WHEN (AND HOW) DO THE COMMISSIONS PREFERENCES MATTER

Regulatory innovations found in the EC's Integrated Mediterranean Prog rammes can best be explained by a model informed by the study of publi c policy and historical institutionalism. In such an approach, prefere nces of the Member States are potentially endogenous. They can be alte red by reasoned arguments presented by Commission experts. Similarly, the Commission's formal agenda-setting power is found to depend more o n the short time horizon of chiefs of government than on imperfect or asymmetric information. Both of these findings suggest limits to the g eneral applicability of rational choice inspired principal-agent model s of the European Community.