This article analyses the circumstances under which the European Commission implements its legislative programme on time. Similar to many national governments the European Commission announces an annual Work Programme, where it identifies important legislation it plans to propose within 12 or 18 months. This study is based on an original dataset of 233 legislative proposals listed in the Work Programme in the period 2005–2012. I show that the Commission implements at least 94% of its legislative programme, where 76% of the proposed legislation is formally introduced within the deadline. The empirical analysis provides evidence that procedural and technical complexity decreases the probability of timely implementation. In addition, proposals listed in Work Programmes that allow for the introduction of some proposals within the extended deadline of 18 months are more likely to be introduced on time. The size of the gridlock interval, as defined in spatial models, does not have a statistically significant effect.
AlexandrovaPCarammiaSPrincenSTimmermansA (2014) Measuring the European Council agenda: Introducing a new approach and dataset. European Union Politics15(1): 152–167.
2.
BailerS (2014) An agent dependent on the EU member states? The determinants of the European Commission’s legislative success in the European Union. Journal of European Integration36(1): 37–53.
3.
BorghettoEMäderL (2014) EU law revisions and legislative drift. European Union Politics15(2): 171–191.
4.
BräuningerTDebusM (2009) Legislative agenda-setting in parliamentary democracies. European Journal of Political Research48(6): 804–839.
5.
CiniM (2007) From integration to integrity: Administrative ethics and reform in the European Commission, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
6.
Crombez C and Hix S (2014) Legislative activity and gridlock in the European Union. British Journal of Political Science. Epub ahead of print 13 February 2014. DOI: 10.1017/S0007123413000380.
European Commission (2006). Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. Commission Legislative and Work Programme 2007. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/atwork/key-documents/index_en.htm (accessed 1 December 2014).
11.
European Commission (2007a). Commission working document on the feasibility of EU legislation in the area of protection of witnesses and collaborators with justice. Available at: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52007DC0693 (accessed 1 December 2014).
12.
European Commission (2007b). Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. Commission Legislative and Work Programme 2008. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/atwork/key-documents/index_en.htm (accessed 1 December 2014).
13.
European Commission (2010). Framework agreement on relations between the European Parliament and the European Commission. Available at: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/homepage.html?locale=en (accessed 1 December 2014).
14.
GolubJ (1999) In the shadow of the vote? Decision making in the European Community. International Organization53(4): 733–764.
15.
GolubJ (2007) Survival analysis and the European Union decision-making. European Union Politics8(2): 155–179.
16.
GolubJSteunenbergB (2007) How time affects EU decision-making. European Union Politics8(4): 555–566.
17.
HägeFM (2011) The European Union policy-making dataset. European Union Politics12(3): 455–477.
18.
HägeFMToshkovD (2011). (2011) Anticipating resistance: The effect of member state preferences on the European Commission’s agenda-setting activity. Working paper, Limerick Papers in Politics and Public Administration. Available at: http://www.ul.ie/ppa/content/files/working-papers/772182972.pdf (accessed 1 December 2014).
19.
HartlappMMetzJRauhC (2013) Linking agenda setting to coordination structures: Bureaucratic politics inside the European Commission. Journal of European Integration35(4): 425–441.
20.
HartlappMMetzJRauhC (2014) Which policy for Europe? Power and conflict inside the European Commission, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
21.
HertzRLeuffenD (2011) Too big to run? Analysing the impact of enlargement on the speed of EU decision-making. European Union Politics12(2): 193–215.
22.
HixS (2002) Parliamentary behavior with two principals: Preferences, parties, and voting in the European Parliament. American Journal of Political Science46(3): 688–698.
23.
HixS (2005) The political system of the European Union, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
24.
HixS (2008) What’s wrong with the European Union and how to fix it, Cambridge: Polity.
25.
HixSNouryAGRolandG (2007) Democratic Politics in the European Parliament, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
26.
