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Summary of the course European Integration, lesson notes own notes. Lecturer: P. Bursens
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IntroductionWhat is European integration?
- Single market (free European trade)
- EU as an international/ global player
- Profit: open borders, exchange, one currency, political system (makes laws)
- EU is an international organisation but it’s such an organisation that it is in an
integration
- Negative EU: brexit, economic differences, refugee, migration, not democratic system
(people feel like Brussels is too far away), big challenge: confronted with international
players with regimes who are not open to their idea (Turkey, Russia, China and
Brazil), no common army, climate, social policy
- Course deals basically with European Union
- Complexity
Why do states put their sovereignty into an international organisation?
Textbook: Nugent, Neil (2017), The Government and Politics of the European Union, 8ed.,
Palgrave (available at Acco)
Exam:
- MCP exam, (chapters: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 23, 24, 25 from the
Nugent textbook 5, 6, 7, 15, 17 and 18 from the Wallace, Pollack and Young book
(see BB))
LES 2
Brexit: May is travelling back and forth. She made 3 options, which can not be delivered
simultaneously. They can’t be achieved at the same time. Still she is looking for the overlap
of the 3 options.
Chapter 24- 25: Theorising European integration and EU politics
THEORIES OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION
1. Make a distinction of the three worlds of European integration:
- Integration of states: international relations: why are they willing to pool their
sovereignty? to collaborate in such a deep way like today is happening in Europe?
, - Functioning of European Union: EU governance: comparative policies:
institutionalized decision making. No other organisation goes so deep as the EU.
- Impact of the European Union on member states: comparative politics:
Europeanization. States are getting Europeanised.
2. Three generations of EU studies:
- Bottom up: theories from International Relations: why sovereign states integrate →
(neo) Functionalism, (liberal) intergovernmentalism,...
- Within: theories from Comparative Politics try to understand the functioning and the
output (governance) of the European Union as a political system → policy analysis,
institutionalism
- Top down: Europeanization tries to explain what extent EU integration process has
got impact on member states
3. Intellectual background
David Mitrany - a working peace system (1943)
Influenced by WWII: How can we prevent a WWIII? How can we organize things so this will
never happen again?
- Legacy of the failed League of Nations: nationalism as the cause of war
- Eliminate nationalism by making states work together with each other
- Establishment of a series of international functional sectoral agencies
- Expectation that states will discover benefits of cooperation and that increasing
cooperation will refrain states from acting independently
- Political elites and eventually citizens will be socialized in an international
environment
Depoliticization of power transfer: bureaucratic process: no aim to build regional of
worldwide federations
Altiero Spinelli and the European Union of federalists:
Spinelli started from same idea: working together but with states as politicians have to get
support of their votes for IO’s
Legacy of the Resistance Movements of WWII: call for a European Federation: political:
- Explicit aim of a transfer of political authority: abolishment of the sovereign
nation-states and creation of a European federation: political project
- European Congress (The Hague, 1948) failed to establish expected federation
European federalism attracted strong support among Resistance groups in war-time Europe:
leading intellectual figure who advocated constitutional break at the end of war to supersede
the system of sovereign states with federal constitution for Europe
Jean Monnet- functional federalism
Technocrat and planner: double context: economic reconstruction of France: need to control
German economic reconstruction: maximizing interest in working together: bureaucratic
establishment of supranational institutions to make states mutually dependent start with
strategic sectors and add other sectors later: liberalism as starting point for European
relations: realistic → ultimate aim is a political union
, - Schuman plan for ECSC was divided by Jean Monnet, head of the French economic
planning commission, who believed European nation state was inadequate as an
economic unit in the modern world and argued for a Europe-wide economy
- Pooling of coal and steel resources was the first step towards a Europe-wide
economic zone: removed strategic industries from German control and ensured
adequate supplies of coal or the French steel industry: both concerns for Monnet
Convinced the French politicians to create a united Europe and convinced them of their need
of Germany: France would never be able to reconstruct without Germany: would not been a
good idea if each country develops on his own: can lead to new wars
4. International relation theories of European integration
International relation theory in 1950s dominated by realism: treated nation states as
fundamental units of international relations: did not lead to any expectation that governments
of states would voluntarily surrender their sovereign control over policy
Neofunctionalism (Ernst Haas 1958 Leon Lindberg, 1963- 1968)
critique on the dominant IR theory of Realism
Realism - Liberalism → Neofunctionalism
Pluralist theory: states are no unified actors and are not the only international actors:
- Pluralist: domestic interest groups and private actors influence national governments’
international behaviour
- Transnationalism / transgovernmentalism: domestic interest groups bypass national
governments and seek contact with each other. Multinational corporations and the
European Commission become important actors and allies
- Functional spill-over: increasing sectoral integration due to interconnectedness
- Political spill-over: private actors focus on the international level and lobby political
actors to proceed with integration
- Cultivated spill-over: the European Commission fosters integration, process would
undermine sovereignty of states beyond expectations of governments: argued states
are not unified actors, but national interests were determined through pluralistic
process in which states interact with organized interests → also european institution
actors are integrated.
