Comitology: The Strength of Dissent

This paper sheds new light on deliberative dynamics at work in comitology. Starting from the findings of a previous research on the frequency of consensus within the executive committees of the EU in 2008, which unveiled the existence of contested votes in over a quarter of member states representatives’ deliberations, this paper seeks to provide a measure of the intensity of opposition to Commission’s draft implementing proposals before and after the post-Lisbon reform of comitology. The paper argues that conflict with Commission’s positions, although weak, is not that rare during deliberations prior to the formulation of an opinion. Applying this approach to data from the comitology register (2008-2013), the paper proposes an index of opposition and tests the factors that may explain variations. Attention is paid to rationalist and sociological arguments, policy types and procedural settings before and after the last reform of the comitology system.