Hostname: page-component-788cddb947-kc5xb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-15T17:48:58.015Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The EU budget after Lisbon: rigidity and reduced spending?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2013

Giacomo Benedetto*
Affiliation:
Department of Politics and International Relations, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey, UK E-mail: giacomo.benedetto@rhul.ac.uk

Abstract

This article examines the changes of the Lisbon Treaty to the rules on agreeing the European Union's (EU) annual budget and multiannual financial framework. The comparative budgets literature as well as theories of agenda-setting, veto players and empowerment of the European Parliament inform the analysis of how the EU's budgetary powers changed and the likely outcomes on spending. Overall, the powers of the European Parliament are reduced, the budget becomes more inflexible and, most significantly, the rules of the Lisbon Treaty have the effect of reducing the amounts available to spend. Although the Lisbon Treaty grants the European Parliament greater influence over ordinary EU legislation, national governments seem to have used the same treaty to send the Parliament's budgetary powers in the opposite direction and to curtail EU expenditure.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Benedetto, G. (2006) The European Parliament: Consensus and Coordination for Enhanced Powers. In König T. and Hug S. (eds.), Policy-making Processes and the European Constitution. London: Routledge, 250259.Google Scholar
Benedetto, G. (2012) Budget Reform and the Lisbon Treaty. In Benedetto G. and Milio S. (eds.), European Union Budget Reform: Institutions, Policy and Economic Crisis. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 4058.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benedetto, G.Hix, S. (2007) Explaining the European Parliament's gains in the EU Constitution. Review of International Organizations 2: 115129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benedetto, G., Høyland, B. (2007) The EU Annual Budgetary Procedure: The Existing Rules and Proposed Reforms of the Convention and Intergovernmental Conference, 2002–04. Journal of Common Market Studies, 45(3): 565–587.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheibub, J. A. (2006) Presidentialism, Electoral Identifiability, and Budget Balances in Democratic Systems. American Political Science Review 100(3): 353368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grossman, G. M.Helpman, E. (2008) Separation of Powers and the Budget Process. Journal of Public Economics 92: 407425.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hix, S. (2002) Constitutional Agenda-Setting through Discretion in Rule Interpretation: Why the European Parliament Won at Amsterdam. British Journal of Political Science 32(2): 259280.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hix, S.Høyland, B. (2011) The Political System of the European Union. Basingstoke: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Interinstitutional Agreement between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission on budgetary discipline and sound financial management (2006) C 139, 14 June 2006.Google Scholar
Lindner, J. (2006) Conflict and Change in EU Budgetary Politics. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindner, J.Rittberger, B. (2003) The Creation, Interpretation and Contestation of Institutions – Revisiting Historical Institutionalism. Journal of Common Market Studies 41(3): 445473.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostrom, E. (1990) The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ostrom, E. (2010) Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems. American Economic Review 100: 133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostrom, E., Gardner R. and Walker J. with Agrawal A., Bloomquist W., Schlager E. and Tang S. Y. (1994). Rules, Games and Common-Pool Resources. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Persson, T.Tabellini, G. (2003) The Economic Effects of Constitutions. London: The MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piris, J.-C. (2010) The Lisbon Treaty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rittberger, B. (2000) Impatient Legislators and New Issue Dimensions: A Critique of the Garrett-Tsebelis “Standard Version” of Legislative Politics. Journal of European Public Policy 7(4): 554575.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rittberger, B. (2003) The Creation and Empowerment of the European Parliament. Journal of Common Market Studies 41(2): 203226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rittberger, B. (2005) Building Europe's Parliament: Democratic Representation beyond the Nation State. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scharpf, F. W. (1996) Negative and Positive Integration in the Political Economy of European Welfare States. In Marks G., Scharpf F. W., Schmitter P. C. and Streck W. (eds.), Governance in the European Union. London: Sage, 1539.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsebelis, G. (1994) The Power of the European Parliament as a Conditional Agenda-Setter. American Political Science Review 88(1): 128142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsebelis, G. (2002) Veto Players: How Political Institutions Work, Princeton. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsebelis, G., Jensen, C. B., Kalandrakis, A., Kreppel, A. (2001) Legislative Procedures in the European Union: An Empirical Analysis. British Journal of Political Science 31(4): 573599.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsebelis, G.Garrett, G. (2000) Legislative Politics in the European Union. European Union Politics 1(1): 936.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wehner, J. (2010a) Legislatures and the Budget Process: The Myth of Fiscal Control. Basingstoke: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wehner, J. (2010b) Institutional Constraints on Profligate Politicians: The Conditional Effect of Partisan Fragmentation on Budget Deficits. Comparative Political Studies 43(1): 208229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar