This paper examines the
policy impact of committee rapporteurs in the European Parliament EP) in two
respects. First, we examine the influence of committee rapporteurs on the EP’s
positions in legislative decision making. In particular, we focus on the
positions of the Parliament relative to each of the member states in the
Council of Ministers. Hypotheses are formulated on the impact of the
nationality and party affiliations of rapporteurs. These are tested using a
large dataset containing information on the policy positions of the Parliament
and member states on 70 legislative proposals. We find that the EP’s positions
are significantly closer to the positions of the home member states of the
rapporteurs. Second, we examine the impact of committee rapporteurs on the EP’s
bargaining success. In particular, we focus on the distance between the
Parliament and final decision outcomes, controlling for the extremity of the
Parliament’s positions. Hypotheses are formulated on the impact of rapporteurs’
party affiliations and general policy extremity, and tested using information
from the same dataset. We find that the EP has more bargaining success in
relation to the Council when its rapporteurs are relatively moderate.