What factors determine bargaining power and success in EU negotiations?

Abstract

Negotiations in the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers are highly secretive, so outsiders have limited knowledge of the factors that determine bargaining power there. However, previous research has shown that gains and losses in these negotiations are relatively equally shared amongst the EU members and that the influence of exogenous power resources such as votes are more important than endogenous resources such as bargaining skill (Bailer 2004). Based on findings of the current literature on bargaining success in EU negotiations, I suggest several areas for future research – in particular regarding the partisan preferences of EU governments and the way this influences their coalition formation behaviour. More attention should also be paid to the context of these negotiations, their differing meeting frequencies and the resulting reciprocity logics. However, more efforts to generate and analyse data on negotiation positions will be necessary in order to see what bargaining power can achieve in the Council.