The Power of the European Parliament as a Conditional Agenda Setter

TLDR

The European Parliament’s ability to propose measures that, once accepted by the Commission, become easier for the Council to adopt—requiring only a qualified majority rather than unanimity—constitutes a powerful but previously underappreciated conditional agenda‑setting role. The study argues that this conditional delegation of power to the Parliament, Commission, and Court of Justice is likely to grow, enabling the selection of preferred equilibria, accelerating integration, and diffusing responsibility for unpopular measures.

Abstract

The European Parliament under the current cooperation procedure has an important power: it can make proposals that, if accepted by the Commission of the European Communities, are easier for the Council of Ministers to accept than to modify, since only qualified majority is required for acceptance, whereas full unanimity for modification. The importance of this power, which I call the power of the conditional agenda setter , has not been recognized in previous scholarly work. For structural reasons explained in the text, this power is likely to increase in the future. I conclude by arguing that the conditional delegation of power to international actors (the European Parliament, Commission, and the Court of Justice) is a frequent phenomenon in European institutions. This delegation presents three important advantages: it makes possible the selection of one among many possible equilibria, it accelerates European integration, and it diffuses responsibility for politically unpopular measures.