Imai K, King G and Lau O (2014) logit: Logistic regression for dichotomous dependent variables. In: Imai K, King G and Lau O, Zelig: Everyone's statistical software, http://gking.harvard.edu/zelig.
27.
JonesBDBaumgartnerFR (2005) The politics of attention: How government prioritizes problems, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
28.
JungeDKönigTLuigB (2014) Legislative gridlock and bureaucratic politics in the European Union. British Journal of Political Science.. Epub ahead of print 9 June 2014. DOI: 10.1017/S0007123414000027.
29.
KassimHPetersonJBauerMW (2013) The European Commission of the twenty-first century, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
30.
KlüverHSagarzazuI (2013) Ideological congruency and decision-making speed: The effect of partisanship across European Union institutions. European Union Politics14(3): 388–407.
31.
KönigT (2007) Divergence or convergence? From ever-growing to ever-slowing European legislative decision making. European Journal of Political Research46(3): 417–444.
32.
KönigTLuigB (2012) Party ideology and legislative agendas: Estimating contextual policy positions for the study of EU decision-making. European Union Politics13(4): 604–625.
33.
KönigTMarbachMOsnabrüggeM (2013) Estimating party positions across countries and time - A dynamic latent variable model for manifesto data. Political Analysis21(4): 468–491.
34.
KreppelAOztasB (2014) Leading the band or just playing the tune? The agenda setting role of the European Commission in the legislative process. In: Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association,, Washington, DC,. 28–31 August.
35.
MartinLW (2004) The government agenda in parliamentary democracies. American Journal of Political Science48(3): 445–461.
36.
MouryC (2011) Coalition agreement and party mandate: How coalition agreements constrain the ministers. Party Politics17(3): 385–404.
37.
MouryC (2013) Coalition government and party mandate: How coalition agreements constrains ministerial action, London: Routledge.
38.
NugentN (2001) The European Commission, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
39.
PirisJC (2010) The Lisbon Treaty. A legal and political analysis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
40.
PollackMA (1997) The Commission as an agent. In: NugentN (ed.) At the heart of the union: Studies of the European Commission, Basingstoke: Macmillan, pp. 109–128.
41.
PrincenS (2009) Agenda-setting in the European Union, Basingstoke: Macmillan.
42.
SchmidtSK (2000) Only an agenda setter? The European Commission’s power over the Council of Ministers. European Union Politics1(1): 37–61.
43.
Schön-QuinlivanE (2011) Reforming the European Commission, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
44.
SchulzTKönigT (2000) Institutional reform and decision-making efficiency in the European Union. American Journal of Political Science44(4): 653–666.
45.
SignorinoCSYilmazK (2003) Strategic misspecification in regression models. American Journal of Political Science47(3): 551–566.
46.
Spence D (2006) The president, the college and the cabinets. In: Spence D and Edwards G (eds), The European Commission. London: John Harper Publishing, pp.25–74.
47.
ThomsonR (2011) Resolving controversy in the European Union: Legislative decision-making before and after enlargement, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
48.
TimmermansA (2003) High politics in the low countries: An empirical study of coalition agreements in Belgium and the Netherlands, Aldershot: Ashgate.
49.
TimmermansA (2006) Standing apart and sitting together: Enforcing coalition agreements in multiparty systems. European Journal of Political Research45(2): 263–283.
50.
ToshkovD (2011) Public opinion and policy output in the European Union: A lost relationship. European Union Politics12(2): 169–191.
51.
TsebelisG (2002) Veto players: How political institutions work, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
52.
TsebelisGGarrettG (2000) Legislative politics in the European Union. European Union Politics1(1): 9–36.
53.
ZhelyazkovaAYordanovaN (2015) Signaling ‘compliance’. The link between notified EU directive implementation and infringement cases. European Union Politics16(3)): forthcoming.
54.
ZubekRKlüverH (2013) Legislative pledges and coalition government. Party Politics.. Epub ahead of print 27 May 2013. DOI: 10.1177/1354068813487126.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
