Time is of the essence: Explaining the duration of European Union lawmaking under the co-decision procedure

Abstract

The article explores factors affecting the duration of the co-decision procedure (currently the ordinary legislative procedure), the main procedure for adopting legislation in the European Union. Drawing from rational choice institutionalism, it expects the speed of co-decision to be determined by three attributes: the impatience of legislators, issue linkage and the characteristics of Council and European Parliament negotiators (relais actors). The hypotheses are tested using survival analysis on a dataset of 599 controversial legislative acts submitted and enacted under co-decision between 1999 and 2009. The results show that co-decision proposals are decided faster when they are urgent, negotiated prior to the European Parliament elections and concluded through single proposal logrolls. By contrast, multi-proposal packages and the ideological distance between relais actors prolong decision-making. Overall, the article contributes to the literature by showing that the impatience of legislators, package deals and the properties of negotiators are relevant drivers of co-decision duration.