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Copyright of Revista Crítica de Relaciones de Trabajo, Laborum is the property of Ediciones Laborum S.L. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article studies the influence of the European Parliament (EP) in the reform of the EU’s economic governance. Descriptively, it aims to provide a systematic map of the negotiations of the Six- and the Two-Pack legislation, focusing on the key controversies between the co-legislators, and comparing the position of the EP with the Commission’s legislative proposals, the Council position and the final legislative output. The surprisingly limited influence of the EP - given its formal powers and the assessment made by most scholars - is then assessed through rational choice and sociological institutionalist perspectives. While the more favourable BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement) of the Council could explain the outcome of the Two-Pack, and a norm of responsibility triggered by the crisis could account for the limited impact of the EP on the Six-Pack, the authors advance a different explanation. They suggest that in policy areas close to ‘core state powers’, such as budgetary surveillance, the member states still have a primary role to play. Despite the extension of codecision, the EP is expected to act within the boundaries that member states define. The authors’ policy-based explanation adds a new perspective on the study of the EP’s influence on EU law-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapporteurs in the European Parliament (EP) are the most influential members in terms of the legislation they handle. They are appointed by their political groups. In making these appointments, these groups need to accommodate both their collective needs and individual requests. This article explores situations in which the collective need for information is prioritised: the codecision procedure. The data includes allocations over a 10-year period (2004-2014) in three of the most powerful EP committees, as well as key career choices among members. EP groups emphasise policy-specific knowledge. They also pay attention to individual members’ requests for exposure, but only when the expected policy drift is minimal. Harsh selection during the allocation of codecision reports creates pressure to accommodate a greater selection of legislators during other attractive report allocations. Own-initiative reports therefore affect allocation of codecision reports negatively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

De acuerdo con los planteamientos del constitucionalismo multinivel el Tratado de Lisboa al tiempo que ofrece un mayor protagonismo al Parlamento europeo atribuye nuevos poderes a los parlamentos nacionales. Por un lado, el nuevo Protocolo sobre la subsidiariedad trata de corregir las descompensaciones institucionales internas producidas en el proceso de integración involucrando a los parlamentos nacionales en el control previo, el respeto del principio y poniéndolos en condiciones de bloquear el proceso decisional europeo. Por otro lado, la extensión del procedimento de codecisión, generalizando el poder de veto, tiene el objetivo de seguir la dirección de consolidar el papel del Parlamento europeo con relación a las otras instituciones comunitarias (y particularmente con relación al Consejo). Con la intención de evidenciar las contradicciones que parecen encontrarse en la estrategia doctrinal y que han orientado las decisiones tomadas en el Tratado de Lisboa, el presente trabajo intenta reconstruir el proceso decisional a la luz de la praxis constitucional. El objetivo es el de entender, si más allá de las declaraciones retóricas de conveniencia, las novedades introducidas en el Tratado de Lisboa son realmente buenas como para mejorar la calidad democrática de las decisiones europeas o si más bien con ellas se puedan producir peligrosos cortocircuitos en la lógica de la integración.

El artículo analiza el funcionamiento del procedimiento legislativo ordinario (PLO) en la práctica y cómo la práctica de los «trílogos» y los acuerdos en primera lectura está cada vez más consolidada. La descripción del PLO del artículo 294 TFUE no permite, por sí sola, hacerse una idea exacta del funcionamiento de la PLO en la práctica. Es necesario tener presente la Declaración Común del Parlamento, del Consejo y de la Comisión sobre las modalidades prácticas del procedimiento de codecisión. Como consecuencia de estas modalidades prácticas el número de actos legislativos adoptados en primera lectura está en constante aumento, mientras que el número de propuestas legislativas que llegan a la fase de conciliación se ha reducido considerablemente. El papel del ponente y de la comisión parlamentaria competente así como el de la Presidencia semestral del Consejo se han visto reforzados, en la medida en que asumen el papel de negociadores de sus respectivas instituciones. Recibido: 16 diciembre 2014 Aceptado: 19 febrero 2015 Publicación en línea: 15 abril 2016

THE PAPER ARGUES THAT THE FINANCIAL, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CRISIS OPENED A NEW WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY FOR THE REVALORIZATION OF THE EUROPEAN GOOD GOVERNANCE PRINCIPLES AND SUBSEQUENTLY FOR THE STRENGTHENING OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION WITHIN THE INTER-INSTITUTIONAL TRIANGLE BY THE CONSOLIDATION OF ITS TECHNOCRATIC LEGITIMACY. IN THIS CONTEXT, AFTER IDENTIFYING THE MILESTONES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EUROPEAN GOVERNANCE, THE PAPER FOCUSSES ON THE WAY THE GOOD GOVERNANCE PRINCIPLES HAVE BEEN RELOADED AND TRANSLATED WITHIN THE NEW 2014-2020 COHESION POLICY IN COMPARISON TO THE TWO PREVIOUS POLICIES AND QUESTIONS THE DELAY IN THE PRACTICAL IMPLEMENTATION OF THE EUROPEAN GOVERNANCE REFORM. THUS, THE CO-DECISION PROCEDURE IS APPROACHED AS A POTENTIAL RELOADER OF THE GOOD GOVERNANCE PRINCIPLES WITHIN THE NEW COHESION POLICY. