Bicameral conflict resolution in the European Union: An empirical analysis of conciliation committee bargains

British Journal of Political Science

Volumn 37, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 281-312

  König, Thomas ^a   Lindberg, Bjorn ^b   Lechner, Sandra ^c   Pohlmeier, Winfried ^c  

^a Deutsche Universität für Verwaltungswissenschaften Speyer   (Germany)

^b UPPSALA UNIVERSITY   (Sweden)

^c UNIVERSITY OF KONSTANZ   (Germany)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33947685965     PISSN: 00071234     EISSN: 14692112     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0007123407000142     Document Type: Article

References (90)

1. Saul Levmore, 'Bicameralism: When Are Two Decisions Better than One?' International Review of Law and Economics, 12 (1992), 145-62, p. 150.
2. George Tsebelis and Jeanette Money, Bicameralism: Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 116, 118.
3. Anne Rasmussen, 'The Role of the European Commission in Co-decision - A Strategic Facilitator Operating in a Situation of Structural Disadvantage', European Integration Online Papers, 7 (2003), http://eiop.or.at/eiop/ texte/2003-010a.htm.
4. Although the Commission has the sole right to initiate legislation, it has no gatekeeping power (Heiner Schulz and Thomas König, 'Institutional Reform and Decision-Making Efficiency in the European Union', American Journal of Political Science, 44 (2000), 653-66).
5. Stefan Napel and Mika Widgren, 'EU Conciliation Committee: Council 56 versus Parliament 6', CEPR Discussion Paper, No. 4071 (2003);
6. Stefan Napel and Mika Widgren, 'Bargaining and Distribution of Power in the EU's Conciliation Committee', CESifo Discussion Paper, No. 1029 (Munich: University of Munich Centre for Economic Studies, 2003).
7. George Tsebelis, Veto Players: How Political Institutions Work (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2002), p. 265.
8. George Tsebelis and Geoffrey Garrett, 'Legislative Politics in the European Union', European Union Politics, 1 (2000), 9-36, p. 25;
9. Geoffrey Garrett, "The Politics of Legal Integration in the European Union', International Organization, 49 (1995), 171-81.
10. Christophe Crombez, 'The Co-decision Procedure in the European Union', Legislative Studies Quarterly, 22 (1997), 97-119;
11. Christophe Crombez, 'The Treaty of Amsterdam and the Codecision Procedure', in Mark Aspinwall and Gerald Schneider, eds, The Rules of Integration (Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 2000), pp. 101-22.
12. Bernard Steunenberg and Antoaneta Dimitrova, 'Interest, Legitimacy, and Constitutional Choice: The Extension of the Codecision Procedure in Amsterdam' (unpublished, University of Twente, 1999).
13. Bernhard Steunenberg, 'Codecision and Its Reform: A Comparative Analysis of Decision-making Rules in the European Union', in Bernard Steunenberg and Frans van Vught, eds, Political Institutions and Public Policy: Perspectives on the European Decision-Making (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997), pp. 205-29.
14. Crombez,: 'The Treaty of Amsterdam and the Codecision Procedure', pp. 101-22.
15. There are some empirical studies on how many parliamentary amendments survive conciliation, whether these amendments are important, and what the chances are of the European Parliament enjoying such success (Amie Kreppel, The European Parliament and Supranational Party System: A Study in Institutional Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)).
16. The Amsterdam Treaty established a modified version of the co-decision procedure, in which conciliation is possible. Other procedures of EU decision making, such as the consultation and the co-operation procedure, do not provide for a conciliation process.
17. Tom Hammond and Gary Miller, 'Core of the Constitution', American Political Science Review, 81 (1987), 1155-74;
18. Tsebelis and Money, Bicameralism.
19. Robert Thomson, Frans N. Stokman, Christopher H. Achen and Thomas König, eds, The European Union Decides (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
