The European Commission, the European Council, and the member states: What drives cooperation and conflict at the agenda-setting stage?

Abstract

This panel explores the intersection of inter-institutional relations and executive governance in the European Union (EU). All four papers focus on agenda-setting—long-term strategic, via impact assessment, in everyday law-making—and centre on the horizontal and vertical relations of the European Commission. More specifically, the papers zoom in 1) on cooperation between the Commission and the European Council at the agenda-setting stage, and on the longer-term effects of agenda-setting for both leadership and legislation; 2) on the role of the Commission’s impact assessment as a coalition-building device in the early stages of law-making; and 3) on the relationship between the Commission and the EU’s member states in implementing the bottom-up governance framework. In doing so, the panel is motivated by two broader aims. First, the authors strive to analyse and explain how the EU’s institutions relate horizontally and vertically and with what consequences for leadership, for legislative duration, and for the effective use of different governance tools in driving an agenda for Europe. Second, collectively, the papers aim to uncover coordination and conflict in the EU’s inter-institutional relations, the different theoretical and empirical conditions underlying both, and the possibilities for cooperation and leadership in agenda-setting under domestic contestation.

Title	Details
Agenda-setting in the EU: a new view of European Council and European Commission relations in the post-Lisbon era	View Paper Details
Simple, clearer, and less transparent? The impact of impact assessments on the EU legislative process	View Paper Details
The challenge of ratcheting up climate ambitions under the Paris Agreement: the case of EU Energy & climate governance	View Paper Details
Authority Expansion of the EU under Conditions of Contested Policy Integration	View Paper Details
Who sets the legislative agenda? Priority-setting and legislative decision making in the EU	View Paper Details