The Paternity of Policy in the EU: The Agenda Setting Power of the Commission

The literature on the agenda-setting powers of European Union institutions considers the Commission to be a primary actor in determining the EU policy agenda, thanks to its formal powers to initiate the legislative process and informal policy influence. Recent work, however, demonstrates that the Commission may be less autonomous in its agenda-setting powers than previously assumed. This research further explores this possibility by examining the impact of other EU institutional actor preferences on the success of Commission priority initiatives. Our analysis utilizes new and existing data sets to compare the European Commission’s work programmes with European Council Summit Conclusions; the European Parliament’s own initiative reports and Council Presidency work-programmes, to discover the “paternity” of the EU policy agenda. This allows us to determine what percentage of priority legislative initiatives truly originate with the Commission, and to what extent the Commission is an autonomous actor and political agenda-setter rather than an administrative agent serving the interests of other EU institutions.