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The "Legislative Backbone" keeping the Institution upright? The Role of European Parliament Committees in the EU Policy-Making Process

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  • Neuhold, Christine

Abstract

Over the past five decades the European Parliament (EP) has moved from being a largely consultative assembly to being a genuine co-legislature. The growth in the EPs powers was accompanied by a revaluation of its Standing Committees. It is in these committees, the legislative backbone of the EP, that scrutiny of European Union (EU) legislation takes place. As in the US Congress the real work of the Parliament is done in its committees. They have become a key element in the EU policy-making process and make vital contributions to the shaping of legislation. Although these committees play such a major role in the EP, they have rarely been the subject of empirical inquiries. This paper, which is part of a wider project studying the role of committees, intends to fill this gap. In an examination of how legislative acts have been processed by such committees on the basis of interviews and documentary analysis, this paper focuses on the following main questions: 1. How do EP committees operate? 2. How do they interact with other institutions within the EU system of governance? 3. How do they affect the "link" to the EU citizen? From an analytical perspective answers to these questions are important as they help us to understand some characteristics of the EU decision-making process. From a normative perspective our research also tries to answer the question of whether EP committees help increase the EPs accountability to EU citizens.

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  • Neuhold, Christine, 2001. "The "Legislative Backbone" keeping the Institution upright? The Role of European Parliament Committees in the EU Policy-Making Process," European Integration online Papers (EIoP), European Community Studies Association Austria (ECSA-A), vol. 5, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:erp:eiopxx:p0070
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Juliet Lodge, 1994. "Transparency and Democratic Legitimacy," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 330-342, September.
    2. Juliet Lodge, 1994. "Transparency and Democratic Legitimacy," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 343-368, September.
    3. Michael Shackleton, 1998. "The European Parliament’s New Committees of Inquiry: Tiger or Paper Tiger?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(1), pages 115-130, March.
    4. Nentwich, Michael & Falkner, Gerda, 1997. "The Treaty of Amsterdam: Towards a New Institutional Balance," European Integration online Papers (EIoP), European Community Studies Association Austria (ECSA-A), vol. 1, August.
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    Cited by:

    1. Léa Roger & Gary S. Schaal, 2013. "The Quality of Deliberation in Two Committees of the European Parliament: The Neglected Influence of the Situational Context and the Policymaking Stage," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 1(2), pages 151-169.
    2. Steffen Hurka, 2013. "Changing the output: The logic of amendment success in the European Parliament’s ENVI Committee," European Union Politics, , vol. 14(2), pages 273-296, June.
    3. Nikoleta Yordanova, 2009. "The Rationale behind Committee Assignment in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 10(2), pages 253-280, June.
    4. Imre Fertő & László Á Kóczy & Attila Kovács & Balázs R Sziklai, 0. "The power ranking of the members of the Agricultural Committee of the European Parliament," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 47(5), pages 1897-1919.
    5. Lukas Obholzer & Steffen Hurka & Michael Kaeding, 2019. "Party group coordinators and rapporteurs: Discretion and agency loss along the European Parliament’s chains of delegation," European Union Politics, , vol. 20(2), pages 239-260, June.
    6. Thomas Jensen & Thomas Winzen, 2012. "Legislative negotiations in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 13(1), pages 118-149, March.
    7. G. Lappas & A. Triantafillidou & P. Yannas, 2019. "Members of European Parliament (MEPs) on Social Media: Understanding the Underlying Mechanisms of Social Media Adoption and Popularity," The Review of Socionetwork Strategies, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 55-77, June.
    8. Vanhoonacker, Sophie & Dijkstra, Hylke & Maurer Heidi, 2010. "Understanding the Role of Bureaucracy in the European Security and Defence Policy: The State of the Art," European Integration online Papers (EIoP), European Community Studies Association Austria (ECSA-A), vol. 14, August.
    9. Bouwen, Pieter, 2002. "A comparative study of business lobbying in the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council of Ministers," MPIfG Discussion Paper 02/7, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    10. Maja Kluger Rasmussen, 2015. "The Battle for Influence: The Politics of Business Lobbying in the European Parliament," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(2), pages 365-382, March.
    11. Nikoleta Yordanova, 2011. "The European Parliament: In need of a theory," European Union Politics, , vol. 12(4), pages 597-617, December.
    12. Kovacs, A. & Ferto, I. & Koczy, L. & Sziklai, B. & Nas, A.A., 2018. "Who has the critical vote? Power ranking of MEPs in the Agricultural Committee of the European Parliament," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277231, International Association of Agricultural Economists.

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