

withECRgroupmaintains

dissenting

position

intheCouncil;GUE-dis=mem

bergovernmentheaded

byprim

eministeralignedwithGUEgroupmaintains

dissent-

ingpo

sition

intheCouncil.



Model 2a comes with significant results but lower predictive power thanthe core–periphery model for the same period (Table 5). The commissioner’s

5 political group and dissent of the ALDE and GUE governments in the Councilexplained most of the data variance. Legislative proposals of the commissionerfrom the PES group met the least resistance, while the commissioner from theALDE group expects that her acts would meet twice as much resistance fromthe legislative bodies. Dissent of the ALDE and GUE governments in the

10 Council resulted in thrice the level of resistance compared to the mean value.Positions of the governments from other groups did not make a significant dif-ference. Political positioning of the main legislative actors clearly made a dif-ference even before the ToL but remained less significant than the positioningvis-à-vis the most probable coalition pattern in the Council.

15 Finally, Model 2b (party politics after ToL) is stronger compared to both thepre-Lisbon Model 2a and the core–periphery Model 1b-1, i.e. after the ToL.Not only is the level of resistance influenced by the political party identity to ahigher degree than before, reaching up to 27 per cent of the explained variancefrom the identical subset of the data, but it also indicates that the pattern of coa-

20 lition-building has changed. The most significant factors influencing the level ofresistance are the rapporteur and presidency and the dissent of the EPP group,whereas the political identity of other institutional actors does not play a majorrole. Nonetheless, if all the actors are from one political group, resistance dropsmarkedly both before and after Lisbon. Such a constellation, however, was

25 attained only by the EPP group. Hypothesis H4 is supported by the data, as themean resistance dropped by approximately one-third following the ToL.

Discussion

What is the answer to our question, and given our findings, should we expecta change in national strategies? What does this paper contribute to the

30 discussion on decision-making processes in the EU?First, both models support the hypotheses to a certain degree. The

core–periphery model describes the behaviour of the member states inthe Council and indicates that the embedded cleavage is linked to the EP. Forthe pre-Lisbon period (November 2004–February 2008) the core–periphery

35 model explains a substantial amount of data variance, but it shows that theassumed coordination along this direction does not translate into lower resis-tance; in fact, the opposite is true. If all three actors align with the core group,they stir substantial resistance in both the Council and EP, which confirms theexistence of long-term cleavage among the EU member states.

40 The party political model comes out with weaker signs of division in thedata but yields statistically significant results that support Hypothesis 3b. If allthree actors align to the same political group, which occurs in approximately25 per cent of observations in both the pre- and post-ToL periods, resistance islower. It remains to be said that in the post-ToL period, only the EPP group

45 was able to ensure such an arrangement.



Following the ToL, the results of both models changed. First, the core inthe Council has expanded but become less cohesive, i.e. the divide betweenthe core and periphery groups is less clear. The reduced version of the core–periphery model (Model 1b-2) helps to illuminate who embodies the opposite

5of the core and improves the model’s explanatory power. The coincidentalalignment of the actors has the effect expected by Hypothesis 3a: it results in amarkedly lower resistance. However, the party political model for the post-ToLperiod brings more robust results. The factors contributing the most to themodel are the rapporteur, presidency and dissent of the governments headed by

10the party aligned to the EPP in the Council.These results answer the research questions by showing a clear difference in

the pattern of relations among the national and political identities of actors andthe level of resistance of legislators before and after the ToL. Also, the growingexpediency of the legislative process indicates that either the formal rules are

15gaining weight in EU decision-making or the informal routes for inter-institu-tional bargaining are used to avoid a prolonged procedure (Rasmussen 2011).Both explanations are highly plausible. Since trialogue meetings of the Com-mission, EP and Council have been a norm with co-decision files since 2005(Kardasheva 2009), I argue that the post-treaty change can be, to some degree,

20credited to the politicisation of inter-institutional relations in the EU.Finally, other factors should be considered. First, the EU shifted to the right,

making the new EU legislation, which is prevailingly of a regulatory character,more difficult to be accepted by right-wing and centre-right governments. Thisis one reason we do not see any rise in co-decision legislation being launched

