It is widely debated in studies of international negotiations why certain negotiators are more successful than others. Institutionalist and rationalist approaches claim that institutions and negotiators' resources largely explain the outcome of negotiations, whereas constructivist approaches stress the importance of shared norms and values. The article asks to what extent the use of normative arguments explains negotiation success in EU treaty negotiations. We apply our approach to the negotiations leading to the Treaty of Amsterdam. We first define normative arguments as justifications for positions that refer to common norms and develop a concept of common values for EU constitutional negotiations. Second, we assess to what degree governments justify their positions by normative arguments using an automated analysis of position papers. Finally, we ask if such justifications increase success in negotiations. The results of our statistical models show that arguing affects negotiation success significantly and positively.

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It is a commonplace that the mechanisms established in the stability and growth pact are blunt instruments. They are highly politicised as both the establishment of infringements and possible sanctions are subject to votes in the EU Council. The financial crisis of 2009/10 has dramatically altered the financial situation of many EU member states and has also shown the need for new regulatory instruments to enforce budgetary discipline in the Euro zone. Figures on the EU member states’ budget debts from 1999 to 2010 support this argument empirically. We discuss the current reform proposals and show that the introduction of a reversed qualified majority is likely to strengthen substantially the position of the European Commission to sanction non-complying member states. This becomes possible because decisive players in the EU Council will be closer to the position of the Commission.

Despite high institutional hurdles for constitutional change, one observes surprisingly many EU treaty revisions. This article takes up the questions of what determines whether a treaty provision is successfully changed and why provisions are renegotiated at subsequent Intergovernmental Conferences. The article presents an institutionalist theory explaining success and renegotiation and tests the theory using all core institutional provisions by means of Qualitative Comparative Analysis. The causal analysis shows that low conflict potential of an issue is sufficient for successfully changing the treaties. Furthermore, high conflict potential of an issue and its fundamental change are sufficient for it to be renegotiated.Konstanzer Online-Publikations-System (KOPS) URL: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:352-2--fymwb7hdsr2t7Erschienen in