Abstract
In this paper, we evaluate the distribution of power within the Council of Ministers (CM) in the EU’s most used legislative procedure, the codecision procedure or ordinary legislative procedure. Although our main emphasis is on the power distribution inside CM, we do not make the assessment in isolation from the European Parliament (EP) because it ‘co-decides’ on the respective policy outcomes. We investigate aprocedural non-cooperative model of codecision, in which members of CM and EP act strategically. CM and EP are thus evaluated as integrated parts of EU decision making. We relate our findings to studies that disregard the effects of inter-institutional interaction on the intra-institutional distribution of power. Previous analysis of the inter-institutional balance of power between CM and EP is extended by explicitly accounting for weighted voting.
An earlier version of this article by Stefan Napel and Mika Widgrén was published in Homo Oeconomicus 26(3–4), 297–316, 2009. Alexander Mayer updated the data and references, and recalculated all tables for EU28 assuming that Croatia’s accession to the EU takes place on 1 July 2013 as scheduled. We thank Manfred J. Holler and Hannu Nurmi for helpful suggestions. The usual caveat applies.
Mika Widgrén unexpectedly passed away on 16.8.2009 at the age of 44.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Napel and Widgrén (2011) investigated the EU’s consultation procedure. It was introduced already in the Treaty of Rome in 1957 and for a long time remained the only way to take decisions in what is now the European Union. After the Lisbon Treaty has come into force, this procedure plays a much smaller role—mainly for competition law—than it used to. However, its relative simplicity provides an ideal framework for investigating the effects of inter-institutional interaction on voting power.
- 3.
We extended the number of members from currently 754 to 766, based on the assumption that Croatia’s 12 observers to EP will become actual members when Croatia joins the EU in July 2013.
- 4.
Corresponding values of the (absolute) Penrose-Banzhaf power index (PBI) are also included in Table 1 but are not explored in our comparative analysis.
- 5.
In some of these areas, EP had previously no say or only a right of consultation.
- 6.
Under the Treaty of Lisbon, proposals can—at least in specific cases—also be submitted on the initiative of a group of member states, on a recommendation by the European Central Bank, or at the request of the Court of Justice (see Art. 294(15) TFEU).
- 7.
The Commission—by a negative opinion on EP’s proposal—can require CM to accept unanimously (see Art. 294(9) TFEU).
- 8.
This already uses the fact that if countries’ ideal points result from independent draws from a continuous probability distribution on \(X\), such as the uniform one considered below, then there is almost surely only a single country with position \(\mu _{(i)}\). So \(w(\mu _{(i)})\) and \(p(\mu _{(i)})\) will be well-defined with probability one.
- 9.
Quite often in the spatial voting literature, EP is treated as a unitary actor. However, this simplification is not needed for the purposes of this paper. See Napel and Widgrén (2006) for robustness checks regarding the modeling of EP.
- 10.
That framework builds on—and very considerably generalizes—ideas which were first put forward by Widgrén and Napel (2002) (reprinted in this volume).
- 11.
Assuming that all ideal points are mutually independent and uniformly distributed on \(X=[0,1]\) implies that \(\tilde{\pi }\) is beta-distributed with parameters 383 and 384. The distribution of \(\tilde{\mu }\) is considerably more complicated because of weighted voting.
- 12.
Note that underestimations require corresponding overestimations by the definition of relative power.
- 13.
The pattern of the Lisbon deviations is qualitatively different from its EU27 analogue in Napel and Widgrén (2009). The explanation seems to be that the Lisbon rule’s 55 %-requirement amounted to an effective member quota of about 55.56 % for EU27 (15 out of 27 members), while the latter is around 57.14 % for EU28 (16 out of 28 members). This implicit quota rise somewhat increases the effect of (b), reduces the net effect of (a) and (b), and renders the Lisbon deviations more similar to the Nice deviations for EU28.
- 14.
References
Baldwin, R., & Widgrén, M. (2004). Winners and losers under various dual majority rules for the EU Council of Ministers. In M. Wiberg (Ed.), Reasoned choices—Essays in honor of academy Professor Hannu Nurmi on the occasion of his 60th birthday. Turku: The Finnish Political Science Association.
