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The European Commission - Appointment, Preferences and Institutional Relations

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  • Napel, Stefan
  • Widgrén, Mika

Abstract

The paper analyzes the appointment of the European Commission as a strategic game between members of the EU`s Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. The focal equilibrium results in Commissioners that duplicate policy preferences of national Council representatives. Different internal decision rules still prevent the Commission from being a Council clone in aggregate. Rather, it is predicted that Commission policies are on average more in accord with the aggregate position of the Parliament than the Council. A data set covering 66 dossiers with 162 controversial EU legislative proposals passed between 1999 and 2002 is investigated to test this. In fact, the Council is significantly more conservative than Parliament and Commission; the latter two are significantly closer to each other than Council and Commission.

Suggested Citation

  • Napel, Stefan & Widgrén, Mika, 2006. "The European Commission - Appointment, Preferences and Institutional Relations," Discussion Papers 999, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    • Handle: RePEc:rif:dpaper:999
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    Cited by:

    1. Diego Varela, 2009. "Just a Lobbyist?," European Union Politics, , vol. 10(1), pages 7-34, March.
    2. Jenny Helstroffer & Marie Obidzinski, 2014. "Codecision procedure biais: the European legislation game," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 38(1), pages 29-46, August.
    3. Stefan Napel & Mika Widgrén, 2011. "Strategic versus non-strategic voting power in the EU Council of Ministers: the consultation procedure," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 37(3), pages 511-541, September.
    4. Christophe Crombez & Martijn Huysmans & Wim Van Gestel, 2017. "Choosing an informative agenda setter: The appointment of the Commission in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 18(2), pages 145-167, June.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    European Commission; European integration; power; collective choice;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C70 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - General
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism

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