Role of Political Affiliation across the European Institutions in the Dynamics of the EU Legislative Process

This paper addresses the question of the impact of party political affiliation on the pace of the EU legislative process. It hypothesizes that the codecision process should be faster if the key actors from the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council are closer on the left-right policy scale or share affiliation to the same political family. The hypotheses are tested on the data covering the period of five years, from May 2004 to June 2009. While closeness on the left-right policy scale did not prove to have any effect, the findings show that if all three main actors, or at least the EP rapporteur and responsible Commissioner, come from the same political family, the codecision-process is indeed faster. The paper thus aims to contribute to the study of importance of party political ties and left-right cleavages in the EU decision-making.