Mid-term Evaluation of the 2009-14 European Parliament: Legislative activity and decision-making dynamics. CEPS Special Report, 23 July 2012

This special report analyses legislative activity in the European Union and coalition formation in the European Parliament (EP) during the first half of the 7th legislative term, 2009-14. Co-decision is now the ordinary legislative procedure, not by name only: it was deployed on 90% of new proposals in 2010 and 86% in 2011, which suggests that the EP is now more influential than ever. There are differences in the degree of empowerment across committees, however. This report looks at the legislative workload of selected committees as an indicator of change in their influence, identifying which of them won and which lost out in terms of the quantity and type of legislation they tackle.

The challenges of Europe's fourfold union. Bruegel Policy Contribution 2012/13, 16 August 2012

Five years after the first tremors in Europe’s banking system, what makes the crisis unique is the absence of a democratically accountable decision-making framework; there is an 'executive deficit' that compounds Europe’s democratic deficit. The author argues that the only way to resolve the crisis successfully is a sustained effort to achieve a 'fourfold union' agenda: banking union, fiscal union, competitiveness union and political union. Progress must be made in parallel on each of the four components. In particular, successful progress towards banking union requires a combination of short term action, including the establishment of a temporary resolution authority to identify undercapitalised banks and to restructure them, and longer-term measures, including the creation of permanent authorities for supervision, resolution and deposit insurance.