Institutional Change and Legislative Stability: Contested Decision-Making in the EU Council (1995-2010): EPSA 2012 Annual Meeting Paper

Abstract

In contrast to general expectations the growth of EU membership has not had any significant impact on the Council’s overall legislative and roll call activity. On the basis of a new dataset this paper explains why the EU Council has been so successful in guaranteeing legislative and roll call stability despite the growth of EU membership from 12 to 27 Member States and three consecutive European treaty reforms. The paper is based on a new dataset representing the total population of explicit votes and public roll calls in the EU Council between 1995 and 2010. These explicit votes are the outcome of contested decisions taken by ministers across all policy domains and Member States. Despite the growing diversity of EU Member States the data shows that aggregate Council legislative activity is stable in the longer run with roll calls running in parallel. In explaining this puzzle the analysis finds that the Member States’ changing voting behaviour, the reinforcement of existing coalition patterns in the EU Council and the successful adjustment of newer Member States to the EU Council functioned as shock absorbers and contributed to the EU Council’s decision-making capacity. The evidence demonstrates that after EU enlargement contesting coalitions of two or more Member States have become the norm. The newer Member States contest less than the older Member States and they rarely oppose EU legislation alone or en bloc. These changes are entirely related to the voting behaviour of the newer Member States and show that in less than five years integration in the EU Council has been highly successful. Cluster analysis and ideal point estimation on the basis of the data further confirm the presence of coalitions in the EU Council characterised by a North versus South-East dimension with northern Member States contesting more frequently.