IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/eeupol/v25y2024i2p440-455.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effect of trilogues on the European Commission's success in legislative negotiations: A reappraisal

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas Laloux

Abstract

Informal negotiations have become the norm in the European Union legislative process. Yet, researchers are divided over the effects of this change on the European Commission's ability to defend the content of its proposals from modifications by the co-legislators. This article addresses this puzzle by using a fine-grained measure of whether informal negotiations took place which includes trivial agreements, namely legislation adopted in first reading because the co-legislators agree on the content, as a specific category. The results suggest that informal negotiations do not lead to more changes to the Commission's proposals than the formal process. This calls for a better consideration of trivial agreements in studies of the European Union legislative process.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas Laloux, 2024. "The effect of trilogues on the European Commission's success in legislative negotiations: A reappraisal," European Union Politics, , vol. 25(2), pages 440-455, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:25:y:2024:i:2:p:440-455
    DOI: 10.1177/14651165241234150
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14651165241234150
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/14651165241234150?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Angela Tacea, 2021. "A New Research Agenda: How European Institutions Influence Law-Making in Justice and Home Affairs," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(3), pages 5-15.
    2. Tsebelis, George & Garrett, Geoffrey, 2001. "The Institutional Foundations of Intergovernmentalism and Supranationalism in the European Union," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 55(2), pages 357-390, April.
    3. Neill Nugent & Mark Rhinard, 2016. "Is the European Commission Really in Decline?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(5), pages 1199-1215, September.
    4. Robert Thomson & Madeleine Hosli, 2006. "Who Has Power in the EU? The Commission, Council and Parliament in Legislative Decision‐making," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 391-417, June.
    5. Christian Rauh, 2021. "One agenda-setter or many? The varying success of policy initiatives by individual Directorates-General of the European Commission 1994–2016," European Union Politics, , vol. 22(1), pages 3-24, March.
    6. Thomas Laloux & Lara Panning, 2021. "Why Defend Something I Don’t Agree with? Conflicts within the Commission and Legislative Amendments in Trilogues," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(3), pages 40-51.
    7. Philipp Broniecki, 2020. "Power and transparency in political negotiations," European Union Politics, , vol. 21(1), pages 109-129, March.
    8. Rauh, Christian, 2021. "One agenda-setter or many? The varying success of policy initiatives by individual Directorates-General of the European Commission 1994–2016," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 22(1), pages 3-24.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Buket Oztas & Amie Kreppel, 2022. "Power or Luck? The Limitations of the European Commission's Agenda Setting Power and Autonomous Policy Influence," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(2), pages 408-426, March.
    2. Ariadna Ripoll Servent & Angela Tacea, 2021. "Resilient Institutions: The Impact of Rule Change on Policy Outputs in European Union Decision-Making Processes," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(3), pages 1-4.
    3. Steffen Hurka & Maximilian Haag & Constantin Kaplaner, 2023. "Proposal complexity and report allocation in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 24(2), pages 307-326, June.
    4. Angela Tacea, 2021. "A New Research Agenda: How European Institutions Influence Law-Making in Justice and Home Affairs," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(3), pages 5-15.
    5. Karlson, Nils & Herold, Theo & Dalbard, Karl, 2022. "Ratio Working Paper No. 353: From free competition to fair competition on the European internal market," Ratio Working Papers 353, The Ratio Institute.
    6. van Gruisen, Philippe & Crombez, Christophe, 2021. "The Commission and the Council Presidency in the European Union: Strategic interactions and legislative powers," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    7. Jonathan Golub, 2024. "EUPROPS: A new dataset on policymaking in the European Union from 1958 to 2021," European Union Politics, , vol. 25(1), pages 197-217, March.
    8. Jonathan B Slapin, 2014. "Measurement, model testing, and legislative influence in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 15(1), pages 24-42, March.
    9. Manow, Philip & Döring, Holger, 2006. "Divided Government European Style? Electoral and Mechanical Causes of European Parliament and Council Divisions," MPIfG Discussion Paper 06/8, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    10. Holger Döring, 2007. "The Composition of the College of Commissioners," European Union Politics, , vol. 8(2), pages 207-228, June.
    11. Madeleine O. Hosli & Běla Plechanovová & Serguei Kaniovski, 2018. "Vote Probabilities, Thresholds and Actor Preferences: Decision Capacity and the Council of the European Union," Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 31-52, June.
    12. Deters, Henning, 2010. "Legislating on car emissions: What drives standards in EU environmental policy?," TranState Working Papers 142, University of Bremen, Collaborative Research Center 597: Transformations of the State.
    13. Tanja A. Börzel, 2016. "From EU Governance of Crisis to Crisis of EU Governance: Regulatory Failure, Redistributive Conflict and Eurosceptic Publics," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54, pages 8-31, September.
    14. Christophe Crombez & Pieterjan Vangerven & Philippe van Gruisen, 2023. "Preferences and Institutions in European (Dis)Integration," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 11(3), pages 5-15.
    15. Isabel Camisão & Maria Helena Guimarães, 2017. "The Commission, the Single Market and the Crisis: The Limits of Purposeful Opportunism," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(2), pages 223-239, March.
    16. Jonathan B Slapin, 2013. "Response to Franchino," European Union Politics, , vol. 14(2), pages 338-341, June.
    17. Ellen Mastenbroek & Tim Veen, 2008. "Last Words on Delegation?," European Union Politics, , vol. 9(2), pages 295-311, June.
    18. Höpner, Martin & Schäfer, Armin, 2007. "A New Phase of European Integration: Organized Capitalisms in Post-Ricardian Europe," MPIfG Discussion Paper 07/4, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    19. Petia Kostadinova & Magda Giurcanu, 2018. "Capturing the legislative priorities of transnational Europarties and the European Commission: A pledge approach," European Union Politics, , vol. 19(2), pages 363-379, June.
    20. Thomas Laloux & Lara Panning, 2021. "Why Defend Something I Don’t Agree with? Conflicts within the Commission and Legislative Amendments in Trilogues," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(3), pages 40-51.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:25:y:2024:i:2:p:440-455. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.