Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP5478
Authors: Stefan Napel; Mika Widgren
Abstract: The paper analyses the appointment of the European Commission as a strategic game between members of the EU's Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. The focal equilibrium results in Commissioners that duplicate policy preferences of national Council representatives. Different internal decision rules still prevent the Commission from being a Council clone in aggregate. Rather, it is predicted that Commission policies are on average more in accord with the aggregate position of the Parliament than the Council. A data set covering 66 dossiers with 162 controversial EU legislative proposals passed between 1999 and 2002 is investigated to test this. In fact, the Council is significantly more conservative than Parliament and Commission; the latter two are significantly closer to each other than Council and Commission.
Keywords: Collective choice; European Commission; European integration; Power
JEL Codes: C70; D71; H77
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Appointment process (M51) | Commission reflects individual policy preferences of national council representatives (D71) |
| Appointment process (M51) | Commission's policies align more closely with EP than with CM (D78) |
| Internal decision rules (simple majority rule) (D79) | Median policy position of the Commission (D79) |
| Internal decision rules (simple majority rule) (D79) | Divergence from conservative aggregate position of the CM (E19) |
| Commission's internal decision-making process (D70) | Overall policy stance tends to be more moderate and aligned with EP (E63) |
| Empirical analysis of legislative proposals (1999-2002) (D79) | Commission is significantly less conservative than CM (D79) |