ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the Commission behaviour in the legislative process leading to the Decision 994/2012. It defines the horizontal preference alignment as homogeneous because the member states had a similar preference for a sharing of information about the intergovernmental agreements (IGA) managed by the Commission with regard to the protection of commercial interests. The chapter also investigates two hypotheses: when the preferences among the principals are homogeneous, the agent is less likely to try to deviate from the preferences of the principals and when the preferences between the principals and the agent are heterogeneous, the agent is more likely to try to deviate from the preferences of the principals. It aims to assess which of the two independent variables has a major effect on the dependent variable, that is the behaviour of the Commission. The chapter explores whether the horizontal and vertical preference alignment affected the Commission in deviating from the preferences of the member states.
