Tom Delreux
Biographic Data
| ID | 4381311 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tom Delreux |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tom |
| FAMILY NAME | Delreux |
| SIGNATURE | DELREUX T |
| AFFILIATIONS | UCLouvain |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2162-9273 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 214 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 30 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
In the end, it could be a ‘no’. Conditions of ratification challenges on international agreements by the European Parliament
How the European Parliament Chooses Its Battles
This article explains the occurrence and timing of resolutions adopted by the European Parliament (EP) on international agreements. Such resolutions allow the EP to exert influence, especially when they are adopted early in the negotiation process (i.e., ‘early resolutions’). However, the EP does not systematically adopt (early) resolutions. The article therefore addresses two research questions: (1) under which conditions does the EP adopt resol…
Missed opportunities
International climate governance no longer takes place only in the UNFCCC but is spread across numerous fora that collectively form the international regime complex on climate change. For climate leaders like the EU, the regime complex creates opportunities for strategic activity in its diplomacy across the different fora. This article examines how internal compartmentalization affected the EU’s diplomacy across the international regime complex o…
The European Union as an Actor Navigating International Regime Complexes
Global governance in many domains is increasingly characterised by the existence of international regime complexes—i.e., sets of overlapping institutional fora taking up different aspects of a broader issue area. As an international actor, the EU faces a context of such international regime complexity. Yet, little is known about how the EU navigates international regime complexes and how regime complexes impact the EU’s behaviour in individual fo…
One Big Conversation
The EU participates in many international fora related to climate change (for example UNFCCC, G20, Montreal Protocol), which collectively constitute the international regime complex on climate change (IRCCC). Using the case study of negotiations on the Paris Agreement, this paper addresses the question How and why did the EU use the different fora of the IRCCC to achieve its objectives in the Paris Agreement negotiations? It finds that the EU use…
Role Perceptions in Global Environmental Negotiations
How ambitious, active and influential are countries and regional groups in global environmental negotiations? We construct eight ideal types of their roles based on ambition, activity and influence. We then examine how the roles of countries and regional groups are perceived by participants in these negotiations through a large-scale online survey. The European Union, Norway and the African Group are perceived as the most prominent reformist lead…
A Nice Tailwind
In April 2018, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) reached agreement on its Initial Strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping. The Initial Strategy was a success for the EU, as it achieved its long-term objective of reaching an international agreement on greening shipping. However, several factors call into question whether the “success” was the result of the role played by the EU. Using process-tracing, we…
Evaluating EU responsiveness to the evolution of the international regime complex on climate change
The origins of EU legislation
This article traces the origins of European legislation during the legislative policy-making process. It identifies three phases where parts of the text of legislative acts can be developed: (1) agenda-setting; (2) intra-institutional decision-making and (3) interinstitutional negotiations, depending on whether the content of the legislation originates respectively in the Commission proposal, the co-legislators’ positions or trilogue negotiations…
Ego versus Alter
This paper compares how European and non‐European participants in international environmental negotiations perceive the EU's role in such negotiations. Three dimensions of the EU's role (environmental ambition, diplomatic activity and influence) are assessed in three UN‐wide environmental forums (the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions on chemicals, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the United Nations Environment Assembly). The p…
Parliamentarizing a Politicized Policy
Climate change is a central topic of concern for EU international diplomacy and is the site of increased politicization globally. Concomitantly, a parallel process of parliamentarization of the EU has unfolded. Whilst the European Parliament (EP) has enjoyed significant powers in internal policy-making on climate change, since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009 the EP has gained the right to veto the EU’s ratification of internatio…
How much do agents in trilogues deviate from their principals’ instructions? Introducing a deviation index
This article presents a newly developed ‘deviation index’ to measure, in a quantitative and standardized way, the extent to which the negotiators in trilogues (the rapporteur and the rotating Presidency) deviate from the instructions of the institutions they represent (respectively, the EP and the Council). Based on text-mining techniques, the index is applied to the entire set of trilogue decision-making processes in the 2012–2016 period (N = 11…
Concluding Early Agreements in the EU
Applying a principal‐agent perspective on trilogue negotiations, this article examines how the rapporteur and the Presidency, as agents of respectively the European Parliament and the Council, are able to reach a deal with their fellow agent while avoiding an involuntary defection among their principals. Despite these intra‐ and inter‐institutional constraints, early agreements can be concluded because agents execute two parallel tasks on behalf …
The Principal Agent Model and the European Union
