The Commission and the constraints on the exercise of legislative initiative in the EU: insights from the European Citizen’s Initiative

The European Commission had long been described as the “engine” of European integration. Yet, much of recent scholarly analyses come to conclude that the Commission’s role as the main agenda setter of the European Union is waning with successive Treaty revisions to the benefit of the European Parliament and the Council and the politicization of EU integration. This study seeks to revisit and qualify this view by focusing on the Commission’s role in legislative agenda-setting through the case of the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI). Established under the Lisbon Treaty, the ECI is an instrument which allows petitions supported by one million EU citizens from at least seven EU Member States to call on the Commission to propose legislation, without, however, obliging the latter to do so. The paper studies and compares the responses of the Commission to those ECI’s that have gathered the required number of signatures. Based on original data collected through document analysis, newspaper content analysis and interviews with Commission officials, the paper investigates the impact of the salience of the issue addressed by the ECIs and of the preference constellation in the Council and the Parliament on the Commission’s decision to submit (or not submit) the requested proposal. The analysis finds evidence to support the growing consensus that the Commission faces important constraints over the exercise of its monopoly of legislative initiative. Yet, at the same time, it retains the capacity to take advantage of any room left for maneuver in order to push forward (those issues that align with) its own preferences and legislative priorities.