Are political parties controlling legislative decision-making in the European Parliament? The case of the services directive

Abstract: This case study analyses the efforts of the transnational party groups in controlling the legislative decision-making process inside the European Parliament. The case study focuses on one of the most important and contested pieces of European legislation: the services directive. The study addresses the choice of the rapporteurship for the legislative proposal through comparing the trade-offs between policy preferences, party loyalty and expertise in the nomination process. Further, the study analyses the party group internal conflict patterns, which emerged in the first reading of the proposal. The results show that party group voting loyalty and preference proximity to the party might have been a decisive factor in the nomination of the rapporteur for the services directive. The two largest party groups were also able to secure a compromise solution, which determined the final outcome of the intra-institutional decision-making process.