25which would match the additional 40-plus treaty bases introduced by the ToLunder the OLP. In fact, we see a relative decline of co-decision files submittedby the Commission. Second, the structure of the policy proposals has changed,partly due to the expansion of the co-decision into new policy areas (mainlytrade and agriculture), but partly due to the significant drop in the number of

30proposals from policy areas that ranked among the most often contested in theprevious period, e.g. energy, transport, telecommunications, statistics, employ-ment and social policy. Part of the explanation rests with the change of theportfolios in the Commission in the second Barroso College, with a clear shiftfrom the substantive innovative agenda of Barroso I to the management of the

35internal market, common agricultural, commercial and monetary policies inBarroso II. Finally, the post-Lisbon period coincides with the global financialcrisis that has evidently shifted the focus of EU policy-making to the measuresneeded to face the challenges of the global economic environment and the morerecent crisis of the euro. Therefore, although there are clear signs of changes in

40the actors’ behaviour, we should wait before making the ultimate judgementabout how the ToL has affected actors in EU institutions.

Where do we go from here? A surprising finding of the present analysis isthat the large EU countries – Germany, the UK and Italy – are found in theperiphery group. This paper adds an argument to the current debate on

45the mechanism of localisation of compromise on EU policies both within the



Council and across the three institutions and their effects for the EU memberstates. Cross (2012), Golub (2012), Panke (2011) and Thomson (2011) showunintuitive results regarding the relative success of actors in the EU legislativegame or of solving inter-institutional coordination problems (Mühlböck 2013).

5 The enlargement resulted in a broadening of the group of medium and smallmember states with limited resources and diverse preferences. Since the prefer-ences of the large member states are also quite dissimilar (e.g. Thomson 2011:Ch. 3), each bargaining where the preferences of member states part, meansthat the large group, whose votes are needed for reaching the qualified major-

10 ity, are accommodated, at the same time taking into consideration the distribu-tion of preferences in the EP. Bargaining becomes costly, and large memberstates may often, given the distribution of their preferences within the EUpolicy space and voting power, be disadvantaged in pursuing their favouritesolution. They may end up with suboptimal outcomes. A majority of medium-

15 sized and small member states have no chance to influence the outcome of thegame individually but have long-term experience in building ‘critical mass’coalitions (Marwell et al. 1988), i.e. the minority group whose support must bewon for legislation to be adopted. These countries form the major part of thecore group. For each of these member states, this surely leads to many

20 instances of loss, but in the long run the strategy yields better results thancoalitions with one of the large countries that compete for the support of thewhole group. The findings of this paper support the argument that memberstates do not win equally in the Council (Golub 2012). Nevertheless, newquestions are raised by this explanation of the Council’s pattern of coalition-

25 building: What is the strategy of the Commission as an agenda-setter? What isthe mechanism which generates the organiser of the core group, and how doesall this affect EU policies?

Acknowledgements

Previous versions of this article were presented at the DEUBAL workshop in30 Leiden, 2011, and at 6th Pan-European Conference in Tampere, 2012. I would

like to thank Amie Kreppel, Madeleine Hosli, Amy Verdun, Fabio Francino,Daniel Finke and anonymous reviewers for their suggestions.

Notes

1. For details of the divisions for pre- and post-Lisbon periods and the calculations, see online35 Appendix.

2. The ToL was supposed to be in force after 1 January 2009. I subtracted from this date the meanvalue of the number of days needed by the co-decision file to be decided upon in the first read-ing by the European Parliament. The mean value is 329 days, the resultant date is 7 February2008. The legislators involved could have expected that any co-decision legislative proposal

40 submitted by the Commission after this date would fall under the new rules given by the ToLhad the Treaty been ratified as planned.

3. Interview, member of the Coreper II, Brussels, 27 January 2009.



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National Actors in the Post-Lisbon EU: Should We Expect a Change of National Strategies?

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