The Legislative Impact of the European Parliament Under the Revised Co-Decision Procedure
| Author | Christiane Kasack |
| Published date | 01 June 2004 |
| Date | 01 June 2004 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1465116504038138 |
| Subject Matter | Journal Article |
The Legislative Impact of the
European Parliament under
the Revised Co-Decision
Procedure
Environmental, Public Health and
Consumer Protection Policies
Christiane Kasack
University of Hamburg, Germany
ABSTRACT
This study analyses the legislative impact of the European
Parliament (EP) under the revised co-decision procedure. I
develop a model with adoption by Council and Commission
as dependent variables and relative amendment importance,
time of adoption, the amendment’s position in the legislation
and internal parliamentary unity as independent variables.
The results of my logistic regression question the common
expectation that Co-decision II has increased the EP’s power.
On the contrary, the rate of amendment adoption remains
unchanged. The Commission’s influence during the second
reading has, however, diminished. Furthermore, the study
shows that the chance of an amendment made in the first
reading being reintroduced increases in line with its
adoption by the Commission and its non-adoption by the
Council.
241
European Union Politics
DOI: 10.1177/1465116504038138
Volume 5 (2): 241–260
Copyright© 2004
SAGE Publications
London, Thousand Oaks CA,
New Delhi
KEY WORDS
co-decision
environmental policies
European Parliament
legislative procedures
Treaty of Amsterdam
04 038138 (bc/t) 15/4/04 12:27 pm Page 241
Increasing power of the European Parliament?
One manifestation of the complexity of the European Union (EU) is its multi-
tude of legislative procedures. Numerous studies have focused on the impact
of the different procedures on the power of the European Parliament (EP) and
on the inter-institutional relations they create. The conventional wisdom holds
that the EP’s power has increased with every new procedure introduced.
Before the Single European Act, the Council was obliged only to hear what
the EP demanded in its amendments to the Commission’s proposal. With the
new cooperation procedure, only a unanimous Council can override EP
amendments supported by the Commission. The co-decision procedure intro-
duced with the Maastricht Treaty (Co-decision I) provides the EP with
absolute veto power: if the EP rejects the final act, it cannot be adopted. In
order to avoid rejection, a Conciliation Committee is convened if the Council
cannot accept all the EP’s second-reading amendments.
The Treaty of Amsterdam modified the co-decision procedure with the
intention of strengthening the EP’s position (Co-decision II). Scholars disagree,
however, in their assessment of the degree to which this goal has been
achieved. In order to test the EP’s impact under Co-decision II, I develop a
model that builds on analyses of the preceding procedures. I collected data
on eight legislative proposals completed under this procedure, comprising
188 amendments chosen on formal grounds. This allows me to test different
aspects. First, I compare the data with previous studies to determine the
effects of the Amsterdam revisions. A change in the percentage of adopted
amendments acts as an indicator of an altered impact of the EP. Although it
is undisputed that the Commission’s formal power has been reduced in
comparison with the first version of co-decision, I pursue an empirical test in
order to find out about the Commission’s effective role. Secondly, I test a
model that explains which factors determine an amendment’s adoption by
the Council and the Commission. Thirdly, I develop a model that seeks to
explain which amendments will be reintroduced in the second reading.
The next section reviews the literature on the power of the EP under the
different legislative procedures, focusing on Co-decision I and II. In the third
section, I develop my models and hypotheses. The fourth section presents
and analyses the data, and I summarize the findings in the final section.
The impact of legislative procedures on the institutional
balance
Rational choice institutionalists typically ask how much power one actor can
exert in the inter-institutional European game (Aspinwall and Schneider,
European Union Politics 5(2)
242
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