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the determinants of assignments to European Parliament negotiating teams comprising both rapporteurs and shadow rapporteurs. We re-examine the argument that under-representation of MEPs (Members of the European Parliament) from new Member States on these key posts after enlargement might have been due to a 'learning phase'. We find that MEPs from newer Member States remain considerably less likely to act as rapporteurs during the second term after enlargement (2009-14). Most importantly, this trend also holds for shadow rapporteurships under the co-decision procedure, which is when they matter most. This structural under-representation entails important implications for European integration, most importantly that MEPs from newer Member States are less able to influence legislation. We suggest that the patterns we find could be the result of reduced willingness, a more limited skill set, or a structural disadvantage of MEPs from the accession states in the report allocation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 linkingformalandinformalinstitutions. 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. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This contribution focuses on the European Parliament (EP) as an actor in European Union (EU) border policies. It situates the Parliament in the dynamics of the Schengen project and discusses the distinct role it plays therein, as well as its impact thereon. The article argues that the EP managed to establish itself, years before the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, as a credible actor in border policies able to bring the citizens’ perspective into EU border policies. With its keen interest in the Schengen area as an area in which citizens can move freely without being subject to border controls, and with its focus on fundamental rights, it played, and continues to do so, a role in ensuring that “Schengen works”. The article presents its powers and the interplay with the other EU institutions, mainly on the basis of a number of key examples. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Douleur et Analgésie is the property of John Libbey Eurotext Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The European Union's codecision procedure is analyzed as a bargaining game between the Council and the European Parliament. The model shows that the policy outcome is biased towards the ideal point of the institution that is closest to the status quo, when the negotiation leads to an agreement. If the Council's ideal policy is closer to the status quo, as is the case for example concerning the duration of maternity leave, the resulting policy will remain closer to the Council's than to the European Parliament's position. Furthermore, the result of the codecision procedure is Kaldor-Hicks inefficient. The developments of common policies concerning asylum, fishery and maternity leave illustrate both the possibility of the failure of negotiations and the influence of the Council on the outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 ‘relaisactors’. 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. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The main aim of the presented text is the research of external signs of new potential cleavage East vs. West in the European Parliament after the so called Eastern enlargement. The rendered statement is that considering the most massive enlargement of the EU about twelve new member states, mainly from central and eastern Europe that have undergone democratic transition, there has arised new cleavage East vs West, or new vs. old members in the European Parliament. This research attempts to capture external signs of cleavage observable empirically in the sixth electoral period of the European Parliament, 2004-2009. For this purpose there is going to be analysed shift in political group cohesion via roll-call votes analysis. Comparative index for the sixth electoral period there is going to be the fifth electoral period of the European Parliament, 1999-2004, in the fields of budgetary, structural funds, common agriculture policy, asylum policy and free movement of person policy. Analysed are going to be only drafts finally accepted by the EP or conceded to other institutions included in legislative processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Estudio del desarrollo de la Unión Europea como un sistema político constitucional, con un poder legislativo basado en la doble legitimidad democrática. La UE es un proceso constituyente abierto desde la CECA en el que el Tratado de Maastricht estableció la codecisión legislativa. Los poderes conferidos en el Tratado de Lisboa hacen que el Parlamento Europeo pueda ser calificado como colegislador junto al Consejo en un sistema de tres lecturas a partir de la iniciativa de la Comisión. Su balance es positivo tanto en términos cuantitativos como cualitativos de cara a la implementación del mercado interior y la protección de los derechos de los ciudadanos. La cuestión de los legisladores europeos y la esfera pública es clave para la codecisión. Recibido: 02 diciembre 2011 Aceptado: 22 diciembre 2011 Publicación en línea: 15 abril 2016

Twenty years of practising codecision offers a welcome opportunity to pause and consider the structures, processes and policy impacts arising from this procedure and allows for a fine-grained analysis of the operation of codecision and its effects upon the various institutional actors. More specifically, it allows us to examine whether the European Parliament's (EP) role as a co-equal legislator has affected policy outcomes and patterns of democratic legitimacy within the wider political system of the European Union (EU). The editors of this collection are to be congratulated for collecting research results which differ greatly in their empirical focus and in the theories and methodologies used. They subject the diverse contributions to a set of common, important questions, i.e., how has the introduction of codecision affected political decision-making in the EU and to what extent has codecision contributed to a strengthening of the democratic legitimacy of EU decision-making? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This contribution develops a framework for evaluating the legitimacy of codecision. It uses democratic theory to clarify the role of legislative procedures in securing the legitimacy of political systems. It shows how that role requires public control with political equality and public justification. It uses that standard to show how legislative agenda-setting, Council voting weights, European Parliament elections and seat apportionments, national parliamentary scrutiny, justificatory practices, and control of judicial and administrative rule-making all affect the legitimacy of codecision. Overall the contribution concludes that the legitimacy of codecision is part of a predicament that can only be managed, not solved. