Although most of the legislative tasks of the European Parliament (EP) are performed in its committees, it is controversial how representative they are of the overall plenary. Distributive, informational and partisan theories suggest respectively that the committee assignments system is designed...

Despite the increased use of stakeholder consultations, little is known about their impact on the legislative process. We examine how consultation of external actors during policy preparation affects decision-making duration and efficiency. We test our predictions on EU legislative...