A Formal Model of Delegation in the European Union.

This article builds on formal U.S. and EU works on the politics of delegation by incorporating EU-specific features: the legislative and executive role of the Commission, the legislative and executive role of the members of the Council of Ministers, the fact that many European policies are executed by the different national administrations, and the variety of decision rules for the adoption of EU law. The model produces three main findings: 1) in case of unanimity and a new law, member states agree to restrain their own national administrations at only an intermediate level of policy conflict within the Council and the equilibrium level of national discretion first decreases then increases as policy conflict within the Council increases, 2) compared to unanimity, majority voting facilitates the adoption of legislation that restrains national authorities, shifts powers from national administrations to a supranational Commission and increases the discretion of a supranational Commission, 3) in codecision, a supranational Parliament with preferences similar to those of the Commission reinforces the dynamics of majority voting, a national Parliament may lead to an inversion of this dynamics. Check author’s web site for an updated version of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]