20. The co-decision procedure starts with a Commission proposal, which is sent to both institutional actors, the European Parliament and the Council. The Council, acting by qualified majority after obtaining the opinion of the European Parliament, may adopt the proposal if it approves all the proposed parliamentary amendments, or, if the European Parliament did not propose amendments; otherwise the Council adopts a common position and sends it to the European Parliament, and the Commission also informs the European Parliament of its position. Within three months, the European Parliament can either approve the common position of the Council, reject it or propose amendments to the common position. If the Council does not accept the parliamentary amendments within three months, a conciliation committee must be convened. The conciliation committee successfully produces a joint text, the European Parliament and the Council have to adopt it within six weeks.
21. Amendments not voted on by the European Parliament in the second reading cannot be discussed during the negotiations (Michael Shackleton, 'The Politics of Codecision', Journal of Common Market Studies, 38 (2000), 325-42, p. 335),
22. see also Julie Garman and Louise Hilditch, 'Behind the Scenes: An Examination of the Importance of the Informal Processes at Work in Conciliation', Journal of European Public Policy, 5 (1998), 271-84, p. 282.
23. Regarding the success of conciliation committees, legislative studies have stressed the agenda-setting power under closed rule (David Baron and John Ferejohn, 'Bargaining in Legislatures', American Political Science Review, 89 (1989), 1181-206).
24. Using the spatial model of legislative choice, Ken Shepsle and Barry R. Weingast ('The Institutional Foundations of Committee Power', American Political Science Review, 81 (1987), 85-104)
25. show that the conciliation committee is the 'institutional foundation of committee power'. Due to the closed voting rule, such committees have an ex-post veto, which enables the standing committee to re-enforce its position, after the proposal has been considered by both the Senate and House floors (Shepsle and Weingast, 'The Institutional Foundations of Committee Power', p. 95). Informational approaches argue that committees are faithful agents of their parent chambers because they determine the voting rules for the conference report (Thomas Gilligan and Keith Krehbiel, 'The Organization of Informative Committees by a Rational Legislature', American Journal of Political Science, 34 (1990), 531-64;
26. Keith Krehbiel, Information and Legislative Organizations (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991)).
27. The right to amend a bill in conference and to present the conference report to the parent chambers under closed rule is the highest incentive for conferees to specialize (Krehbiel, Information and Legislative Organizations, p. 199).
28. Simon Hix, The Political System of the European Union, 2nd edn (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
29. Michael Shackleton and Tapio Raunio, 'Codecision since Amsterdam: A Laboratory for Institutional Innovation and Change', Journal of European Public Policy, 10 (2003), 171-87, p. 172.
30. EP representation is a mixture between the issue-related flexible model of the US Congress and the German model of a permanent conciliation committee: three members from the EP vice-presidents, the chair and the rapporteur of the standing committee having jurisdiction over the proposal, and ten additional members selected by the political parties (Tsebelis and Money, Bicameralism: Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions, p. 204).
31. Desmond Dinan, Ever Closer Union - An Introduction to European Integration, 2nd edn (Houndsmill, Hants: Macmillan, 1999), p. 285.
32. Chris Davies, 'Report on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive relating to ozone in ambient air' (A5-0454/2001 - 1999/0068(COD)). (2001), http://www.europarl.eu. int/oeil/file.jsp?id = 157782 (26.10.2005).
33. Giacomo Benedetto, 'Rapporteurs as Legislative Entrepreneurs: The Dynamics of the Codecision Procedure in Europe's Parliament' (London: LSE Working Paper, 2004);
34. Rasmussen, 'The Role of the European Commission in Co-decision'; David Judge and David Earnshaw, The European Parliament (Basingstoke, Hants: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).
