Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Daniel Finke is assistant professor of political science at the University of Heidelberg. Thomas König is professor of political science and director of the Research Centre for the Political Economy of Reforms at the University of Mannheim. Sven-Oliver Proksch is a research fellow at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research. George Tsebelis is the Anatol Rapoport Collegiate Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan.

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"Using an impressive range of sources, methods, and data, this work is a remarkable, detailed, and comprehensive description and analysis of the complex process of European reform."--Gary Marks, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

"European Union treaties set the power relationships among actors and establish the standards that the Union will enjoy in the future, so their design is as important as many of the world's constitutions. This book convincingly describes and explains how the Treaty of Lisbon came into force despite what seemed at the time like an endless series of negotiations, perceived dead ends, and failed referenda. It is easily the best book on the making of Europe--and European treaties--in quite a long time."--Mark Hallerberg, Hertie School of Governance

"Through theoretical and analytical interpretation of an extraordinary collection of original data, this book addresses the important and complicated process of treaty reform in the European Union. Novel and exemplary, it explores constitutional reform, the art of political manipulation, and the empirical study of bargaining. A major achievement."--Matthew Gabel, Washington University in St. Louis

"This excellent book will command a wide audience in EU politics, comparative politics, and international relations. The book's theoretical ideas, derived from rational choice institutionalism, are at the cutting edge of modern political science, its empirical methods are highly innovative, and the normative implications about the future of the European Union are significant."--Simon Hix, London School of Economics and Political Science

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Reforming the European Union

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Contents

List of Figures............................................................................................................................................xiList of Tables.............................................................................................................................................xiiiAcknowledgments............................................................................................................................................xvIntroduction...............................................................................................................................................1Chapter One: From the European Convention to the Lisbon Agreement and Beyond: A Veto Player Analysis By George Tsebelis...................................28Chapter Two: Revealing Constitutional Preferences in the European Convention By Sven-Oliver Proksch.......................................................62Chapter Three: The Art of Political Manipulation in the European Convention By George Tsebelis and Sven-Oliver Proksch....................................76Chapter Four: Actors and Positions on the Reform of the Treaty of Nice By Thomas König and Daniel Finke..............................................103Chapter Five: Why (Unpopular) Leaders Announce Popular Votes By Thomas König and Daniel Finke........................................................129Chapter Six: Principals and Agents: From the Convention's Proposal to the Constitutional Treaty By Thomas König and Daniel Finke.....................151Chapter Seven: In the Aftermath of the Negative Referendums: The Irish Resistance By Thomas König and Daniel Finke...................................170Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................188Appendix: Research Design and Methodology By Thomas König and Sven-Oliver Proksch....................................................................199References.................................................................................................................................................209Index......................................................................................................................................................221

Chapter One

George Tsebelis

As was argued in the Introduction, the institutional changes introduced in the European Union (EU) between the time of the Treaty of Nice and the Treaty of Lisbon occurred along two dimensions. The first increased the jurisdictions of the EU, while the second rearranged its institutional structures and had potentially serious long-run distributional consequences. This chapter will focus in the second dimension because it was the more conflictual of the two. The chapter will provide a veto player analysis of EU decision making under different voting rules to explain the importance of these institutional confrontations on democratic legitimacy and policy stability, and explain the strategic significance of two confrontations—one in the European Convention, and one at the Brussels Intergovernmental Conference—that were decisive in the adoption of the new institutions.

There is a simple reason that agreement on expanding jurisdictions was easier to come by: while there were lots of disagreements along the first dimension (as we will see in chapters 4–7) the essence of the choice over extending EU jurisdiction to any particular area was the result of whether the positive effect generated by policy coordination in this area exceeded the negative effect generated by the abdication of national sovereignty. In other words, different actors (mainly governments) disagreed as to whether the expansion of EU jurisdiction into any particular policy area represented a Pareto improvement that more than compensated for the redistributive losses. The sign of the net outcome depends on time horizons and expectations about events the EU will face in the future. So, while there may be disagreements and high variance of positions, the intensity of preferences was low, and consequently these issues were easily used as bargaining chips in the negotiations.

In the second dimension (of institutional structures) there is one issue with straightforward consequences that does not require extensive analysis; that is the size of the Commission. While what matters in terms of policy is the political composition of different bodies, there was a prolonged dispute about the size of the Commission; more specifically, a debate arose as to whether every country would have at least one representative in this body. Given that there is no obvious political consequence in this decision, we have to explain why it became such a major issue. The reason is simple: the Commission drafts EU legislation, so it is not surprising that member states insisted on preserving their right to send a Commissioner to Brussels. A college of twenty-seven Commissioners can hardly be considered the most efficient way to organize a governmental organization. Therefore, the Convention discussed several options for reducing the number of directorate generals. In June 2004 (under the Irish Presidency) political leaders agreed to reduce the number of Commissioners to two-thirds the number of member states. Yet this reform remained contested four years later when, following the negative Irish referendum, a number of dissatisfied smaller member states finally got their way with each state continuing to send one Commissioner. The likely consequences of this choice are inefficient decision making in the college, as well as time-consuming coordination among the directorate generals that continues to lack transparency. While the choices over Commission size and policy competences sparked vigorous debate among the political leaders of the Union, the decision to alter qualified majority requirements in the Council and the way that weights in the Council are calculated led to a major confrontation because of the many more far-reaching consequences.

This chapter compares the policy and political outcomes that followed from the institutional structures generated by the European Convention, the Treaty of Lisbon, and the default outcome of a failure of negotiations during the process of European integration, the Treaty of Nice. The institutions produced under these different arrangements empowered different actors to create the policies of the EU. The comparison is based on the theory of veto players (Tsebelis 2002) and is aimed at demonstrating the potential differences in policy outcomes for the EU had future policies been made in each of these institutional settings. In particular, I will focus on the effects of different institutional arrangements on the democratic deficit and the extent to which they strengthen the capacity of the judiciary powers and the bureaucracy to create policies independently from electorally accountable actors.

The chapter breaks with most of the institutional literature on the EU. For a long time, study of the institutional changes that were occurring every three years (with the Single European Act, at Maastricht, Amsterdam, and Nice) has been put...