Wednesday, July 12, 2017
Anatomy - Large LT (University of Glasgow)
The literature on the Commission’s interaction with the legislative chambers has been built on the idea that voting procedures and national interests in the Council, and ideological cohesiveness in the European Parliament condition the success of Commission’s initiatives. Despite this large literature, we know very little about the potential conditional effects of transnational party promises on the Commission’s legislative proposals and (non)legislative acts. Premised on the second order nature of the European Parliament (EP) elections, very little attention, if any, has been paid to the nature of transnational party promises and the potential convergence among euro-manifestos of different ideologies over what is promised. This lacuna with respect to the Euro-manifestos’ political role in the EU is very unfortunate given the recent changes in the Treaty of Lisbon and the political role EP elections have begun to play in the nomination of the President of the Commission.
As a result, we may expect Euromanifestos to play an increasingly important role in setting the EU agenda. This article analyses whether this is the case by investigating (1) the type and policy emphases of transnational party pledges made at the 2004 and 2009 EP elections, and (2) the extent of agreement between such promises and the Commission’s priorities laid out in its Annual Policy Strategies and the subsequent Working Programs. In doing so, it investigates the potential conditional effect of transnational pledges when accounting for different Commission presidencies, the addition of new member-states, and the ideological orientation of Commissioners.