Baldwin, R. E., Berglöf, E., Giavazzi, F., & Widgrén, M. (2001). Nice try: Should the treaty of Nice be ratified? Monitoring european integration 11. London: Center for Economic Policy Research.
Banzhaf, J. F. (1965). Weighted voting doesn’t work: A mathematical analysis. Rutgers Law Review, 19(2), 317–343.
Felsenthal, D., & Machover, M. (2001). The treaty of Nice and qualified majority voting. Social Choice and Welfare, 18(3), 431–464.
Felsenthal, D., & Machover, M. (2004). Analysis of QM rules in the draft Constitution for Europe proposed by the European Convention, 2003. Social Choice and Welfare, 23(1), 1–20.
Garrett, G., & Tsebelis, G. (1999). Why resist the temptation to apply power indices to the European Union? Journal of Theoretical Politics, 11(3), 291–308.
Laruelle, A., & Widgrén, M. (1998). Is the allocation of power among EU states fair? Public Choice, 94(3–4), 317–340.
Leech, D. (2002). Designing the voting system for the EU Council of Ministers. Public Choice, 113(3–4), 437–464.
Napel, S., & Widgrén, M. (2004). Power measurement as sensitivity analysis—a unified approach. Journal of Theoretical Politics, 16(4), 517–538.
Napel, S., & Widgrén, M. (2006). The inter-institutional distribution of power in EU codecision. Social Choice and Welfare, 27(1), 129–154.
Napel, S., & Widgrén, M. (2008). Shapley-Shubik versus strategic power—live from the UN Security Council. In M. Braham & F. Steffen, (Eds.), Power, freedom and voting—essays in honor of Manfred J. Holler (pp. 99–118). Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
Napel, S., & Widgrén, M. (2009). Strategic power in the European Union’s codecision procedure. Homo Oeconomicus 26(3–4), 297–316. Essays in honor of Hannu Nurmi, vol. 1.
Napel, S., & Widgrén, M. (2011). Strategic vs. non-strategic voting power in the EU Council of Ministers: The consultation procedure. Social Choice and Welfare, 37(3), 511–541.
Penrose, L. S. (1946). The elementary statistics of majority voting. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 109(1), 53–57.
Segendorff, B. (1998). Delegation and threat in bargaining. Games and Economic Behavior, 23, 266–283.
Shapley, L. S. (1953). A value for \(n\)-person games. In H. W. Kuhn & A. W. Tucker (Eds.), Contributions to the theory of games (Vol. II, pp. 307–317). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Shapley, L. S., & Shubik, M. (1954). A method for evaluating the distribution of power in a committee system. American Political Science Review, 48(3), 787–792.
Steunenberg, B. (1994). Regulatory policymaking in a parliamentary setting. In P. Herder-Dorneich, K.-H. Schenk & D. Schmidtchen (Eds.), Jahrbuch für Neue Politische Ökonomie (Vol. 13, pp. 36–57). Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck.
Steunenberg, B., & Selck, T. (2006). Testing procedural models of EU legislative decision-making. In R. Thomson, F. Stokman, C. Achen, & T. König (Eds.), The EU decides (pp. 54–85). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tsebelis, G. (1994). The power of the European Parliament as a conditional agenda setter. American Political Science Review, 88(1), 128–142.
Widgrén, M. (1994). Voting power in the EC and the consequences of two different enlargements. European Economic Review, 38(5), 1153–1170.
Widgrén, M., & Napel, S. (2002). The power of a spatially inferior player. Homo Oeconomicus, 19(3), 327–343.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Napel, S., Widgrén, M., Mayer, A. (2013). Strategic A Priori Power in the European Union’s Codecision Procedure Recalculated for EU28. In: Holler, M., Nurmi, H. (eds) Power, Voting, and Voting Power: 30 Years After. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35929-3_29
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35929-3_29
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-35928-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-35929-3
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsEconomics and Finance (R0)