Decision-making in the council of the European Union. The role of committees.
Häge, F.M.
Citation
Häge, F. M. (2008, October 23). Decision-making in the council of the European Union. The role of committees. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/1887/13222
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Stellingen behorende bij het proefschrift
Decision-Making in the Council of the European Union:
The Role of Committees van Frank M. Häge
1. A legally complex proposal is sufficient to avoid the direct involvement of ministers in EU legislative decision-making.
2. For a legislative proposal to be discussed by ministers, the proposal must either be of high salience to member states or prioritized by the Council Presidency.
3. Preference divergence among governments is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the direct involvement of ministers in EU legislative decision- making.
4. The Council Presidency’s scheduling and proposal-making prerogatives make it more influential in determining the outcome of Council negotiations than the European Commission.
5. A major legitimacy problem of EU legislative decision-making is the tendency of member states to represent national negotiation positions that reflect special interests rather than the interests of the domestic public at large.
6. Contrary to the assumptions of existing principal-agent theories, the main informational advantage of agents in legislative decision-making does not result from superior knowledge about the practical consequences of a proposal, but from superior knowledge about the meaning and interpretation of the legal text.
7. The European Commission refrains from introducing legislative proposals when it anticipates fundamental resistance to these measures by the EU’s legislative institutions.
8. Although Council members hardly outvote their peers to adopt legislation, the pure possibility of taking a decision through a vote rather than unanimous consent makes EU legislative decision-making more efficient.
9. Rejections of complex legal acts in public referenda do not tell us anything about the ‘will of the people’.
10. Just because you cannot see it, doesn’t mean that it isn’t there (referring to the political control of the bureaucracy).
