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This paper examines the impact of recent changes in the Council of Ministers of the European Union (EU), namely the increased use of decision making by simple majority voting and qualified majority voting, and the increase in voting weight of larger Member States at the expense of smaller Member States. These changes have effectively increased the power of the Council vis-à-vis the Commission and that of the large Member States in adopting legislative acts. We adopt a game-theoretic approach to analyse decision making of small and large Member States in this new system of governance in the EU. Our model shows that, small Member States will in general support different types of legislative acts in the Council than large member states. All other things equal, small Member States will strive adopt acts that have a strong discretionary role of the Commission in the application phase of legislative acts, whereas large Member States will advocate a stronger role for the Council in the application phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) as a case study of European integration. Applying the theoretical lenses of various European integration approaches (intergovernmentalism, domestic politics, neofunctionalism and an 'expertocratic' approach) it seeks to understand how to explain the creation of the SGP as well as its subsequent (non-)application. The findings show that different approaches are able to illuminate different parts of the process. The paper thus argues that only an eclectically constructed combination of the approaches provides a satisfying explanation of this fundamental element of the rules-based Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economists argue that an absolute ceiling on budget deficits is unhelpful. This paper discusses relevant economic and political theories and analyzes institutional economic and monetary cooperation in the EU. Based on interviews with policy-makers present at the creation of the SGP or currently involved in it, this paper argues that budget policy coordination rules are politically helpful by contributing to transparency and accountability in the governance of EMU. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]