THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION AS AN AGENDASETTER: LESSONS FROM AND LIMITATIONS OF
FORMAL ANALYSIS
Daniela Ulicna‡
1.
INTRODUCTION
The concept of agenda-setting is used in the literature to describe at least
two different actions within the policy cycle, each taking place at a different
stage. First, Kingdon discusses how an issue becomes a part of the political
agenda, and he defines agenda-setting as a process through which an issue
attracts the attention of policy-makers.1 Building upon the theory of “garbage
cans”,2 he developed concepts of “policy windows” – the opportunity to push a
policy through — and “policy entrepreneurs” – active advocates of particular
solutions who identify and take advantage of policy windows. While these
conceptions will be only marginally used in this essay it is important to know
that they are both applied analyse the decision-making in the EU.3
The second conception of agenda-setting is inspired by the principal-agent
framework where an agent, due to inequality of information, has (to a certain
extent) the power to set the agenda for the principal. Rational-choice analysts
‡
M.Sc. candidate, School of Public Policy, University College London (expected
November 2005); Contact with questions/comments: ulicnadan@yahoo.com.
1
J. Kingdon, Agendas, alternatives and public policies (New York: HarperCollins College
Publishers, 1995).
2
M. Cohen, J. March, and J. Olsen., “A garbage can model of organizational choice,”
Administrative Science Quarterly, 17 (March 1972), pp. 1-25.
3
See, for example, B. Wendon, “The Commission as image-venue entrepreneur in EU
social policy,” European Journal of Public Policy 5, no. 2 (1998), pp. 339-353. See also L. Cram,
Policy-making in the European Union: conceptual lenses and the integration process (London:
Routledge, 1999).
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© 2005 by The School of Public Policy, University College London, London, United Kingdom. All rights reserved.
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conceptualise this agenda-setting power of the agent as the capacity to 1)
choose from a set of alternatives acceptable to the principal the one that is the
closest to the agent’s preferences and 2) to formulate this alternative into a
particular piece of legislation upon which the principal decides.4 Tsebelis
understands the agenda-setting power as the ability to formulate the
legislation, to choose one particular alternative among other acceptable
solutions, and to put it forward, in opposition to the veto-power (the capacity
to reject the legislation).5 This conception is clearly different from the one
held by Kingdon, who considers that this specification and the choice of policy
alternatives is a different process from agenda-setting. Pollack remarks this
variance in the use of the concept and uses the term “informal agenda-setting”
for the definition used by Kingdon and his successors and “formal agendasetting” for the rational-choice understanding of the process.6
Even though the European Commission is mainly understood as the
executive body of the EU, it also has the legislative power to initiate
legislation. For a great part of EU policies the Commission even has the
exclusive right to initiate the legislation. The Council shares this right with the
Commission for policies included in the second and third pillar.7 Therefore,
the Commission appears to be the major formal agenda-setter in the EU.
Section 2 of this essay will analyse under what conditions the Commission can
exercise its agenda-setting powers as it is understood by the rational choice
approach. We will see that the literature concerned with the Commission’s
formal agenda-setting is mostly based on the analysis of formal rules during the
legislation process and the position of different actors in decision-making. We
will examine the bases upon which a number of authors claim that the
Commission can be a powerful agenda-setter. If their claim can be shown
justified, it would constitute an argument in favour of a supra-nationalist
interpretation of EU integration. Section 3 will examine the limits of this
analysis, illustrated both by instances where the Commission failed to use its
agenda-setting power and by those cases where it succeeded due to its
informal agenda-setting. With reference to the principal-agent framework, it
will be shown that the success of the Commission’s agenda-setting power
depends on the willingness of the principal, the Council, and therefore the
member states.
4
B. Tsebelis and G. Garrett, “Legislative politics in the European Union,” European Union
Politics 1, no. 1 (2000), pp. 9-36; C. Crombez, B. Steunenberg, and R. Corbett, “Understanding
the EU legislative process,” European Union Politics 1, no. 3 (2000), pp. 363-381.
