A good bluff is half the battle

In addition to its regular legislative competencies, the Maastricht Treaty authorized the European Parliament (EP) to launch non-legislative reports. In this study, a special type of non-legislative reports, own-initiative reports, are analyzed by means of regression analysis. Thereby the individual characteristics of the Members of Parliament (MEP) and the legislative competencies of the committees are accounted for. The results reveal a considerable difference in the activity level of committees and MEPs with regard to preparing own-initiative reports. Firstly, high levels of legislative competence of the EP committees correspond to a low interest in drawing up own-initiative reports. Secondly, on the individual level, being a member in a prestigious but legislative relatively powerless committee increases the chances of authoring own-initiative reports. Thus, those committees with few or no legislative competencies use own-initiative reports to gain more influence over those policy areas, where the European Parliament holds only few or no legislative competencies.

Eva Maria Vögtle studied in Konstanz, Germany, and Santiago de Compostela, Spain, Political Sciences and Public Administration. She is a junior researcher at the University of Konstanz. Her main reasearch interest are higher education policy, the Bologna Process and its impact on higher education reforms worldwide.