Legislative Scrutiny? The Political Economy and Practice of Legislative Vetoes in the European Union

Abstract: This article examines the European Parliament's and Council of Ministers' use of legislative vetoes to override the European Commission's rule-making. Well-established principles of political economy suggest that the Parliament and Council will exercise their veto powers infrequently.
Using an original data set of legislative vetoes of Commission acts by both European legislators from June 2006 to April 2014, we show that levels of formal exercise of the legislative veto to overrule the Commission's regulatory policies are indeed very low. Particularly interesting is the fact that the level of exercise of legislative veto provisions has not increased significantly since the Lisbon Treaty came into effect, suggesting that the ways in which the Treaty formally augmented the powers of legislative scrutiny have not resulted in appreciably greater formal exercise of these powers. Moreover, no significant differences appear between the two European Union legislative bodies.