35. Tsebelis and Money, Bicameralism. Most often, two models are used in the literature, the Rubinstein model and the Nash bargaining solution. While the co-operative Nash solution does not attempt to explain why the actors reach the bargain (only predicting the bargaining outcome), the non-cooperative Rubinstein model assumes that actors alternate bargaining offers sequentially: one actor makes an offer that the other can accept or reject. If rejected, the second actor makes a counteroffer etc.
36. Hammond and Miller, 'Core of the Constitution'; Tsebelis and Money, Bicameralism, p. 90.
37. Gary W. Cox, 'Electoral Equilibrium under Alternative Voting Institutions', American Journal of Political Science, 31 (1987), 82-108;
38. William Bottom, Cheryl Eavey, Gary Miller and Jennifer Victor, "The Institutional Effect of Majority Rule Instability: Bicameralism in Spatial Policy Decisions', American Journal of Political Science, 44 (2000), 523-40.
39. Thomas Bräuninger, 'When Simple Voting Doesn't Work: Mulitcameral Systems for the Representation and Aggregation of Interests in International Organisations', British Journal of Political Science, 33 (2003), 681-703, p. 684.
40. Tsebelis and Garrett, 'Legislative Politics in the European Union', p. 25.
41. Napel and Widgren, 'EU Conciliation Committee'.
42. Napel and Widgren, 'Bargaining and Distribution of Power in the EU's Conciliation Committee', p. 2.
43. Napel and Widgren, 'Bargaining and Distribution of Power in the EU's Conciliation Committee', p. 16.
44. Tsebelis, Veto Players, p. 154.
45. Napel and Widgren ('EU Conciliation Committee') assume that the two institutional actors have symmetric preferences and conclude from the difference in the formal voting threshold that the Council is the more powerful actor (Napel and Widgren, 'EU Conciliation Committee').
46. Tsebelis and Money, Bicameralism, p. 205;
47. Amie Kreppel, 'Rules, Ideology and Coalition Formation in the European Parliament: Past, Present and Future', EPRG Working Paper, 4 (1999), p. 1;
48. Tsebelis and Garrett, 'Legislative Politics in the European Union', p. 12.
49. Tsebelis, Veto Players, p. 53.
50. We do not enter the debate on the effect of cohesiveness for the yolk as the centre of collective actors without an equilibrium solution. With respect to the size of the winset, we only examine whether - in the case of no equilibrium solution - the less cohesive actor has more room to manœuvre.
51. John F. Nash, 'The Bargaining Problem', Econometrica, 18 (1950), 155-62;
52. John F. Nash, 'Two-Person Cooperative Games', Econometrica, 21 (1953), 128-40.
53. According to Osborne and Rubinstein ('A Course in Game Theory', p. 36), a present-oriented actor who discounts the future heavily, has a low discount factor and a high discount rate.
54. Colm O'Nuallain, ed., The Presidency of the European Council of Ministers: Impacts and Implications for National Governments (London: Croom Helm, 1985);
55. Martin Westlake, The Council of the European Union (London: Catermill, 1995);
56. Fiona Hayes-Renshaw and Helen Wallace, The Council of Ministers (London: Palgrave Macmillan,1997);
57. Neil Nugent, The Government and Politics of the European Community (London: Macmillan, 1999);
58. Hix, The Political System of the European Union;
59. Steunenberg and Dimitrova, Interest, Legitimacy, and Constitutional Choice.
60. Hayes-Renshaw and Wallace, The Council of Ministers, p. 144.
61. Mikko Mattila and Jan-Erik Lane, 'Why Unanimity in the Council?' European Union Politics, 1 (2001), 31-52.
62. During our period of study from March 1999 to July 2002, the following countries held the Council presidencies: Finland, Portugal, France, Sweden, Belgium and Spain. According to Mattila and Lane ('Why Unanimity in the Council?'), these presidencies exhibited a specific voting pattern in the Council.
63. Richard Corbett, Francis Jacobs and Michael Shackleton, The European Parliament, 4th edn (London: John Harper, 2000), p. 117.
64. Simon Hix, Abdul Noury and Gérard Roland, 'Understanding the European Parliament: Party Cohesion and Competition, 1979-2001' (unpublished research paper, 2002), p. 28.
65. Damian Chalmers, European Union Law Volume I - Law and Government (Dartmouth: Ashgate, 1999), p. 173.
