Profitable Cooperation? The Weimar Triangle and Bargaining Success in European Union Lawmaking

The Weimar Triangle (WT) is an informal partnership established in 1991 by the foreign ministers of Poland, Germany, and France. While expected to be “an initiating and proposing force for the benefit of an expanded European Union” (Weimar Triangle Meeting, 2003), the format gradually lost momentum after Poland’s accession to the EU. Several efforts to reinvigorate it have been undertaken, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 prompting another attempt at revitalization. While this may again prove temporary, the WT still has the potential to play a meaningful role within the EU, given the combined economic weight and strategic geographical positioning of Poland, Germany, and France. Despite its potential, the effectiveness of Weimar Triangle cooperation remains underexplored. Empirical research is scarce on the factors that determine the scope and impact of trilateral cooperation within the EU, particularly in negotiations leading to the adoption of EU legislative acts. As a result, little is known about the alignment of preferences among the three countries, their capacity to form coalitions, or their influence on EU legislation. This paper addresses these gaps by assessing the effectiveness of WT cooperation in EU lawmaking, focusing on its impact on the bargaining success of Germany, France, and Poland. It tests the general hypothesis that these countries are more successful in achieving their preferences and shaping EU legislation when they form a WT coalition. In addition, conditional hypotheses are formulated, predicting that the coalition’s effectiveness depends on specific circumstances, particularly when: (a) the three countries hold extreme preferences; (b) they occupy status quo positions; (c) a WT country holds the Council presidency; (d) the commissioner responsible for the proposal comes from a WT country; (e) contacts between WT representatives in Council bodies are intensive; or (f) the negotiations concern a package deal. These hypotheses are derived from key decision-making theories, including coalition-building, spatial models, veto players, ‘relais actors’, network capital, and package deals. They are tested quantitatively using regression analysis on the DEUIII dataset, which includes actors’ preferences and negotiation outcomes for the most controversial EU legislative proposals. The paper also examines the coalition-building potential by analyzing the alignment of WT members’ preferences in EU legislation.