The executive turn: the Commission’s role in EU long-term budgetary politics

The creation of Next Generation EU has put European Union (EU) finances under the spotlight. This innovative instrument might result from a longer path of development in EU politics, rather than just a crisis response. It is, thus, necessary to broaden the scope of analysis. This paper aims to analyse the evolution of decision-making processes and interinstitutional relations in EU long-term budgetary politics, with a focus on the European Commission and its relation with the European Council. Since 1988, EU long-term budgets have determined the levels and purposes of European finances for at least five years. The Commission initiates this procedure by submitting a budgetary proposal to the European Parliament and the Council of the EU, which negotiate it under the increasingly relevant, yet informal, presence of the European Council. Studies of EU politics have well depicted the power struggles among the budgetary actors. This paper contributes to the literature with a new conceptualization and detailed empirical account of the Commission’s role. The budget-maximization approach of the first Delors packages was hardly matched by the following ones. The decline in the Commission’s ambition has been mostly explained in terms of structure. Faced with increasing constraints, the Commission settles for more modest budgetary proposals. Building on new intergovernmentalism, this study suggests the need for a more comprehensive explanation. It is hypothesized that the rise in public contestation induced the politicization and presidentialisation of the Commission. In turn, this altered the inter-institutional balance by favoring a closer relationship between the Commission and the European Council as the EU’s core executive. Through a new theoretical and methodological framework, this paper intends to shed light on this process. The paper provides first empirical evidence of how the preferences and strategies of the Commission have evolved across the six long-term budgets of the EU.