SUMMARY INSTITUTIONS AND
POLICY OF THE EUROPEAN
UNION
vrijdag 16 februari 2024
Chapter 1: What is the EU?
1.1 Introduction - Different levels of knowledge about the EU within
the EU
- Eurobarometer: “I understand how the EU works” - Luxemburg at the top, France at the
bottom
- Objective knowledge about the EU among European citizens: Eurobarometer
- True/False Questions in Eurobarometer survey
- The Euro Area currently consists of 20 Member States (true), the Members of the
European Parliament are directly elected by the citizens of each Member State (true), the
Members of the European Parliament are directly elected by the citizens of each Member
State (true), Switzerland is a Member State of the EU (false)
- Answers given by Europeans: 91% give at least one correct answer, 22% correctly
answer all three questions, most correct answers among respondents in Cyprus,
Denmark, and Greece
- The EU is composed of various actors - Commision, Council of the EU, European
Council, Parliament… but also the ECB and others
- EU x Council of Europe
- Conclusions: • The EU is a distinct ‘political arrangement that de es easy
“categorization” (Olsen, 2021, p. 11)
- Acknowledge that talking about ‘the EU’ requires nuance: consider what and who is
meant by ‘the EU’ – as well as what/who is not meant consider that the EU means
di erent things to di erent people (across Europe and beyond)
- Current issue: Von der Leyen announcing her second bid for the President of the
European Commission
- Problem: CDU is in the opposition in the German goverment - they could accept her
though, as long as it’s a German - depends on her policy focus (Greens might go for her
if she prioritizes the climate)
1.2 EU - State/IO/political system?
- Why concepts/theories? They help us select/structure/explain ideas and theses
- 3 approaches: State, international organization, political system
- IO approach was dominant in the past, and still is, to some extent
- State:
- According to Olson: = a legal and physical entity that 1. operates within a xed and
populated territory,2. has authority over that territory, 3. is legally and politically
independent,4. is recognized by its people and by other states.
- Is the EU a state, then?
- Fixed and populated territory?
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, - EU = sum of its member states’ territory, borders usually recognized
- EU has various symbols of statehood for its population
- EU keeps expanding/territory changes
- EU doesn’t fully operate its territory, but EU member states do
- Authority over that territory?
- EU system of law to which member states are subject - stands above the member state’s
law system
- EU competences vary, no all-encompassing authority
- Legally and politically independent?
- (rather) independent of other international actors
- (rather) dependent of its Member States
- Recognized by its people and by other states?
- General recognition by other states (e.g., trade agreements) - trade agreements made by
the EU itself, where it is acting on behalf of all its members
- EU citizenship
- Variation in extent of recognition by other states
- Various extent of ‘feeling European’ among EU citizens - they rather feel a nity towards
their particular member state - cfr. poll in the slides
- International organization: IOs
- According to Olson: International organizations as bodies that promote voluntary
cooperation and coordination between or among their members but have neither
autonomous powers nor the authority to impose their rulings on their members
- Interngovermental organizations: IGOs - Olson: consist of representatives of national
governments and promote voluntary cooperation among those governments; Eilstrup-
Sangiovanni: organizations with at least three state parties, a permanent headquarters
or secretariat, as well as regular meetings and budgets
- Examples: UN, NATO, ASEAN, IMF
- Growth of IGOs: 561 IGOs founded between 1815 and 2005
- Growing number of IGOs over time (green curve), despite some ‘deaths’ of IGOs - has
led to the building of institutions where stats can attend to matters of mutual interest, the
reduction/removal of trade barriers, and in some cases - to regional integration
- Involves the so-called polling of sovereignty - the rights of jurisdiction that states have
over their people and territory and that cannot legally be challenged by any other
authority - regional insitutions are authorized to coordinate the making of new rules and
regulations to which their member states are subject, although these are restricted to
the policy areas to which all member states have agreed that they should have been
done together
- Is the EU an international organization?
- Olsen de nition:
- Voluntary cooperation and coordination between or among their members:
- Voluntary decision to join and delegate authority
- Neither autonomous powers nor the authority to impose their rulings on their members
- EU institutions not fully autonomous (depends on delegation)
- EU institutions hold di erent levels of authority, some of authority is extensive
- Primacy of EU law, role of EU courts
- Eilstrup-Sangiovanni de nition:
- At least three state parties: 27 EU Member States
- Permanent headquarters/secretariat: Permanent headquarters in Brussels and other EU
cities (e.g. Strasbourg, Frankfurt)
- Regular meetings: Various EU institutions meet regularly - 6411 meetings of both
Councils
- Budget: EU has a budget
- All criteria ful lled, but EU exceeds each of the criteria compared to other IGOs
- Political system:
- Key characteristics of a political system (Hix & Høyland 2022, p. 3, building on Almond
1956 and Easton 1957):
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, - 1. Stable and clearly de ned set of institutions for collective decision-making and a set
of rules governing relations between and within these institutions
- 2. Citizens seek to realize their political desires through the political system
- 3. Collective decisions in the political system have a signi cant impact on the distribution
of economic resources and the allocation of values across the whole system
- 4. Continuous interaction between these political outputs, new demands on the
system, new decisions, etc.
- The EU as a political system:
- 1. Set of institutions for collective decision-making + set of rules governing relations
among institutions:
- EU treaties regulate decision-making and inter-institutional relations
- Variance in rules/procedures
- 2. Citizens realize their political desires through system:
- Representation of citizens through European Parliament (and other EU actors)
- Distance between citizens and EU institutions
- 3. Collective decisions impact resources/values:
- Far-reaching impacts of EU decision-making (e.g. Euro)
- 4. Continuous interaction between these political outputs, new demands on the
system, new decisions, etc.:
- Feedback loops within EU policy-making
- Stages in regional integration:
- Free trade area - NAFTA as an example - eliminating internal barriers to trade
- Common external tari - this creates a customs union
- Sectors expand operation throughout the customs union - creating a single market
- Pressure grows for coordinated policies - this in turn increases common economic
policies - ultimately a single currency
- Economic integration leads to political integration - this results in full political union
- Government x (Multi-level) governance
- Government = institutions and o cials (elected or appointed) that make up the formal
governing structure of a state and have the powers to make laws and set the formal
political agenda
- Governance = laws and policies are made and implemented without the existence of a
formally acknowledged set of governing institutions but instead as a result of interactions
involving a complex variety of actors, including member state governments, EU
institutions, interest groups, and other sources of in uence
- Multilevel governance = system in which power is shared among the supranational,
national, subnational, and local levels, with considerable interaction among them
- Estonia research: conclusion: “instead of a participatory MLG in which vertical and
horizontal networks of public and private actors are working at all levels, the TPD
process showed a rather hierarchic top-down governance from the highest levels of the
EC to the highest levels of the member states and then nally reaching the local people,
NGOs and enterprises who received Ukrainians eeing war”
- Which one is the EU? - “it is neither one nor the other, and all we can say with any
certainty (…) is that the EU is more than a conventional internationalorganization but less
than a European superstate
1.3 EU - Federal x confederal?
Federalism Confederalism
Union of peoples living within a Union of states
single state
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