The impact of informalisation: Early agreements and voting cohesion in the European Parliament
| Author | Edoardo Bressanelli,Christel Koop,Christine Reh |
| DOI | 10.1177/1465116515608704 |
| Published date | 01 March 2016 |
| Date | 01 March 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
European Union Politics
2016, Vol. 17(1) 91–113
! The Author(s) 2015
The impact of
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informalisation:
DOI: 10.1177/1465116515608704
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Early agreements
and voting cohesion in
the European Parliament
Edoardo Bressanelli
King’s College London, London, UK
Christel Koop
King’s College London, London, UK
Christine Reh
University College London, London, UK
Abstract
European Union legislative decision-making is increasingly shifted into informal secluded
arenas. Scholars have explained this trend and analysed its consequences for bargaining
success and democratic legitimacy. Yet, we know little about how informalisation affects
legislative behaviour in the European Parliament. This article contributes to closing
the gap, by theorising and analysing the impact of ‘early agreements’ on cohesion.
Given the reputational, political and transaction costs of failing an early agreement in
plenary, we expect political groups to invest heavily in discipline and consensus, and
legislators to comply in votes. Using a new dataset, combining Hix et al.’s (2007) roll-call
data with original codecision data (1999–2011), we show that informalisation increases
cohesion but only for centrist parties. Rapporteurships and votes on ‘costly’ legislative
resolutions also matter, but do not mediate the effect of early agreement.
Keywords
Cohesion, early agreements, European Parliament, ordinary legislative procedure,
political groups
Corresponding author:
Edoardo Bressanelli, Department of European and International Studies, King’s College London, 22 Kingsway,
London WC2B 6NR, UK.
Email: edoardo.bressanelli@kcl.ac.uk
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European Union Politics 17(1)
Introduction
Over the last two decades, the European Parliament (EP) has been empowered to
genuine co-legislator, shared budgetary authority and prominent player in execu-
tive appointment (Hix and Høyland, 2013; Rittberger, 2006). In parallel, the code-
cision procedure was extended; introduced in 1993, it became the ‘ordinary
legislative procedure’ in the Lisbon Treaty. Bicameral bargaining between the EP
and the Council of Ministers is, therefore, key to explaining the European Union’s
(EU’s) decision-making, policy-outputs and democratic governance. Since the
late 1990s, bicameral bargaining has itself been transformed through its systematic
shift from public inclusive to informal secluded arenas (Rasmussen, 2011;
Reh et al., 2013). Expecting the increasing importance and informalisation of
inter-institutional relations to affect political actors’ internal organisation and legis-
lative behaviour (Naurin and Rasmussen, 2011), our article assesses the impact of
informal politics on parties’ cohesion in the EP.
The informalisation of codecision results from the routine adoption of legisla-
tion at first (or early second) reading. Possible since 1999, first reading agreements
soared from 29% in EP5 to 85% in EP7 (EP, 2014: 8). Early conclusion hinges
upon the mere formalisation – or ‘rubberstamping’ – of a pre-agreed compromise;
absent a priori consensus, this compromise is negotiated by representatives of the
Council, EP and European Commission in informal secluded ‘trilogues’ before the
file’s first (or early second) reading.
In delivering votes – and, hence, majorities – on EU legislation, political groups
play a crucial role. We theorise that the routine use of ‘fast-track legislation’
impacts on both party groups’ and individual legislators’ behaviour, by changing
the costs and benefits associated with defection in plenary votes. Given the reputa-
tional, political and transaction costs of failing an informal compromise, we expect
policy-seeking parties to invest particularly heavily in group ‘discipline’ and intra-
party consensus, and we expect individual legislators to be particularly compliant
with instructions when voting on ‘early agreements’ (EAs). As a consequence,
cohesion should be higher when an informal compromise is tabled for formalisa-
tion in plenary. We test our hypotheses on a new dataset, complementing estab-
lished data of roll-call votes since 1979 (Hix et al., 2007) with original data on all
legislative files concluded under codecision between 1999 and 2011.
Our article aims to make three contributions to the literature on EU legislative
politics. First, recent studies have explained the reasons for informalisation
(Rasmussen, 2011; Reh et al., 2013), investigated its consequences for bargaining
success (Farrell and He´ritier, 2004; Rasmussen and Reh, 2013), and evaluated the
democratic repercussions (Lord, 2013; Reh, 2014). Yet, we still know little about
the impact of informalisation on intra-institutional politics and legislative behav-
iour (for exceptions, see Costello and Thomson, 2011; Yordanova, 2013: 85–112).