This book assesses the use and limitations of the principal-agent model in a context of increasingly complex political systems such as the European Union. Whilst a number of conceptual, theoretical an
Twenty Years of Principal-Agent Research in EU Politics
In the 20 years after its introduction, the principal-agent model has seen increasing use to study political processes in virtually all policy domains in which the EU is active. Relaxing the strict assumptions that guided the original economic applications has greatly widened the scope for potential applications. This very phenomenon has also created an existential challenge to the model’s contemporary use, which is combining the reductionist aim…
Informal division of labour in EU foreign policy-making
© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. On many issues in European Union (EU) foreign policy-making, political steering and operational action are provided by an informal, self-selected group of actors. Although this informal division of labour is an important phenomenon, it has largely escaped the radar of EU foreign policy scholars. This article aims to fill that gap. Applying an inductive approach, it presents empirical o…
The EU as International Environmental Negotiator
Delreux examines how the EU functions when it participates in international environmental negotiations. In particular, this book looks at the internal EU decision-making process with regard to international negotiations that lead to multilateral environmental agreements. By studying eight such decision-making processes, the book analyses how much negotiation autonomy (or 'discretion') the EU negotiator (the European Commission or the Council Pres…
Competing structural powers and challenges for the EU's structural foreign policy
This article contends that, in order to understand global affairs, not only crises and conflicts need to be examined, but also long-term processes which result from the competition between structural powers. These structural powers have the potential to set or influence the organizing principles and the rules of the game in other countries and regions as well as the international system in general. The article focuses on the European Union's pote…
The Foreign Policy of the European Union
A comprehensive analysis of the foreign policy of the EU assessing the history, actors, processes, partnerships and rivalries of this key area of EU policy. The second edition includes additional case studies, a new chapter on foreign policy analysis, and is fully revised and updated to take account of the latest trends, issues and research.
The Cultivation of Genetically Modified Organisms in the E uropean U nion
This article analyzes the reasons why in 2010 the E uropean C ommission proposed a legislative framework on genetically modified organisms ( GMOs ) that could give some powers back to the M ember S tates. This legislative proposal is puzzling since it moves the centre of decision‐making regarding the cultivation of GMOs from the EU level back to the domestic level and it also contradicts the generally acknowledged behaviour of the C ommission as …
EU actorness, cohesiveness and effectiveness in environmental affairs
This contribution analyses the actorness, cohesiveness and effectiveness of the European Union (EU) in international environmental negotiations and examines the impact of the external context on the relationship between cohesiveness and effectiveness. Based on comparative data of nine international negotiations resulting in a multilateral environmental agreement, the paper shows that the EU’s cohesiveness is higher in global negotiations than in …
Taking the lead
The article examines the informal division of labour in the European Union's (EU's) external environmental policy-making. It focuses on informal arrangements in the EU co-ordination and representation processes with regard to the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) and international climate negotiations. Whereas the rotating Presidency is formally in charge of leading the internal EU co-ordination and representing the EU ex…
The rotating Presidency and the EU’s external representation in environmental affairs
This paper examines the role of the rotating Presidency in the external representation of the EU in international environmental negotiations after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. Focussing on two negotiation sessions under the 2010 Belgian Presidency, the biodiversity negotiations in Nagoya (October 2010) and the climate change negotiations in Cancún (December 2010), the paper’s aim is fourfold. First, it explains why the entry into fo…
Cooperation or Conflict? Problematizing Organizational Overlap in Europe
The relation between the European Commission and the EU member states in the transatlantic Open Skies negotiations
How Agents Weaken their Principals’ Incentives to Control
This article examines why and how agents weaken the incentives to control of their principals when the EU negotiates international agreements. Based on analyses of various EU decision‐making processes on international trade and environmental agreements, this article argues that the EU negotiator‐as‐agent has a number of tools to affect the cost–benefit analysis on the basis of which the member states‐as‐principals decide on the activation of thei…
EU actorness, cohesiveness and effectiveness in environmental affairs
This contribution analyses the actorness, cohesiveness and effectiveness of the European Union (EU) in international environmental negotiations and examines the impact of the external context on the relationship between cohesiveness and effectiveness. Based on comparative data of nine international negotiations resulting in a multilateral environmental agreement, the paper shows that the EU’s cohesiveness is higher in global negotiations than in …
Concluding Early Agreements in the EU
Applying a principal‐agent perspective on trilogue negotiations, this article examines how the rapporteur and the Presidency, as agents of respectively the European Parliament and the Council, are able to reach a deal with their fellow agent while avoiding an involuntary defection among their principals. Despite these intra‐ and inter‐institutional constraints, early agreements can be concluded because agents execute two parallel tasks on behalf …
