"The Role of Agenda Control in the Creation of a Single Market for Pension Funds"

Hennessy, Alexandra. (2007) "The Role of Agenda Control in the Creation of a Single Market for Pension Funds". In: UNSPECIFIED, Montreal, Canada. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

Given the ideological and institutional differences between Bismarckian and Beveridgean pension systems, European efforts to develop a common pension market have proved a formidable problem for the European Commission. Why did pension market integration fail in the early 1990s but made a successful return onto the EU Commission's agenda more than a decade later? This paper argues that the creation of a pension fund directive in 2003, a crucial step along the way towards a single pension market, is not the result of neoliberal ascendency, but the product of structural change and effective agenda-setting by the European Commission. The shift from an industrial to a service economy, as well as a range of pension reforms in Bismarckian nations, provided a window of opportunity for the Commission to invite member states to negotiate a single pension market. Secondly, learning from past negotiation failure induced EU administrators to use their agenda-setting tools more effectively, including limiting the range of policy issues under consideration, reducing uncertainty about member states' true reform types, and building coalitions with key member states.

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