Legislative amendments and informal politics in the European Union: A text reuse approach

Abstract

The ability to amend legislative proposals introduced by the Commission is central to legislative process in the European Union. Despite this, very few attempts have been made to capture and explain such amendments. This study addresses this gap in the literature by considering the changes between the Commission’s proposals and the final legislative outcome passed by the European Union. It does so by implementing minimum edit distance algorithms to measure changes between legislative proposals and outcomes. The findings suggest that legislative amendments are determined by the formal and informal institutional structures in which negotiations take place and characteristics of the proposal itself. Our conclusions contribute to the ongoing debate on the nature and distribution of legislative powers in the European Union.