Informal division of labour in EU foreign policy-making
© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. On many issues in European Union (EU) foreign policy-making, political steering and operational action are provided by an informal, self-selected group of actors. Although this informal division of labour is an important phenomenon, it has largely escaped the radar of EU foreign policy scholars. This article aims to fill that gap. Applying an inductive approach, it presents empirical o…
How much do agents in trilogues deviate from their principals’ instructions? Introducing a deviation index
This article presents a newly developed ‘deviation index’ to measure, in a quantitative and standardized way, the extent to which the negotiators in trilogues (the rapporteur and the rotating Presidency) deviate from the instructions of the institutions they represent (respectively, the EP and the Council). Based on text-mining techniques, the index is applied to the entire set of trilogue decision-making processes in the 2012–2016 period (N = 11…
The EU as a negotiator in multilateral chemicals negotiations
This article focuses on the way the EU operates in negotiations leading to an international agreement, which touches upon competences shared between the EC and the member states. More specifically, the article addresses the EU decision-making process and the EU negotiation arrangement with regard to multilateral chemicals conventions. A principal–agent model is used to frame theoretically the relation between the member states and the EU negotiat…
Cooperation or Conflict? Problematizing Organizational Overlap in Europe
Taking the lead
The article examines the informal division of labour in the European Union's (EU's) external environmental policy-making. It focuses on informal arrangements in the EU co-ordination and representation processes with regard to the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) and international climate negotiations. Whereas the rotating Presidency is formally in charge of leading the internal EU co-ordination and representing the EU ex…
The origins of EU legislation
This article traces the origins of European legislation during the legislative policy-making process. It identifies three phases where parts of the text of legislative acts can be developed: (1) agenda-setting; (2) intra-institutional decision-making and (3) interinstitutional negotiations, depending on whether the content of the legislation originates respectively in the Commission proposal, the co-legislators’ positions or trilogue negotiations…
Ego versus Alter
This paper compares how European and non‐European participants in international environmental negotiations perceive the EU's role in such negotiations. Three dimensions of the EU's role (environmental ambition, diplomatic activity and influence) are assessed in three UN‐wide environmental forums (the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions on chemicals, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the United Nations Environment Assembly). The p…
The EU negotiates multilateral environmental agreements
Starting from principal–agent theory, this article analyses the conditions under which an EU negotiator enjoys a particular degree of discretion vis-à-vis the member states during international environmental negotiations. A qualitative comparative analysis of eight EU decision-making processes with regard to international negotiations leading to a multilateral environmental agreement indicates that the compellingness of the international negotiat…
The European Union in international environmental negotiations
A Nice Tailwind
In April 2018, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) reached agreement on its Initial Strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping. The Initial Strategy was a success for the EU, as it achieved its long-term objective of reaching an international agreement on greening shipping. However, several factors call into question whether the “success” was the result of the role played by the EU. Using process-tracing, we…
Cooperation and Control in the European Union
This article examines the internal decision-making process in the European Union when the EU participates in international environmental negotiations. More particularly, the practical functioning of the relation between the member states and the EU negotiator (i.e. the Commission, the Presidency or a lead country), representing the member states externally, is examined. Starting from principal—agent theory and based on empirical research on eight…
One Big Conversation
The EU participates in many international fora related to climate change (for example UNFCCC, G20, Montreal Protocol), which collectively constitute the international regime complex on climate change (IRCCC). Using the case study of negotiations on the Paris Agreement, this paper addresses the question How and why did the EU use the different fora of the IRCCC to achieve its objectives in the Paris Agreement negotiations? It finds that the EU use…
Evaluating EU responsiveness to the evolution of the international regime complex on climate change
Parliamentarizing a Politicized Policy
Climate change is a central topic of concern for EU international diplomacy and is the site of increased politicization globally. Concomitantly, a parallel process of parliamentarization of the EU has unfolded. Whilst the European Parliament (EP) has enjoyed significant powers in internal policy-making on climate change, since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009 the EP has gained the right to veto the EU’s ratification of internatio…
Twenty Years of Principal-Agent Research in EU Politics
In the 20 years after its introduction, the principal-agent model has seen increasing use to study political processes in virtually all policy domains in which the EU is active. Relaxing the strict assumptions that guided the original economic applications has greatly widened the scope for potential applications. This very phenomenon has also created an existential challenge to the model’s contemporary use, which is combining the reductionist aim…
Competing structural powers and challenges for the EU's structural foreign policy
