Abstract
Climate change policy is a key example for globalized multi-level governance, involving the European Parliament (EP) both as legislator of internal European Union (EU) regulation and discursive agent in global climate negotiations. Based on the comparison of decision-making in external and internal climate change policy, the article investigates the link between the role of the EP as a political actor and arena for the interaction of competing party groups: Does EP involvement in negotiations on legally binding legislation prompt or constrain partisan polarization in comparison to declaratory statements about future goals of climate action? Harnessing a discursive institutionalist theoretical framework, the article compares EP resolutions about annual Conferences of the Parties (COPs 20 to 24) with the revision of four legislative acts for Phase IV of EU Climate Action: namely, emissions trading, effort sharing between Member States, the promotion of renewable energies, and energy efficiency standards. Using roll-call voting data and the review of legislative documentation, the contribution tracks the emergence and negotiation of political conflict in these two sets of cases. Overall, the case studies indicate a low level of external politicization, as indicated by low party group polarization, internalization of political conflict at the committee level, and compromise-building between issue dimensions.
Highlights
Issue This article is part of the issue “Out of the Shadows, Into the Limelight: Parliaments and Politicisation”, edited by Christine Neuhold (Maastricht University, The Netherlands) and Guri Rosén (University of Oslo, Norway)
Ripoll Servent, 2015; Trauner & Ripoll Servent, 2016). This discussion provides the point of departure for this article: We investigate how the arena and actor function of the European Parliament (EP) in climate change policy relate to each other by asking how decision-making on acts of external and internal policy-making are related to political polarization between EP party groups
The subsequent empirical section investigates three main hypotheses on the involvement of the EP in European climate change governance: H1: The overall politicization of EP decisionmaking as expressed through party group disagreement is relatively low, by not endangering the overall consent of the EP to decisions tabled in the plenary; H2: Political conflict between EP party groups is expressed more clearly in decisions about external European Union (EU) climate policy than on internal climate legislation, particulary through the closer proximity of the former to the logic of communicative discourse (CMD); H3: Political conflict about climate change legislation is ‘internalized’ in the EP, that is, expressed more strongly at committee level than in the plenary and accommodated through consensus-oriented negotiation through coordinative discourse (CRD)
Summary
Dealing with the problem of climate change is a highly political question, raising strongly contested normative questions concerning the ethical foundations of economic and social order, concepts of justice and equity, and how societies confront questions of risk and uncertainty Addressing the goals of climate action at the global level, the EP appears as much more ambitious and willing to diverge from positions of other EU institutions than in internal climate change legislation, such as emissions trading or promotion of renewable energy This apparent asymmetry between an ambitious declaratory role of the EP and a cautious legislative one establishes an interesting case for scrutinizing the interrelation between institutional factors and political conflict between party groups: Resolutions by the EP on global climate negotiations (and a crucial part of the EU’s external policy) are generally own-initiative procedures (INI) without formalized interactions with the Council and no legally binding effect on forthcoming negotiations. The subsequent conclusion relates the findings back to the main topic of politicization
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