Does Europeanization Change Executive–Legislative Relations? Executive Dominance and Parliamentary Responses in Germany

The European Union is increasingly influencing the national legislation of its member states. This increase raises the question regarding the qualitative implications of the European influence. Theoretically, Europeanized laws may change the characteristics of the national legislative process in different directions. Following Moravcsik (1997), the executive can exploit Europeanization and increase governmental agenda-setting power which should raise the adoption rate of governmental proposals. However, when the governmental executive is expected to gain agenda-setting powers by Europeanization, the risk of ministerial drift should be higher for governmental proposals with European impulse. This may prompt the reaction of parliament respectively the coalitional partner in parliament who may feel threatened by hostile ministerial bills. According to Martin and Vanberg (2005), parliaments are more likely to challenge and amend governmental proposals when the risk of ministerial drift is high. If this is true, parliaments would not lose power by Europeanization because they pay more attention to ministerial drift and hostile proposals.