Working up the six-pack: Bargaining success in the European Council's task force on strengthening economic governance

Abstract

This article assesses the factors associated with member states’ bargaining success during the negotiations in the European Council's 2010 task force on strengthening economic governance, the pre-decision stage for the Six-Pack. We test theories of decision-making based on the expertise of institutions, and EU member states’ preferences and power resources using new data. With methods derived from the decision-making in the EU projects, we find that proximity to the European Central Bank was associated with greater bargaining success for member states and that the opposite was the case for closeness to the Commission's preferences. We find mixed evidence that member states’ level of indebtedness is associated with bargaining success, defined as the minimum distance between the position of a member state and the final outcome. The findings indicate the importance of the ECB's role given its technical expertise, in defining the outcomes of the task force.