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This contribution considers the development of codecision over the last 20 years from a practitioner's point of view, from inside the European Parliament. It argues that the Parliament has adapted its behaviour and increased resources to ensure that the procedure works well and has used its equal status with the Council to influence legislative outcomes. However, this considerable achievement has not been without cost. Parliament has effectively been obliged to adjust to a diplomatic form of negotiations which is of limited interest to the wider public. In broader terms, we suggest that the development of the codecision procedure provides one test of the democratization of the European Union. It points to the balance between the criteria of efficiency and transparency in the legislative process, underlining the weight that has been accorded to the former and the relative lack of attention paid to the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One of the most important changes in the history of codecision has been the steep increase in early agreements since 1999. Early agreements have enhanced the efficiency of European Union legislation, but they have been criticized for giving a subset of actors disproportionate control over the legislative agenda and negotiation process. Yet, no study has systematically shown whether and how early agreements have indeed redistributed influence between actors within the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. Our contribution fills this gap by comparing actors’ bargaining success across readings under codecision in a dataset of salient files. Contrary to our theoretical predictions, we do not find evidence of distributional consequences when controlling for inter-institutional conflict and file characteristics. Where codecision is concluded early, the final legislative outcomes are not located closer to the policy positions held by the party group of the Parliament's rapporteur or by the Council Presidency. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The codecision procedure was designed to change the distribution of power among the European Union (EU) institutions. In theory, the codecision procedure, at least the amended version introduced by the Amsterdam Treaty that came into effect in 1999, weakened the Commission and placed the Parliament on an equal footing with the Council. We assess how the codecision procedure works in practice using data on the preferences of legislative actors on a large number of proposals negotiated between 1999 and 2009. We also test theoretical propositions derived from Schelling regarding the effects of policy agreement within each chamber on the relative bargaining success of the Council and EP. Our findings suggest that, in comparison to the consultation procedure, codecision has strengthened the EP and weakened the Commission. However, the Council holds certain bargaining advantages over the EP, and as a result the EP has not achieved parity with the Council under codecision. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Committees are the repositories of policy expertise within the European Parliament and have played a key role in shaping the institution's influence. However, they face a number of challenges, two of which are explored in this contribution: the use of early agreements under codecision; and the involvement of multiple committees in decision-making. Hypotheses about the likely impact of these twin challenges are developed and tested against the European Climate Change Package. Analysis reveals both conflict and the erosion of the lead committee's influence in one case, which raises questions about the ability of committees to continue to fulfil their expertise function. However, the overall picture to emerge is one of successful inter-committee co-operation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An increase in the European Parliament's (EP) powers is generally equated with more democratic and legitimate law-making. However, analysis of the Data Retention Directive – negotiated by means of both consultation and codecision – suggests that although the EP has been empowered under codecision its capacity to translate citizens' demands into democratic and transparent outputs has been reduced. Against expectations, the EP did not use its new veto powers in the data retention case to maximize its policy preferences because the content of these preferences did not fit with the wider need to be seen as a ‘responsible’ legislator. An institutionalist approach drawing upon rational choice and constructivism helps to explain this seemingly anomalous outcome in the highly politicized Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Little is known about the effects of the inter-institutional linkages created through the establishment of the codecision procedure on decision-making in the Council of the European Union. After a review of the existing literature and theories on this topic, we examine to what extent the codecision procedure leads to more involvement of ministers in Council decision-making and to a more powerful position of the Presidency in the internal negotiation process of the Council. The results show that the initially positive effect of codecision on the politicization of Council decision-making has been offset in recent years by a growing lack of transparency in inter-institutional proceedings caused by the use of informal trialogue negotiations to conclude the procedure early. However, our study also suggests that the country holding the Presidency does not occupy a more privileged position in the Council's internal co-operation network as a result of these developments. Thus, with respect to the Council, informal inter-institutional negotiation practices seem to decrease the transparency of the decision-making process and the accountability of the actors involved, but they may not have as adverse an effect on who gets what in terms of policy as previously thought. