Decision Making Under Different Institutional Arrangements: Legislation by the European Community

Abstract

The paper examines the extent to which different decision making procedures, which are used in the E.C., affect Community law. More specifically, the outcomes of decision making are analyzed in terms of: (1) the consultation procedure; (2) the cooperation procedure; and (3) the co-decision procedure, which has recently been introduced in the Treaty on European Union. The main result is that the Commission appears to dominate the legislative process, while the European Parliament is barely able to affect Community law, even when the recently introduced co-decision procedure is used. Furthermore, attention is paid to an alternative decision making procedure in which the European Parliament is assumed to have powers comparable to national parliaments of member countries.