5
Tsebelis and Garrett, “Legislative politics.”
6
M.A. Pollack, “Delegation, Agency and Agenda-setting in the European Community.”
International Organization 51, no. 1 (1997), pp. 99-134. M.A. Pollack, The engines of European
Integration: Delegation, Agency and Agenda-setting in the EU (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2003).
7
See S. Hix,The political system of the European Union (New York: Pelgrave, 1999),
Appendix, pp. 366-375.
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RATIONAL-CHOICE ANALYSIS OF THE
AGENDA-SETTER
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EU COMMISSION AS A FORMAL
The major actors in the legislative process of the EU are the Commission,
the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament (EP). The Commission,
as it was already said, brings proposals of laws. Its agenda-setting power
consists in the possibility to choose among different acceptable alternatives
(i.e. those that would pass through the vote in the Council) the one that is
closest to its ideal policy. The Council is a decisive actor in the adoption of
every piece of legislation. Under certain circumstances, the Council can amend
the legislation and it has the power to veto every piece of legislation. The
impact of the EP varies according to the procedure under which the particular
piece of legislation is adopted. For some types of legislation, the EP is not at all
involved in the adoption process: for instance, it can delay legislation under the
consultation procedure. Under the co-decision procedure, by contrast, it can
also veto legislation and have a significant power to shape it by amendments.8
While in the former case, the Commission, as an agenda-setter, has to consider
only the preferences of the Council and make a proposal that is acceptable by
the Council, in the latter case (i.e. co-decision procedure) the Commission has
to take into account the preferences of the EP as well. This increases the
number of actors who can modify the original Commission’s proposal and
potentially push the proposal further from the Commission’s ideal position.
Thus, the agenda-setting power of the Commission is lesser under the codecision than under the two other procedures.9
Another important factor that influences the agenda-setting power of the
Commission is the decision rules by which the legislation is adopted and
amended.10 The agenda-setting power is important if it is easier for the
decision-makers to adopt the legislation than to amend it. Under the
consultation procedure, where there is only one reading, the Council can only
amend the proposal by unanimity, while for some types of legislation it can
adopt it by Qualified Majority (QMV). Therefore it is easier to adopt the
legislation than to modify it. The Commission has significant discretion if the
legislation is adopted by QMV. In that case the proposal has to satisfy the
To see which type of law is adopted by which procedure see Hix, The political system,
pp. 64-65.
9
G. Tsebelis, “The power of the European Parliament as a conditional agenda-setter” in
The American Political Science Review 88, no. 1 (1994), pp. 128-142; C. Crombez, “The Treaty of
Amsterdam and the co-decision procedure,” in The rules of integration: institutionalist approaches
to the study of Europe, eds. G. Schneider, and M. Aspinwall (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 2001).
8
10
Pollack, “Delegation.”
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median veto-players; therefore, the Commission can put forward an
alternative closer to its ideal point, while if the Council is to amend the
proposal, the amendment needs the support of all the actors, including the
extreme veto-player closest to the Commission’s position and likely to support
the initial Commission’s proposal. In a case where the decision rule requires a
piece of legislation to be adopted unanimously, the Commission’s agendasetting power is weaker because the proposal has to satisfy the extreme vetoplayer (see Figure 1) and the same condition applies for the amendment put
forward by the Council. It is equally difficult to adopt and to amend a
proposal.
Therefore according to the study of these rules, the Commission’s formal
agenda-setting power should be greatest in cases of legislation adopted by
QMV, under the consultation procedure, or without the involvement of the
EP. Important issues fall into this category, such as the Common Agricultural
Policy, some provisions concerning the Single Market (ex. liberalization of
services) or Competition policy (e.g.. state aid).
Figure 1
XL & XR – veto players in unanimity vote
XQ & XQ* - veto players in QMV vote
Source: Schulz, H.& Konig, T. (2000) “Institutional reform and decision-making efficiency in the
European Union” in American Journal of Political Science 44(4); p. 657. Note: It is assumed that
the position of the Commission is at the side of “more integration” further than the most
integrationist member state.
