Ideology and Agenda Setting on the Court of Justice of European Union: Evidence from Anti-Trust and State Aid Cases

Can governments influence the ideological direction of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) through judicial appointments? How does the internal allocation of responsibilities affect CJEU decisions? These questions have been difficult to answer given that the CJEU publishes its judgments as a collective. We present a model in which a reporting judge proposes a draft judgment to a panel, which can then amend it before voting. The model implies that both the preferences of the median and the reporting judge shape rulings and that the reporting judge's influence grows when other judges face higher costs for drafting alternative opinions. We test these implications using annulment cases against EU Commission decisions relating to competition policy brought in the 1990-2021 period. As the median and the reporting judge are appointed by more economically left-wing governments, the Court increasingly rules in favor of government intervention in the economy.