Only an Agenda Setter?
- 1 February 2000
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in European Union Politics
- Vol. 1 (1), 37-61
- https://doi.org/10.1177/1465116500001001003
Abstract
What is the scope for autonomous action of the European Commission? Its independence is much more contentious than that of the European Court of Justice, which is generally considered quite autonomous. While the literature on the Commission focuses predominantly on its ability to use its agenda-setting powers, the Commission's other means to influence European integration have been less well established. In this paper, I demonstrate how the Commission can use its role as a guardian of the Treaty to coax the Council of Ministers into action. In addition to agenda setting, the Commission can manipulate the Council's default condition, or change the preferences of some of its member states. Thereby the Commission may achieve decisions from the Council that would not have come about had the Commission only agenda-setting powers at its disposal. Effectively, the Commission here uses the greater autonomy of the European Court strategically for its own ends.Keywords
This publication has 35 references indexed in Scilit:
- Tax Competition in the European UnionPolitics & Society, 1999
- Who Are the “Masters of the Treaty”?: European Governments and the European Court of JusticeInternational Organization, 1998
- Effective European problem-solving: lessons from the regulation of occupational safety and environmental protectionJournal of European Public Policy, 1997
- Crossing the Organizational Void: The Limits of Agency Theory in the Analysis of Regulatory ControlGovernance, 1996
- An institutional critique of intergovernmentalismInternational Organization, 1996
- The politics of legal integration in the European UnionInternational Organization, 1995
- INSTITUTIONS AND POLICY CHANGE IN THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES: THE CASE OF MERGER CONTROL1Public Administration, 1994
- Judicial Politics in the European CommunityComparative Political Studies, 1994
- Europe Before the Court: A Political Theory of Legal IntegrationInternational Organization, 1993
- Counterfactuals and Hypothesis Testing in Political ScienceWorld Politics, 1991