5 - The EU Budget: Financially Trivial, Politically Substantial

Summary

In this chapter, I employ a unique data set on annual EU budget negotiations in the Council from 1970–2013 and test the main empirical implications of my argument using quantitative research methods. The analysis demonstrates that EU governments that face elections at home receive significantly larger budget shares than EU governments that do not face elections at home. Consistent with the theory, I show that signaling responsiveness has become more relevant with the historical politicization of the EU since Maastricht. In addition, these signals are particularly strong when elections are very competitive (i.e., when public support is low or uncertain, and when the economy is not doing well), when EU governments are able to secure the hidden cooperation of other EU governments, or when they use their formal bargaining leverage to influence the negotiation outcomes. With these findings, the chapter provides first evidence that EU governments try to signal before national elections that they are responsive to their citizens in European negotiations. Ialso use aggregated Eurobarometer data on citizens' approval of their national governments and analyze whether responsiveness in EU budget negotiations is relevant to voters' approval of their government.