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The European Union (EU) has experienced a remarkable degree of change during its history: it legislates in an ever wider range of policy areas, and its institutions and decision-making processes have been reformed repeatedly. One of the most important institutional changes was the introduction of the codecision procedure in 1993, which empowered the European Parliament (EP) and transformed the EU system of governance. Following the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon the majority of legislation is now subject to codecision under the ordinary legislative procedure. Consequently, the operation of codecision has major implications for our understanding and analysis of the EU's legislative outputs and for studies of supranational policy-making and systemic evolution more generally. This collection takes stock of 20 years of practising and studying codecision and examines the procedure's long-term implications for the EU's institutions, politics and policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

On the 1st of November 2013, the codecision procedure will celebrate its 20th anniversary. In 2013, the European Year of Citizens, the celebration of the procedure which consolidated the democratic legitimacy of the European institutions and which, since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, has become the ordinary legislative procedure could not be overlooked. In this context, the paper tries to highlight the main stages in the development of the procedure and to assess its performance over the years by selecting some quantitative and qualitative indicators. With an overall average percentage of 89% completed files, 10% lapsed or withdrawn files and only 0,5% rejected files, the codecision procedure has functioned very well. From one legislature to another, the decisional time has been constantly reduced with subsequent consistent gains in terms of efficiency. Neither the modifications of the treaties, nor the enlargements hindered its proper functioning. Even more, the procedure has been better connected to the European citizens. Thus, from a sectoral point of view, the legislative procedures have echoed the concrete needs of the Europeans, the most codecision active Committee of the European Parliament being, over the years, the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee followed, at the mid-term of the present legislature, by the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai, Iurisprudentia is the property of Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Lisbon Treaty extended the codecision procedure to the Common Agricultural Policy. This is not only a hard case of parliamentarization but also a deviant case for existing explanations of the empowerment of the EP. We argue that the parliamentarization of agricultural policy in the EU cannot be explained by policy-seeking, inter-institutional bargaining or legitimacy-seeking behaviour – or by sectoral policy dynamics in general. In a process-tracing analysis we show that it was part of a broader process of legal rationalization and democratic constitutionalization in the constitutional Convention, which prevailed over the resistance of vested policy interests. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

I extend the standard spatial model of legislative voting to account for vote-specific party inducements and procedural differences. Focusing on voting in the 1999—2004 European Parliament, I find evidence of vote-specific party inducements in a large share of the roll call votes. Furthermore, MEPs position themselves differently across procedures. As most roll call votes are taken on non-legislative votes, these estimates may overemphasize voting pattern on these votes and downplay voting pattern on legislative votes. As such, these estimates may be a poorly suited for studying within party heterogeneity on legislative votes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall must turn our attention to the future and not to the past; a future which has as a starting point the Treaty of Lisbon, treaty which closes a long process of revision imposed by the ineluctable but at the same time wanted enlargement of the European Union. This process has been accompanied by a double democratization: on one side of the Central and Eastern states and on the other of the European communities. The transformation through the Treaty of Lisbon of the codecision procedure in ordinary legislative procedure shows the needs of a good functioning imposed by an enlarged and democratic Union which is the legitimate daughter of the late world of Yalta. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent literature on the European Parliament has focused on its powers arising from the co-operation and codecision procedures, although little attention has been paid as to who exercises this power. Rapporteurs are appointed to draft parliamentary reports on proposed legislation during the committee stages before presenting them to the plenary, negotiating across political groups and with the Commission and Council in order to maximize consensus and the influence of Parliament if inter-institutional bargaining takes place. Case studies contribute to an analysis of the role of rapporteurs. The extent to which rapporteur self-selection occurs, according to the specific preferences of potential rapporteurs, is also assessed. This allows us to conclude which parties and nationalities value the allocation of reports and consequently have an impact on the content of European legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the Commission's role and influence under the codecision procedure, by focusing upon a case study of the adoption of the novel foods regulation. It argues that the Commission is neglected in the empirical literature on codecision and that its role is misrepresented by theorists who have a tendency to overstate its weakness. The article finds that the Commission exercises both agenda- setting and gate-keeping power under codecision and identifies a number of conditions that may shape the Commission's influence in other cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]