Moreover, the hypotheses posed by Farrel l and He

´

ritier regarding the

conditions under which intersti tial institutional changes can be formalised

need some qualiﬁcation. While it is true that the absence of unanimity to

come back to the ex ante situati on is a necessary condition, there are cases in

which member states init ially disagreed on the need to formali se an

interstitial institutional change, and yet formalisation oc curred even in the

absence of the possibility for actors to make credibl e threats in linked arenas.

Instead, interstitial inst itutional change alters the status quo and thu s the

preferences of member states regarding a new shift of power to the beneﬁt of

the Parliament. Given that most integrationist member states usually see

granting more power to the Parliament as a high priority, the formalisatio n

of interstiti al institut ional change appears as a compromise where member

states with little to lose (no de facto change in power perceived) cede to

member states with much to gain (pretending that they won more power for

the Parliament to their electors or nationa l parli aments).

Finally, it may be useful to intr oduce the notion of ‘democratic legitimacy’

as a resou rce into this theory. Indeed, this may help explai n why the

European Commission on several occasions agreed to give the Parliament

rights with regard to its composition and programme eve n though nothing

obliged it to so do. Thi s is indeed puzzli ng, at least if my assump tion that

supranational institution s are competence maxi misers is right.

In my view, the answer lies in considering a hypothetical cost–be neﬁt

calculation mad e by the Com mission regardi ng its compet ence if it allowed

the Parliament to debate and vote on its college of Commissioners as a

whole. More precisely, given that since the Treaty of Rome, the Commission

is already responsible to the Parliament as a colle ctive – the Parli ament can

put forward a motion of censure – the Commission had little to lose in

presenting itself to the Parliament for a conﬁrmation debate. Moreover, the

Commission pro bably did not predict that the newly elected Par liament

would challenge its President or team. On the other hand, it had to win

some ‘democratic legitimacy’, which is a potenti ally useful resource for

strengthening its own position when facing the Council.

Nevertheless, the individual Commis sioners are not responsible to the

Parliament (no motion of individual censure exists), and therefore the

Commission would have had much to lose when presenting its team

individually in front of the Par liament. That is why it initial ly refus ed to do

so, an d only agreed when the Par liament threatened not to vote on the

Commission if the future Commissioners did not present themselves for

individual he arings.

Notes

1. Which will probably not be implemented because it has been rejected in the French and

Dutch referendums at the time of writing. Still, this would constitute a concession by the

member states to the EP regarding its right of conﬁrming the Commission.