This paper examines the consequences of Europeanization on member states’ policy‐making processes,
solving some of the literature’s controversy on the scope and extent of Europeanization. I hypothesize
that Europeanization leads to fewer punctuated patterns of policy change in the sovereign agenda while
increasing the level of punctuations for the Europeanized share of legislation. The theoretical framework
builds on theories of agenda‐setting and public policy‐making combined with Europeanization literature,
focusing on constraints in issue attention and institutional friction. Lower workload levels and institutional
change allow easier allocation of attention to the remaining topics of sovereign competence. Decreasing
issue constraints on the level of the Europeanized agenda are expected to result in more punctuations. In
the empirical analysis, using a novel dataset on German legislation, I find that the sovereign agenda
becomes less punctuated with decreasing policy responsibilities after having adjusted to EU Treaty
changes’ consequences while the Europeanized agenda develops contrary.
