The struggle for a common statute of MEPs 

The struggle for a common statute of MEPs – an analysis of decision-making in the European Union from a rational choice institutionalist perspective

This Master Thesis is one of the five best Master Theses of the academic year 2002-2003 in the European political and administrative studies of the College of Europe.

Abstract

The struggle for a common statute of the members of European Parliament is certainly one of the most controversial and long-lasting legislative processes on European level. As the statute is supposed to rule not only the questions related to the independence of parliamentarians but above all their financial entitlements, several attempts have been made to find a solution for these important issues since the first direct elections of the EP in 1979. Though with article 190,5 TEC the long-awaited legal basis for decision was finally introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam, the dossier is still not finalised today. Our research question regarding the struggle for a common statute of MEPs is twofold:

• On the one hand, we try to explain the outcome of EU decision-making in this peculiar case: why is the adoption of a the common statute blocked for such a long time?
• On the other hand, we asses if the “Veto players theory”, a powerful theoretical approach developed by George Tsebelis and based on rational choice institutionalism (RCI), provides a suitable framework for our study: can we understand policy outcomes in the European Union as emerging from the interaction between the preferences of the political actors and the institutional set up, the latter constraining the actors’ behaviour?

The findings of our “analytical narrative” suggest that the institutional arrangements are indeed the decisive factors for the blockage of the common statute: in the bicameral adoption procedure, with the Council a the one branch of legislature and the European Parliament as the other, the outcome depends on who is setting the agenda. Yet, this hasn’t been completely clarified so far, neither for the internal decision-making process inside a, on this issue, deeply divided Parliament nor between the EP and the Council of ministers that is in principle reluctant towards a too pro-integrationist statute for MEPs. It is possible that clarification about who has the agenda setting power will finally be searched from the Convention on the Future of Europe or in front of the European Court of Justice.

Obviously, Tsebelis’ theoretical approach has passed the test of explaining the struggle for a common statute of MEPs. Thus our case study which successfully applied it to this particular piece of EU legislation hopes to contribute its bit to the general understanding of decisionmaking in the European Union.

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