What Parliamentary Budget Authority in the European Union?
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Arbeit zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades „Doktor der Philosophie“ (Dr. phil.) WHAT PARLIAMENTARY BUDGET-AUTHORITY IN THE EU? The European Parliament and the German Bundestag in the Negotiations of the Multi-Annual Financial Framework 2014-2020 Von: Linn Selle Einreichung: 30. November 2016 Verteidigung: 29. Mai 2017 Betreuer und Erstgutachter: Prof. Dr. Timm Beichelt (Europa-Universität Viadrina) Zweitgutachterin: Prof. Dr. Gabriele Abels (Eberhardt Karls Universität Tübingen) This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ List of Figures i Executive Summary ii 1. Introduction 1 1.1 Research interest 1 1.2 Literature Review 4 1.2.1 EU Parliamentary Representation 4 1.2.2 EU Budgetary Politics 8 1.3 Literature Gaps and Research Question 10 1.4 Structure of Analysis 11 PART I) ANALYTICAL FOUNDATIONS 14 2. Parliamentary Representation 14 2.1 Representation – a interactive, dynamic process 14 2.2 Parliamentary Representation 18 2.3 The EU Representative System 23 3. The Parliamentary Budget Authority 29 3.1 The Development of Parliamentary Budgeting 30 3.2 The Parliamentary Budget Authority 34 4. Methodological Considerations 42 4.1 Case Selection 43 4.2 Dimensions of Representation 46 4.2.1 Internal Representation 46 4.2.2 External Representation 48 4.3 Phases and Levels of Analysis 51 4.4 Data Collection and Analysis 53 4.4.1 Internal Representation 53 4.4.2 External Representation 55 PART II) PARLIAMENTS AND THE EU BUDGETARY SYSTEM 59 5. Parliamentary Representation In The European Union 59 5.1 Parliamentary Representation in the Integration Process 61 5.2 The European Parliament and the Bundestag in the EU Political Process 64 5.2.1 Parliamentary functions in the EU Policy Process 64 5.2.2 Parliamentary Practices 71 5.3 Vertical embeddedness: Interparliamentary Cooperation 76 5.4 What Parliamentary Representation in the EU? 84 6. The EU Budgetary Process 91 6.1 Development of the EU Budget 91 6.2 The EU Budgetary System Today 103 6.2.1 Budgetary Structures and Principles 104 6.2.3 The EU Budgetary Policy Cycle 114 6.3 The Parliamentary Budget Authority in the European Union 119 6.3.1 Strands of Development of the Budget Authority 119 6.3.2 What Parliamentary Budget Authority Today? 125 6.3.3 The EU Parliamentary Budget Authority 127 7. The Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020 138 7.1 Parliamentary Budgetary Rights in Times of Crisis 138 7.2 (Initial) Positions of Representative Actors 141 7.2.1 Member State Governments 141 7.2.2 Parliamentary Actors 142 7.3 The Negotiation Phases 149 7.3.1 Commission Proposal 149 7.3.2 Member States Negotiations 151 7.3.3 Interinstitutional Negotiations 154 7.3.4 Implementation 155 7.4 The Final MFF Decision 156 PART III) PERFORMANCE OF REPRESENTATION IN THE EU BUDGETARY PROCESS 160 8. The Coordination of the Budgetary Process 160 8.1 Actors: Expertise and Prestige 160 8.2 Coordination Inside the European Parliament 163 8.2.1 The Process of Coordination 163 8.2.2 Coordination Inside Party Groups 168 8.2.3 Coordination Inside Parliament 170 8.3 Coordination Inside the German Bundestag 175 8.3.1 The Process of Coordination 175 8.3.2 Coordination Inside Party Groups 176 8.3.3 Coordination Inside Parliament 178 8.4 Interparliamentary Coordination 182 8.4.1 Formal Institutional Coordination 182 8.4.2 Individual and Party-Political Coordination 186 8.5 Conclusion on Parliamentary Coordination 189 9. Representative Claims 194 9.1 Representative Claims in the Budgetary Debate 194 9.2 Political Priorities of Parliamentary Actors 198 9.3 Representative Coalitions in the Budgetary Debate 203 9.4 Conclusion on Representative Claims 211 10. CONCLUSION - PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION IN THE EU-BUDGET 213 10.1 The EU Parliamentary Budget Authority 217 10.2 Representative Interests in the Parliamentary Budgetary Process 222 10.3 Outlook and Recommendations 227 10.3.1 Assessment and Outlook on Research 227 10.3.2 Recommendations for an Effective Parliamentary Budget Authority 229 Publication Bibliography 233 Primary Sources 233 Secondary Literature 238 Annex I – Interview Partners 259 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: Frame of argumentation……………………………………………………………13 Figure 4.1: Phases of MFF policy process as covered in analysis………………………………..53 Figure 4.2: Distribution of expert interviews……………………………………………………54 Figure 4.3: Coding the EU budgetary policy cycle……………………………………………….55 Figure 5.1 Interparliamentary activities…………………………………………………………79 Figure 5.2: Typology of interparliamentary cooperation………………………………………...80 Figure 6.1: Development of EU own resources after sources of revenue……………………….108 Figure 6.2: Specific correction arrangements applicable to member states (MFF 