Great to see someone who has actually seen the sausage machine from inside. What I always wondered about how the dynamics between the parliament and commission looks like. Parliament doesn’t have the right of initiative, so it discusses proposals made by the commission, suggests changes, sends those back to the commission etc. So far so good. But how does it actually work beyond that? For example, given the missing right of initiative, can the parliament blackmail the commission into making a proposal they want by refusing to approve other, possibly unrelated, proposals? How does the council interact with the parliament? Can parliament team with the council against the commission? Or maybe the commission and the council against the parliament? What about the citizen’s initiative. Can the parliament adopt such initiative and propose legislation? Etc.
Regarding the missing right of initiative, I am not sure whether it is often the case that the Commission simply doesn’t address an issue that a large part of the Parliament thinks is important. And even if this situation came true, the degree of unity in Parliament would probably not be sufficient to coordinate the kind of blackmail you talk about. Some parties could always “defect” and blame the other parties for blocking a good proposal. And although there generally is very little media coverage about most EU legislative projects, parties are very sensitive to the possibility of bad press and don’t want to be perceived as the ones blocking policies. But there can be interinstitutional compromises (for example there are formal and legally binding interinstitutional agreements between the three institutions).
Regarding the relationship between Parliament and Council: It’s quite bad. There is less conflict between the important groups in Parliaments than between the Parliament and Council (or between Parliament and Commission). Parliament as a whole is more pro-european and progressive than the Council while the Member States’ positions (represented by the Council) are more driven by Member States’ domectic interests, concerns and political incentives. (Often, Parliament also feels that the Commission is more on the Council’s side than on Parliament’s side.) However if both Parliament and Council agree that the Commission should propose a regulation or directive, I don’t think the Commission is likely to resist the combined pressure. There is a provision that seems like it could give a lot of power to the Commission: At the trialogue stage, when Parliament and Council negotiate on a particular file with the Commission’s intermediation, the Commission can withdraw the legislative proposal. In practice, I don’t know whether the Commission makes use of this power.
Regarding citizens’ initiatives: I am not sure about the details, but I think citizens’ initiatives are addressed to the Commission only and compel it (in case of sufficient signatures) to propose a relevant regulation. Parliament can’t adopt citizens’ initiatves.
One way would be to follow the relevent EU news media, such as Politico and Bruegel (for example their podcasts). You can also watch all committee meetings on the EP’s website, find all the agendas and information about the EP’s files on the respective committee’s websites and here: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/, although this is of course a very time consuming way of learning about it.
Great to see someone who has actually seen the sausage machine from inside. What I always wondered about how the dynamics between the parliament and commission looks like. Parliament doesn’t have the right of initiative, so it discusses proposals made by the commission, suggests changes, sends those back to the commission etc. So far so good. But how does it actually work beyond that? For example, given the missing right of initiative, can the parliament blackmail the commission into making a proposal they want by refusing to approve other, possibly unrelated, proposals? How does the council interact with the parliament? Can parliament team with the council against the commission? Or maybe the commission and the council against the parliament? What about the citizen’s initiative. Can the parliament adopt such initiative and propose legislation? Etc.
Regarding the missing right of initiative, I am not sure whether it is often the case that the Commission simply doesn’t address an issue that a large part of the Parliament thinks is important. And even if this situation came true, the degree of unity in Parliament would probably not be sufficient to coordinate the kind of blackmail you talk about. Some parties could always “defect” and blame the other parties for blocking a good proposal. And although there generally is very little media coverage about most EU legislative projects, parties are very sensitive to the possibility of bad press and don’t want to be perceived as the ones blocking policies. But there can be interinstitutional compromises (for example there are formal and legally binding interinstitutional agreements between the three institutions).
Regarding the relationship between Parliament and Council: It’s quite bad. There is less conflict between the important groups in Parliaments than between the Parliament and Council (or between Parliament and Commission). Parliament as a whole is more pro-european and progressive than the Council while the Member States’ positions (represented by the Council) are more driven by Member States’ domectic interests, concerns and political incentives. (Often, Parliament also feels that the Commission is more on the Council’s side than on Parliament’s side.) However if both Parliament and Council agree that the Commission should propose a regulation or directive, I don’t think the Commission is likely to resist the combined pressure. There is a provision that seems like it could give a lot of power to the Commission: At the trialogue stage, when Parliament and Council negotiate on a particular file with the Commission’s intermediation, the Commission can withdraw the legislative proposal. In practice, I don’t know whether the Commission makes use of this power.
Regarding citizens’ initiatives: I am not sure about the details, but I think citizens’ initiatives are addressed to the Commission only and compel it (in case of sufficient signatures) to propose a relevant regulation. Parliament can’t adopt citizens’ initiatves.
Thanks for the exhaustive answer! Any pointers as to where can one learn more about this stuff?
One way would be to follow the relevent EU news media, such as Politico and Bruegel (for example their podcasts). You can also watch all committee meetings on the EP’s website, find all the agendas and information about the EP’s files on the respective committee’s websites and here: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/, although this is of course a very time consuming way of learning about it.