A colossus with feet of clay? Assessing Germany’s prevalence in European Union lawmaking

The distributive bargaining literature argues that Germany prevails in the European Union due to its superior power resources. This paper tests this expectation empirically by assessing Germany’s success on actual EU legislation with three sources of data: Council voting records (2009–2019), decision outcomes on the most controversial proposals (1999–2009) and the outcomes of the Eurozone reform (2010–2015). The results provide no support for Germany’s prevalence in daily EU lawmaking. This country is found to cast a substantive number of contestations in the Council and attain significantly lower bargaining success than other member states on key EU secondary legislation. The paper suggests that such poor showing stems from a high extremity and intensity of Germany’s preferences. Generally, this study contributes to the scholarly knowledge by refuting the narrative that Germany dictates actual EU legislation and challenging the distributive bargaining argument that states with greater power resources are more successful in the EU.