Second, scholars have offered several theoretical explanations for voting cohesion
in the EP, ranging from legislators’ (perceived) preference coherence to the growing
effectiveness of supranational party organisation (see in particular Hix et al., 2007;
Bressanelli et al.
93
Kreppel, 2002; Ringe, 2010). We assume that policy-seeking ‘Europarties’ had to
adapt to the new inter-institutional game of codecision, and we argue that the
routine use, specific nature and high stakes of informal bargaining create particu-
larly favourable conditions for those mechanisms that lead to cohesion according
to extant theories on party organisation. Third, cohesion has been welcomed as
contributing to (supranational) democracy; by voting cohesively, parties deliver on
their electoral agendas and contribute to managing societal cleavages (Hix et al.,
2005, 2007: 87; in general see Bowler et al., 1999a). Informalisation, by contrast,
has been criticised as challenging accountability, transparency and public deliber-
ation (Lord, 2013; in general see Bedock et al., 2012). A better theoretical and
empirical understanding of whether and how informalisation affects cohesion –
and, hence, the role of political parties in EU legislative politics – will, therefore,
also allow a more nuanced normative evaluation of supranational decision-making.
Drawing from the literature on informal decision-making and legislative behav-
iour in the EP, we expect informalisation to contribute to cohesion. This general
expectation is complemented with three conditional hypotheses on party centrism,
institutional roles in bicameral bargaining, and types of plenary votes. We test our
hypotheses using fractional logit models on a new dataset of political groups’ roll-
call votes in plenary on codecision files; for each of the EP’s seven groups
the dataset includes 494 roll-call votes for 424 files concluded between 1999 and
2011. We show that informalisation does increase cohesion, but only for the three
centrist parties. This suggests that the European People’s Party (EPP), the Party of
European Socialists (PES) and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
(ALDE)1 invest more – and more successfully – in discipline, in coordination, or in
both when their members vote on legislation pre-agreed in trilogues. However,
we find no evidence for a conditional effect of legislative roles and types of plenary
votes: rapporteurships and votes on ‘costly’ legislative resolutions matter, but they
do not mediate the effect of EA.
EA, voting and cohesion: Definitions and implications
The informal politics of codecision
Following the EP’s empowerment and the extension of codecision, bicameral
bargaining has become key to EU decision-making; changing inter-institutional
relations have affected intra-institutional behaviour, organisation and politics
(Naurin and Rasmussen, 2011). Yet, since the late 1990s, bicameral bargaining
has not only become more important; it has also been transformed through infor-
malisation and seclusion (Farrell and He´ritier, 2004; Rasmussen, 2011; Reh et al.,
2013).
Informalisation and seclusion result from the routine adoption of legislation at
first or early second reading. Possible since 1999, first reading agreements have
soared to 85% in EP7. As Figure 1 shows, even the sub-set of EAs which is not
based on a priori agreement between the co-legislators but requires an informally
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European Union Politics 17(1)
80
60
40
20
Percentage of early agreements
0
00-I
01-I
02-I
03-I
04-I
05-I
06-I
07-I
08-I
09-I
10-I
11-I
Half year of the conclusion of the file
Fitted values
Percentage of early agreements
Figure 1. Percentage of EAs per half year (1999–2011).
negotiated compromise between Parliament and Council, has increased dramatic-
ally (Reh et al., 2013).
The legislative compromise behind EAs is negotiated in informal trilogues, join-
ing Council, Commission and Parliament representatives before the file’s first or
early second reading.2 Subsequently, the compromise is rubberstamped, officially
confirmed in writing, and changes to the text, either in the EP’s plenary (first
reading) or a Council meeting (early second reading) ‘can only be made [. . .]
with the explicit agreement, at the appropriate level, of both institutions’
(Corbett et al., 2011: 243).
To conclude codecision at first reading, negotiations begin before the EP issues
its formal opinion and before the Council adopts its common position. If the co-
legislators agree informally, the EP incorporates, and accepts, the compromise in
its own first reading amendments; it requires a simple majority to do so.
Subsequently, the Council accepts the Commission proposal as amended by
Parliament, with the procedure closed...
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