As was said previously, the Commission’s agenda-setting power is less
under the co-decision procedure. The co-decision procedure, as it is
functioning now (co-decision II), was introduced in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It was preceded by the co-decision I (Maastricht Treaty) and even before by
the cooperation procedure (Single European Act). While the involvement of
the EP was progressively becoming more important, several authors agree that
the formal agenda-setting power of the Commission has progressively
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decreased with the institution of each of these three procedures.11 However,
there remains debate about to what extent is it decreasing. Crombez, for
instance, claims that the Commission’s proposals done after the second reading
have become irrelevant in the co-decision procedure: either the “joint text”
is adopted (the result of conciliation between the Council and the EP) or the
status quo remains.12 Even though the Commission issues its opinion, that
either rejects or adopts the EP amendments, in the second reading, this
opinion is not binding.
On the other hand, Burns confirms that even though the Commission’s
power is weakened it can still set the agenda if certain conditions are
satisfied.13 Among the three conditions she formulates, the first is that “the
Commission must share preferences with the majority of both the Council
and the EP, or with a minority of the Council and the majority of the EP.”14
One might object, of course, that it is not clear what the Commission’s
advantage would be if it shared the preferences of the majority in both the
Council and the EP. The rational-choice models are all based on the
assumption that the three actors have different preferences (König and Pöter
2001). If all three actors share the same preferences, there is no conflict, and
therefore no advantage in setting the agenda. Furthermore, it is even less clear
how the preferences shared by the Commission, the majority of the EP and
only a minority in the Council could manage to pass through the legislative
process. Since if the Council does not adopt the joint text by QMV the
legislation fails. Similar objections could be done to the second condition
concerning the levels of “impatience”, if all three actors share the same level of
“impatience” none of them can take advantage of it. Among the three
conditions she lists only the third one concerning the lower likelihood of
Commission’s success when it has a bad relationship with the EP rapporteur
holds. Another reason that makes the Burn’s article less convincing is the fact
that it is based on only one case study (food labelling).
As was noted earlier, rational-choice approaches to agenda-setting is
mainly focused on the analysis of rules. Authors provide few tests and case
studies that would support their results. Among the few authors providing a
test is Tsebelis, who concludes that the Commission’s behaviour (refusal or
adoption of EP’s amendments) predicts the refusal or adoption of 70% of the
11
Tsebelis, “The power”; C. Crombez, “Legislative procedures in the European
Community,” British Journal of Political Science 26, no. 2 (1996), pp. 199-228; C. Crombez, “The
Treaty”; C. Burns, “Co-decision and the European Commission: a study of declining influence?”
Journal of European Public Policy 11, no. 1 (2004), pp. 1-18. For the details of the three
procedures and their differences, see Hix, The political system, pp. 86-87.
12
C. Crombez, “The Treaty.” While in the co-decision I it was the Common Position
adopted by the council on the basis of Commission’s proposal that was adopted in case there is
no agreement about the joint text.
13
Burns, “Co-decision.”
14
Ibid., p. 15.
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legislation under the co-decision procedure, while it was a better predictor
(85%) under the cooperation procedure.15 These results show that in fact the
Commission’s influence was weakened, but not annihilated (as Crombez
suggests), since it well predicts for nearly three-fourths of the legislation, by
the passage from cooperation to co-decision.
Despite the disagreement among authors using different models for the
analysis of the EU decision-making,16 the rational choice literature comes to
the conclusion that the Commission did have a significant formal agendasetting power in the EU decision-making process but that this has weakened
over time. The Commission’s agenda-setting power should be greatest in the
case of legislation adopted by QMV in the Council and through procedures
that do not include the EP. In that case, the Commission should be able to
impose legislation against a minority in the Council. It appears also that while
the EP is pushing for more involvement in the legislative process and since the
co-decision procedure is becoming more used, the formal agenda-setting
power of the Commission might well progressively decrease.17 However even
though there is a substantial literature discussing these various models of
legislative process there is less evidence to support their results.18 In the next
part we will consider concrete examples of agenda-setting in the EU and we
will examine the objections addressed to the rational-choice literature on this
subject.