This article contends that, in order to understand global affairs, not only crises and conflicts need to be examined, but also long-term processes which result from the competition between structural powers. These structural powers have the potential to set or influence the organizing principles and the rules of the game in other countries and regions as well as the international system in general. The article focuses on the European Union's pote…
How the European Parliament Chooses Its Battles
This article explains the occurrence and timing of resolutions adopted by the European Parliament (EP) on international agreements. Such resolutions allow the EP to exert influence, especially when they are adopted early in the negotiation process (i.e., ‘early resolutions’). However, the EP does not systematically adopt (early) resolutions. The article therefore addresses two research questions: (1) under which conditions does the EP adopt resol…
Missed opportunities
International climate governance no longer takes place only in the UNFCCC but is spread across numerous fora that collectively form the international regime complex on climate change. For climate leaders like the EU, the regime complex creates opportunities for strategic activity in its diplomacy across the different fora. This article examines how internal compartmentalization affected the EU’s diplomacy across the international regime complex o…
The European Union as an Actor Navigating International Regime Complexes
Global governance in many domains is increasingly characterised by the existence of international regime complexes—i.e., sets of overlapping institutional fora taking up different aspects of a broader issue area. As an international actor, the EU faces a context of such international regime complexity. Yet, little is known about how the EU navigates international regime complexes and how regime complexes impact the EU’s behaviour in individual fo…
The rotating Presidency and the EU’s external representation in environmental affairs
This paper examines the role of the rotating Presidency in the external representation of the EU in international environmental negotiations after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. Focussing on two negotiation sessions under the 2010 Belgian Presidency, the biodiversity negotiations in Nagoya (October 2010) and the climate change negotiations in Cancún (December 2010), the paper’s aim is fourfold. First, it explains why the entry into fo…
The relation between the European Commission and the EU member states in the transatlantic Open Skies negotiations
The European Union in international environmental negotiations
The EU as a negotiator in multilateral chemicals negotiations
This article focuses on the way the EU operates in negotiations leading to an international agreement, which touches upon competences shared between the EC and the member states. More specifically, the article addresses the EU decision-making process and the EU negotiation arrangement with regard to multilateral chemicals conventions. A principal–agent model is used to frame theoretically the relation between the member states and the EU negotiat…
Cooperation and Control in the European Union
This article examines the internal decision-making process in the European Union when the EU participates in international environmental negotiations. More particularly, the practical functioning of the relation between the member states and the EU negotiator (i.e. the Commission, the Presidency or a lead country), representing the member states externally, is examined. Starting from principal—agent theory and based on empirical research on eight…
The EU negotiates multilateral environmental agreements
Starting from principal–agent theory, this article analyses the conditions under which an EU negotiator enjoys a particular degree of discretion vis-à-vis the member states during international environmental negotiations. A qualitative comparative analysis of eight EU decision-making processes with regard to international negotiations leading to a multilateral environmental agreement indicates that the compellingness of the international negotiat…
How Agents Weaken their Principals’ Incentives to Control
This article examines why and how agents weaken the incentives to control of their principals when the EU negotiates international agreements. Based on analyses of various EU decision‐making processes on international trade and environmental agreements, this article argues that the EU negotiator‐as‐agent has a number of tools to affect the cost–benefit analysis on the basis of which the member states‐as‐principals decide on the activation of thei…
The relation between the European Commission and the EU member states in the transatlantic Open Skies negotiations
Integrating Europe
The rotating Presidency and the EU’s external representation in environmental affairs
This paper examines the role of the rotating Presidency in the external representation of the EU in international environmental negotiations after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. Focussing on two negotiation sessions under the 2010 Belgian Presidency, the biodiversity negotiations in Nagoya (October 2010) and the climate change negotiations in Cancún (December 2010), the paper’s aim is fourfold. First, it explains why the entry into fo…
Cooperation or Conflict? Problematizing Organizational Overlap in Europe
Taking the lead
The article examines the informal division of labour in the European Union's (EU's) external environmental policy-making. It focuses on informal arrangements in the EU co-ordination and representation processes with regard to the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) and international climate negotiations. Whereas the rotating Presidency is formally in charge of leading the internal EU co-ordination and representing the EU ex…
The Foreign Policy of the European Union
A comprehensive analysis of the foreign policy of the EU assessing the history, actors, processes, partnerships and rivalries of this key area of EU policy. The second edition includes additional case studies, a new chapter on foreign policy analysis, and is fully revised and updated to take account of the latest trends, issues and research.
