Driving informal institutional change: the European Parliament and the reform of the Economic and Monetary Union

Abstract

With the Lisbon Treaty, the European Parliament (EP) obtained co-decision rights in economic governance for the first time. Soon afterwards, the outbreak of the eurozone crisis required a reform of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). When negotiating EMU reform, the EP sought to push its rights beyond the Lisbon provisions, so as to obtain an informal institutional change to its benefit. How and under which conditions did the EP extend its informal powers successfully – and when did it fail? By focusing on two crucial strategies – delaying and arena-linking – we compare instances of EMU reform where the EP succeeded in reaching an informal empowerment to cases where it failed. We find that the urgency of decision-making and its distributional consequences influence the EP’s chances of success. While urgency plays a crucial role in times of crisis, distributional consequences come to bear in policies where core state powers are at stake.