3. ILLUSTRATIONS OF COMMISSION’S ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND THE LIMITS
OF FORMAL RULES ANALYSIS.
The first objection made to the previously discussed literature has already
been depicted: a lack of empirical evidence.19 The second objection is that
when discussing only the formal decision rules authors do not give account of
the whole decision-making process, they neglect the informal rules that are
significant in the EU as in other polities (Schmidt 2001). According to the
results of the rational-choice theory, the Commission has a significant number
15
G. Tsebelis, C. C.B. Jensen, A., Kalandrakis, and A. Keppel, “Legislative procedures in the
European Union : An empirical analysis,” British Journal of Political Science 31, no. 4 (2001), p.
595.
16
Crombez et al., “Understanding.” P. Moser, “The European parliament as a conditional
agenda-setter: What are the conditions? Critique of Tsebelis,” American Political Science Review
90, no. 4 (1996), pp. 834-838. Tsebelis, “The power.”
17
Crombez, “Legislative procedures.”
18
T. König and M. Pöter, “Examining the EU legislative process: the relative importance of
agenda and veto power,” European Union Politics 2, no. 3, pp. 329-351; S.K. Schmidt, “Only an
agenda-setter? The European Commission’s Power over the Council of Ministers,” European
Union Politics 1, no. 1 (2000), pp. 37-61; Crombez, Steunenberg and Corbett, “Understanding.”
19
S.K. Schmidt, “A constrained Comission: informal practices of agenda-setting in the
Council,” in Schneider and Aspinwall, The rules. Pollack, “Delegation.”
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of opportunities to push forward its preferred policies. This literature also
understands the Commission as being in conflict with the member states, since
it is assumed to hold a more integrationist position. According to the
principal-agent framework the Commission is seeking for more competences
for itself and therefore more integration.20 However, it will be shown here that
these assumptions have to be nuanced— since the Commission is an efficient
entrepreneur mostly in cases where it has the support of the Council—and
that it is unable to impose its view through an opened conflict with member
states. This argument is also supported by König and Pöter’s analysis, in which
they conclude that the rational-choice models previously discussed overrate
the agenda-setting power of supranational institutions since it is not a very
good predictor of policy change.21
As was mentioned previously, among the areas where the Commission
should have the best chances to exploit its agenda-setting power are the CAP
and the liberalisation of services. Pollack’s analysis an example of the first,22
studying MacSharry’s CAP reform, in which he finds that even though the
Commission was activist during the negotiations it was constrained by the
member states and the use of consensus decision-making.23 Similar analysis is
provided by Schmidt who provides counter-examples of what would be
expected by the formal agenda-setting literature.24 She analyses five examples
of legislation where the Commission should have had (according to the
rational-choice models) taken advantage of its agenda-setting power and it did
not. One of these examples is the liberalisation of electricity services. Policies
concerning the liberalisation of services belong to the category of policies
decided by QMV under the consultation procedure.25 In the case of electricity
services the Commission’s proposal faced severe opposition of France and mild
opposition of Italy and Greece. However, as shown in Figure 2,the
Commission’s proposal could have obtained the majority in the Council at the
expense of a great disproval of the French government. Rather than this, the
Commission eventually accepted several changes to its proposal under the
pressure of various Council presidencies and the version finally adopted
satisfied even the most extreme actor, France. Schmidt explains this outcome
by the informal rule of consensus in the Council.26 Another author who
arrived at similar findings is Thatcher in his analysis of telecommunication’s
Pollack, The engines.
König and Pöter, “Examining.”
22
Pollack, The engines.
23
Ibid., p. 322.
24
Schmidt, “A constrained.”
25
Hix, The political.
26
Pollack underlines the same obstacle to Commission’s agenda-setting in his analysis of the
Working Time directive. Pollack, The engines.
20
21
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liberalisation.27 All these examples show that in cases where the Commission
has the possibility to exploit its agenda-setting power but risks a major conflict
with one or more governments, a consensual solution prevails.