2014-2020)…...109 Figure 6.3: Development Ceilings for Payment Appropriations (1988-2020)…………………..111 Figure 6.4: Factors of parliamentary influence in the German and EU budget………………….129 Figure 6.5: Formal parliamentary embeddedness in the EU budgetary policy cycle…………….132 Figure 7.1: Final MFF compromise and comparison to Agenda 2007 and COM proposals…….158 Figure 8.1: European Parliament’s Rapporteurs in the MFF Dossier…………………………..161 Figure 8.2: Bundestag’s Rapporteurs in the MFF Dossier……………………………………...163 Figure 8.3: Formal venues of IPC in the MFF negotiations……………………………………182 Figure 8.4: Timeline Parliamentary embeddedness in EU budgetary negotiations……………...191 Figure 9.1: Bundestag and European Parliament affiliation network…………………………..195 Figure 9.2: Approval and rejection of claims in the Bundestag and European Parliament………197 Figure 9.3: Affiliation network Bundestag and European Parliament…………………………..200 Figure 9.4: Political Priorities of party groups………………………………………………….201 Figure 9.5: Co-occurence Network on Bundestag’s and EP’s Discourse Coalitions…………….203 Figure 9.6: Co-occurence Network of all Actors……………………………………………….204 Figure 9.7: Development Discursive Claims during the EU Budgetary Debate…………………206 Figure 9.8: Temporal Development of Budgetary Debate……………………………………...209 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This study aims at better understanding the ambiguity of parliamentary representation in the EU political system where both national parliaments and the European Parliament play a functional role and are characterized by distinct electoral and territorial interests of representation. In this context EU budgetary politics are a particularly interesting field of research since they constitute a prime parliamentary function that carries high importance inside parliamentary institutions. The EU budget – the Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF) – is formally divided between the revenue side, which is legitimated through the national parliamentary channel and the expenditure side for which the European Parliament is responsible. Analyzing the internal parliamentary coordination and the parliamentary debate on the EU’s MFF 2014-2020 it is shown that parliamentary actors are embedded at different points in the budgetary policy cycle while at the same time feeling legitimately responsible for both revenue and expenditure strands of the EU budget. The EU parliamentary budget authority is formally upheld through the national and supranational channels of legitimation. Practically, however, it is impeded by even more constraints than in national budgetary procedures due to the shape of the EU multi- level system. The performance of the parliamentary budget authority strongly diverged between the policy and the polity level of budgetary policies in the MFF 2014-2020 negotiations. On the one hand there has been a broad understanding between parliamentary actors of the same political family on the policy level in the budgetary debate. This covered joint perceptions of what policies should be enacted through the EU budget and what political priorities should be pursued. However on the polity level of the budget, there has been a fundamental disagreement on what formal structure or institutional shape should be achieved with the EU budget. Therefore the representative interests of parliamentary actors are strongly centered on territorial interests of representation – despite strong similarities in terms of electoral interests. Budget policies constitute the core of parliamentary sovereignty which in the MFF 2014-2020 negotiations lead to the dominance of an institutional power-play over a joint coordination of welfare as it has already been found with regard to the EU budget negotiations on the member state level in the Council and European Council. ii “A united Europe with the Commission as the great motor and quasi-government, the Council as its intergovernmental check and ultimate decision-maker, and the Assembly … well, whoever reads the Treaties carefully is bound to conclude that parliament never had much of a place in the construction” (Dahrendorf 1979, p. 12) “Given the serious challenges currently facing the EU, it would be advisable to define the role and powers of national Parliaments and the European Parliament in co-creating and scrutinising key EU policies in the post-Lisbon era.” (COSAC 2011, p. 11) 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Research interest The position of parliamentary bodies within the EU’s multilevel structure has undergone a remarkable change – as illustrated in the two citations above. Originated as a quasi- intergovernmental project between national governments the European Union evolved into a political system with parliamentary control and influence as an undisputed feature of its system. Nevertheless,