The European Parliament and the Origins of New Policy Fields: A Creative Political Laboratory in the Long 1970s

Abstract

Contributing to the growing literature on post-war European democracy from a transnational and comparative perspective, this article explores the role of the European Parliament in pushing the European Community to engage in new transnational policy fields in the long 1970s. Drawing on a wide range of archival sources, parliamentary debates and media coverage, it compares three then-new issue areas and policy fields with limited or no explicit legal foundations in the original treaties: social policy, the environment and consumer policy. Although the EP was not directly elected until 1979, had no legislative decision-making role and only limited budgetary powers, we show that MEPs were nevertheless able to help politicise issues and co-shape the trajectories of policy Europeanisation. They did so chiefly by exercising entrepreneurial leadership, creating horizontal and vertical networks and alliances, devising innovative institutional strategies, and working with the media to push for European solutions to transnational problems.