Changing Dynamics of the Ordinary Legislative Procedure: Lisbon Treaty and Beyond

The paper looks at the post-Lisbon legislative process in the EU from the perspective of the overall dynamics of the interplay among the legislative actors, focusing particularly on the level of contestation among and within the legislative institutions in the process of ordinary legislative procedure. Ordinary legislative procedure (OLP), being the most important procedure of EU law-making after Lisbon, interlocks the legislative actors, the Commission, the European Parliament (EP) and the Council of the EU, into a bond of close interdependence where all three institutions are motivated to look for effective procedures in cooperation with the other two partners. The practice of trialogues, informal negotiations of the representatives of the three institutions, who look for compromise solution to the legislative proposals before these are debated in the EP in the first reading, is an example of institutional accommodation, which understandably attracts attention of researchers. Analyzing the legislative proposals launched after Lisbon Treaty came into force I focus on the level and the patterns of the inter- and intra-institutional conflict aiming to assess whether the institutional reform regarding the legislative procedures had moved the EU towards a strong bicameral system.