Figure 2. Preference Distribution in the Electricity case
Source : Schmidt, S.K. (2001); p. 134
However this does not mean that the Commission never acts as a policy
entrepreneur. In cases concerning less politically sensitive issues, the
Commission may manage to push through policies in fields where it is
supposed to be disadvantaged according to the rational-choice analysis of
decision rules. The Social policy does not belong among the policies where the
Commission has the greatest chances to exploit its agenda-setting power
(decisions are taken at unanimity in the Council). Despite this initial
disadvantage, Pollack and Hafner-Burton show how the Commission did
significantly influence the legislation in this area.28 The authors analyse gender
mainstreaming policy promoted by the Commission across various other
policy fields. They claim that the condition for the Commission’s success in
this case was careful and strategic formulation of its proposals. They show
how the different “gender mainstreaming officials” in different DGs managed
to introduce this new policy into areas such as Structural Funds, Employment,
Development, Research and Competition, successfully producing regulations,
guidelines and programmes in the first four policy fields. In all the cases the
M. Thatcher, “The Comission and national Governments as partners: EC regulatory
expansion in telecommunications 1979-2000,” European Journal of Political Science 8, no. 4
(2001), pp. 558-584.
28
M.A. Pollack and E. Hafner-Burton, “Mainstreaming gender in the European Union”
European Journal of Public Policy 7, no. 3 (2000), pp. 432-456.
27
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gender mainstreaming was introduced into existing policy frames of the five
DGs “emphasising efficiency (as opposed to equality)” which made
Commission’s proposals politically more acceptable in the Council.29 It is also
important to mention that originally only a minority of member states (mainly
Scandinavian countries—two of which were new members at the time these
policies started) had a substantive experience with gender-equality policies.
Therefore, we could expect the majority in the Council to be hostile to this
type of policies. When we join to this the fact that the Council is usually
reticent to regulate social policies at the EU level, we can consider that the
gender mainstreaming is a good example of Commission’s leadership and its
informal agenda-setting power. The last was reflected in the fact that the
Commission brought the gender issue to the EU agenda and developed a new
EU policy—gender mainstreaming— with an initial support of only a minority
of member states. On the other hand, this case can not be taken as an example
of Commission’s formal agenda-setting power since the decisions in the
Council were taken at unanimity and the Commission was not taking
advantage of the formal decision rules. What we observe, as Cram underlines,
is rather the ability developed by DG V (Employment, Social affairs, etc.) to
“package issues in the form likely to engender least opposition in the
Council.”30
4. CONCLUSION
This analysis of Commission’s agenda-setting powers reveals that even
though theoretically the Commission could be dictating the agenda under
some conditions, there is little evidence of this really happening. The
Commission does in fact behave as an agent searching to maximise its
preferences, but the agenda-setting power alone does not give it enough
possibilities to overrule the Council. It appears also that the analysis of formal
rules of the legislative process does not explain why the Commission would
not succeed in cases such as Electricity liberalisation (discussed above) or the
Working Time Directive.31 In order to understand the EU decision-making
process other perspectives have to be added, including the study of informal
rules. An issue which was not discussed in this essay, but was touched on in
the introduction, is the rise of issues on the EU agenda rather than their
formulation. The case of gender mainstreaming, exposed above, could raise the
question of whether if the Commission is not an agenda-setter in a sense of
“formulating its preferred policies into legislation,” it could be an agenda-setter
in a sense as Kingdon understands it, bringing in new issues and acting as a
policy entrepreneur. However, such study would involve analysis of other
Ibid.
Cram, Policy making, p.162
31
Pollack, The engines.
29
30
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actors, such as interest groups, and would require more than the space
available here.
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integration process. London: Routledge, 1999.
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———. “The Treaty of Amsterdam and the co-decision procedure.” In The
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Tsebelis, G., Jensen, C.B., Kalandrakis, A. and Keppel, A. “Legislative
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defined.. [ISSN 1748-5207]
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