Decision-making on the common agricultural policy of the EU: The influence of the European commission

A formal model is developed of a two-stage decision-making in the European Union (EU) Common Agricultural Policy. The EU decision-making procedure provides some freedom to the European Commission to influence the final policy levels. The least powerful is the Commission under simple majority voting, under which the final policy level is obtained by the median voter theorem. Under qualified majority (including unanimity), the Commission's potential to influence policy level increases. However, with the rise of qualified majority the possibility of a stalemate also increases. By using package deals, the Commission can extend its power and/or get out of the status quo. The more policies are in the package, the bigger becomes the Commission power.