66. Parliamentary Conciliation Secretariat, Activity Report 2000-2001 (2001) at: http://www.europarl.eu.int/code/information/activity_reports/ activity_report_2001_en.pdf (23.03.2002), p. 14.
67. Steunenberg, 'Codecision and Its Reform'; Crombez, 'The Treaty of Amsterdam and the Codecision Procedure'; Tsebelis and Garrett, 'Legislative Politics in the European Union'.
68. Rasmussen, 'The Role of the European Commission in Co-decision', p. 4.
69. Mark A. Pollack, 'Delegation, Agency, and Agenda Setting in the European Community', International Organization, 51 (1997), 99-134, pp. 126ff.;
70. Mark A. Pollack, The Engines of European Integration: Delegation, Agency, and Agenda Setting in the EU (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
71. During the period studied, fifty-four dossiers passed through the conciliation committee. Experts for all fifty-four dossiers could be located and interviewed, and of them thirty-four interview partners were members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and seven were MEP advisers. The remaining thirteen interviews were conducted with legislative administrators from the parliamentary conciliation committee secretariat that was responsible for the dossier.
72. Benedetto, 'Rapporteurs as Legislative Entrepreneurs'.
73. Corbett, Jacobs and Shackleton, The European Parliament.
74. The parliamentary conciliation secretariat's documents that were consulted were the Activity Reports for the years 1999-2000, 2000-01, 2001-02. The variables for the Council presidency and the political party of the rapporteur are based on information from these documents.
75. Parliamentarian Conciliation Secretariat, Activity Report 1999-2000 (2000), at: http://www.europarl.eu.int/code/information/ activity_reports/activity_report_2000_en.pdf (23.03.2002);
76. Parliamentarian Conciliation Secretariat, Activity Report 2000-2001 (2001) at: http://www.europarl.eu.int/code/information/ activity_reports/activity_report_2001_en.pdf (23.03.2002);
77. Parliamentarian Conciliation Secretariat, Activity Report 2001-2002 (2002): at: http://www.europarl.eu.int/code/information/ activity_reports/activity_report_2002_en.pdf (20.06.2002).
78. Thomson, Stokman, Achen and König, eds, The European Union Decides.
79. Javier Arregui, Frans N. Stokman and Robert Thomson found that Council members change their position over time (European Union Politics, 1 (2004), 47-72).
80. Due to the nature of the policy space we only distinguish whether the Council or the European Parliament is closer to the status quo, or whether no information on the location of the status quo was recorded.
81. Thomas König and Mirja Pöter, 'Examining the EU Legislative Process: The Relative Importance of Agenda Setting and Veto Power', European Union Politics, 2 (2001), 329-51;
82. Thorsten Selck, 'On the Dimensionality of European Union Legislative Decision-Making', Journal of Theoretical Politics, 16 (2004), 203-23.
83. Kreppel, 'Rules, Ideology and Coalition Formation in the European Parliament'; Hix, Noury and Roland, 'Understanding the European Parliament'; Stephanie Bailer and Gerald Schneider, 'When Words Matter: Informal Rules and the Enlargement Debate', in Bernard Steunenberg and Jacques Thomassen, eds, The European Parliament - Moving Toward Democracy in the EU (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), pp. 139-61.
84. Mattila and Lane, 'Why Unanimity in the Council?'
85. Note that we are using a specification without intercept such that two threshold parameters can be identified. The parameter estimates can be easily transformed corresponding to an equivalent specification with one threshold and an intercept.
86. Christian Gourieroux, Alain Monfort and Alain Trognon, 'A General Approach to Serial Correlation', Econometric Theory, 1 (1985), 315-40.
87. Whitney K. Newey, 'Maximum Likelihood Specification Testing and Conditional Moment Tests', Econometrica, 53 (1985), 1047-70.
88. Steunenberg, 'Codecision and its Reform: A Comparative Analysis of Decision-making Rules in the European Union';
89. Steunenberg and Dimitrova, Interest, Legitimacy, and Constitutional Choice;
90. Crombez, 'The Treaty of Amsterdam and the Codecision Procedure'; Tsebelis and Garrett, 'Legislative Politics in the European Union'.