National parliamentary control and voting in the Council of the European Union

Abstract

This article explores the different ways governments express dissent in the Council of the European Union (EU) through ‘No’ votes, abstentions and recorded negative statements. A game‐theoretical model is presented that studies voting behaviour and analyses how the national parliaments’ levels of control over their governments’ EU policies affect it. It is concluded that governments that are strongly controlled by their parliaments are not more likely to express dissent. However, when they do express dissent, they vote ‘No’ more often. Parliamentary control depends on the presence of formal oversight institutions as well as the motivation of parliamentarians to hold their governments accountable. Empirical support is found in an analysis of votes on 1,387 legislative proposals that represent more than a decade of Council decision making in the period 2004–2014. This article contributes to the discussion on the involvement of national parliaments in EU affairs, and clearly distinguishes the different forms of dissent in Council decision making.

Populist Challenge? Negotiating the EU’s Accession to the Istanbul Convention in the Council

“…This literature makes firm claims that the Council, on all its levels, ministerial, ambassadorial (COREPER), and technical (preparatory bodies), is ruled by a web of informal practices (Kleine, 2013), proceeds by a high degree of consensus Novak, 2013;Puetter, 2014Puetter, , 2022Warntjen, 2010), and is characterised by the socialisation of member state negotiators into the everyday negotiation culture of the Council (Lewis, 2005). "No" votes are rare as they happen only if governments enjoy little leeway on EU affairs or feel the need to show their opposition to a Council decision towards national audiences (van Gruisen & Crombez, 2019). The Council itself works under two main negotiation modes: bargaining and deliberation (Warntjen, 2010).…”

The Early Warning System and policymaking in the European Union

“…(2019) have shown that governments are more likely to oppose legislation if their parliament strictly controls them. Van Gruisen and Crombez (2019) find that this is all the more the case when parliaments are Eurosceptic and have the power to provide parliamentary mandates to their ministers on how to vote on Commission proposals.…”

“…These findings are also in line with the conclusions drawn from a slightly different research domain. In the field of Council decision-making, van Gruisen and Crombez (2019) and Hagemann et al. (2019) have shown that governments are more likely to oppose legislation if their parliament strictly controls them.…”

Studying the influence of national parliaments in EU affairs: reconnecting empirical research and the Principal-Agent approach

“…On this matter, a first set of (quantitative) studies focused on Council decision-making and on the EWM (see. Van Gruisen and Crombez 2019;Van Gruisen and Huysmans 2020;Hagemann, Bailer, and Herzog 2019). For instance, Hagemann, Bailer, and Herzog (2019, 646) found that 'when a national parliament has extensive competences to scrutinise and amend government policies, governments are more likely to oppose the majority in the EU Council and record their positions in formal policy statements'.…”

“…Regarding the executive side, in addition to the output of EU negotiations, scholars could analyse the voting behaviour and policy statements of governments in the EU Council (see. Crombez 2019 andof Hagemann, Bailer, andHerzog 2019); fully exploit the opportunity of the 2001 transparency regulation (Regulation (EC) 1049/2001) to access limité (but publicly available) documents of the Council such as 'comments from Member States' or 'Presidency compromise' as well as documents originating from the European Commission and of the European Parliament (i.e. committee reports, written explanation of votes made by MEPs etc.…”