Empirical problem: national vetos (De Gaulle! → start small)
Intergovernmentalism - Stanley Hoffmann (1964)
Building on international relations theory of realism: governments of states are dominant in
international relations and European integration:
- external pressure influence national governments international behaviour
- National governments control integration by keeping eye on national interests
- Domestic interest groups play role but governments keep control: governments enjoy
sovereign power and democratic legitimacy
- When national interest coincide, functional integration is possible to extent that it
serves individual national interest
- Political integration an integration in high politics sector remain highly unlikely: why
integration works on economic level
Liberal intergovernmentalism - Andrew Moravcsik (1993)
, More sophisticated version of intergovernmentalism: states are rational actors but not black
boxes: national governments play a ‘two level game’: first a domestic pluralist or liberal
interest aggregation process and second the international representation of the nation
interest by the national government
- Governments negotiate in Council of Ministers: determine common policy and
necessary institutional arrangements
- Shaped by national preferences: based on national economic interests and outcome
reflect states’ bargaining power
- Empirical critique: analysis only for intergovernmental high level politics and much
less for day-to-day technical decisions
Supranational governance (Sandholtz/ Stone Sweet 1998)
Levels of integration in policy fields: increasing international transactions lead to
supranational society of actors who favour international rules: lobby their governments to set
up rules: reined by supranational institutions and courts: drift away from national
government's’ control
- Located in neofunctionalism and drew on transactionalism and new institutionalism:
EU should be studied as series of regimes
- Increased transactions across national boundaries create supranational society:
favoure creation of rules to govern its behaviour
Post- functionalism (Hooghe and Marks 2009)
From permissive consensus to constraining dissensus politicalization of European
integration level of integration and policy output determined by “normal politics”.
Chapter 2-8 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION
1. 1945- 1957 First steps towards integration
Federalists vs. intergovernmentalism
The ‘European Movement’: plea for a Federal Europe
- 1923: Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi: ‘Pan Europea’
- 1929: Aristide Briand: League of Nations speech
- 1944: Altiero Spinelli: ‘Draft Declaration of the European Resistance’
- Jean Monnet: key player of the European federalists
1946: competing intergovernmental perspective: Winston Churchill: Zurich Speech: wrote
about a united state of Europe by meaning something different: more intergovernmental
1948: European Congress in The Hague: victory of intergovernmentalist view on European
integration: Council of Europe: limited output except in Human Rights: European Declaration
of HR, European Court of HR: prototype of intergovernmental cooperation
US involvement
Post WWII: devastating situation in Western Europe motivates US to get involved: economic
restoration through Marshall Plan: preventing from communism:
- German rehabilitation: how to reconcile recovery of German economy with economic
development and military security of France?
- Inside Germany: fusion of French zone with Bizonia: UK and US: creation of Federal
Republic of Germany (BRD) – International Ruhr Authority
Economic restoration through the Marshall plan: organisation of European cooperation and
development (OECD)
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