The Cultivation of Genetically Modified Organisms in the E uropean U nion
This article analyzes the reasons why in 2010 the E uropean C ommission proposed a legislative framework on genetically modified organisms ( GMOs ) that could give some powers back to the M ember S tates. This legislative proposal is puzzling since it moves the centre of decision‐making regarding the cultivation of GMOs from the EU level back to the domestic level and it also contradicts the generally acknowledged behaviour of the C ommission as …
EU actorness, cohesiveness and effectiveness in environmental affairs
This contribution analyses the actorness, cohesiveness and effectiveness of the European Union (EU) in international environmental negotiations and examines the impact of the external context on the relationship between cohesiveness and effectiveness. Based on comparative data of nine international negotiations resulting in a multilateral environmental agreement, the paper shows that the EU’s cohesiveness is higher in global negotiations than in …
Competing structural powers and challenges for the EU's structural foreign policy
This article contends that, in order to understand global affairs, not only crises and conflicts need to be examined, but also long-term processes which result from the competition between structural powers. These structural powers have the potential to set or influence the organizing principles and the rules of the game in other countries and regions as well as the international system in general. The article focuses on the European Union's pote…
The EU as International Environmental Negotiator
Delreux examines how the EU functions when it participates in international environmental negotiations. In particular, this book looks at the internal EU decision-making process with regard to international negotiations that lead to multilateral environmental agreements. By studying eight such decision-making processes, the book analyses how much negotiation autonomy (or 'discretion') the EU negotiator (the European Commission or the Council Pres…
The Principal Agent Model and the European Union
This book assesses the use and limitations of the principal-agent model in a context of increasingly complex political systems such as the European Union. Whilst a number of conceptual, theoretical an
Twenty Years of Principal-Agent Research in EU Politics
In the 20 years after its introduction, the principal-agent model has seen increasing use to study political processes in virtually all policy domains in which the EU is active. Relaxing the strict assumptions that guided the original economic applications has greatly widened the scope for potential applications. This very phenomenon has also created an existential challenge to the model’s contemporary use, which is combining the reductionist aim…
Informal division of labour in EU foreign policy-making
© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. On many issues in European Union (EU) foreign policy-making, political steering and operational action are provided by an informal, self-selected group of actors. Although this informal division of labour is an important phenomenon, it has largely escaped the radar of EU foreign policy scholars. This article aims to fill that gap. Applying an inductive approach, it presents empirical o…
How much do agents in trilogues deviate from their principals’ instructions? Introducing a deviation index
This article presents a newly developed ‘deviation index’ to measure, in a quantitative and standardized way, the extent to which the negotiators in trilogues (the rapporteur and the rotating Presidency) deviate from the instructions of the institutions they represent (respectively, the EP and the Council). Based on text-mining techniques, the index is applied to the entire set of trilogue decision-making processes in the 2012–2016 period (N = 11…
Concluding Early Agreements in the EU
Applying a principal‐agent perspective on trilogue negotiations, this article examines how the rapporteur and the Presidency, as agents of respectively the European Parliament and the Council, are able to reach a deal with their fellow agent while avoiding an involuntary defection among their principals. Despite these intra‐ and inter‐institutional constraints, early agreements can be concluded because agents execute two parallel tasks on behalf …
Parliamentarizing a Politicized Policy
Climate change is a central topic of concern for EU international diplomacy and is the site of increased politicization globally. Concomitantly, a parallel process of parliamentarization of the EU has unfolded. Whilst the European Parliament (EP) has enjoyed significant powers in internal policy-making on climate change, since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009 the EP has gained the right to veto the EU’s ratification of internatio…
Role Perceptions in Global Environmental Negotiations
How ambitious, active and influential are countries and regional groups in global environmental negotiations? We construct eight ideal types of their roles based on ambition, activity and influence. We then examine how the roles of countries and regional groups are perceived by participants in these negotiations through a large-scale online survey. The European Union, Norway and the African Group are perceived as the most prominent reformist lead…
A Nice Tailwind
In April 2018, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) reached agreement on its Initial Strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping. The Initial Strategy was a success for the EU, as it achieved its long-term objective of reaching an international agreement on greening shipping. However, several factors call into question whether the “success” was the result of the role played by the EU. Using process-tracing, we…
Evaluating EU responsiveness to the evolution of the international regime complex on climate change
The origins of EU legislation
This article traces the origins of European legislation during the legislative policy-making process. It identifies three phases where parts of the text of legislative acts can be developed: (1) agenda-setting; (2) intra-institutional decision-making and (3) interinstitutional negotiations, depending on whether the content of the legislation originates respectively in the Commission proposal, the co-legislators’ positions or trilogue negotiations…
Law (28 works) · Political science (28 works) · Law (25 works) · European Union Policy and Governance (23 works) · International trade (21 works) · Economics (20 works) · Negotiation (18 works) · European union (17 works) · Politics (17 works) · Business (16 works)