"The More the Merrier: The Impact of Enlargement on EU Budgetary Negotiations"

Why were some of the European Union (EU) budgets vetoed in the earlier years of the EU but we do not observe any vetoes lately? Recent research on the EU budget proposes insufficient explanations of the reduction in conflict on budgetary negotiations. The literature on enlargement is pessimistic about the effects of enlargement, especially when dealing with EU funds where member states are expected to fight more. The existing bargaining models offer some insights on the cooperative dynamics in the EU, but provide no empirical testing. I argue that enlargement stabilizes the budgetary process and makes cooperation more durable among the budgetary authorities – the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. Using formal theory and regression analysis, I show that every country that joins the EU increases the bargaining space on the budget and thus makes agreement more likely