Aantekeningen Hoorcolleges European
Policy and Policy
Lecture 1
What is the European Union?
- Identify the ‘UPO’ (= Unidentified Political Object)
- Is it a nation? A state? A federation? A confederation? An international
organization?
-> McGormick, the author of the book, pushes towards it being a
confederation.
-> the EU appears to have a bit of everything.
- It depends on where you look what ‘kind of animal’ it is.
- A nation is a community whose members identify with each other based
on shared language, ancestry, history, culture, territory, religion, myths
and symbols.
-> McGormick states that the EU is not really a nation, despite there are
probably people who feel like a European.
-> there are symbols, there is some kind of shared culture, but there is no
shared language.
- A state is a legal and political arrangement through which all large-scale
political communities are organized, combining government population,
legitimacy, territory and sovereignty.
-> this is the Westphalian system, where every state has exclusive
sovereignty over its own territory.
-> in part, the EU can be seen as a state, but not in this classical
Westphalian system: it is a legal entity, is has power and a lot of member
states have transferred powers to the EU out of their own
choice.
- A federation is a system of administration involving two ore
more levels of government with autonomous powers and
responsibilities
-> like Germany, where there are Länder and the central
government; if you replace Länder with member states, and the central
government by Brussels and its EU institutions, maybe it fits.
-> people elect people in the states, and people in the central government
(parliament at central government level, and at state level)
-> there are competences which are shared between the levels, and those
which are exclusive to the central government or the states.
-> in the EU we see this: the central government is the EU Commission,
the EU Parliament, The EU Council, and at the state level the national
parliaments, national governments, national ministers.
-> but there are many EU equivalents for a ministry, for a parliament, for a
senate, for a Lower House it is very confusing, and this system of
central government does not fit nicely with what we know from the
national level.
-> federation is the ‘f-word’ by the Brits, but for some politicians this was a
goal.
, -> Monnet-method: the creation of the European Coal and Steel
Community as a first step towards more integration on other areas, with
the eventual achievement of a European Federation.
-> others have said that you can strive for a federation, but there is
always need for leaders who are pushing for cooperation; without those
leaders there is only structure, and no actors (Altiero Spinelli no political
centre or leadership to push this ‘method’ along)
- A confederation is a group of sovereign states with a central
authority deriving its authority from those states, and citizens
linked to the central authority through the states in which
they live.
-> McGormick proposes this different kind of looking at the
EU, because there has been a lot of discussion there is structure
(institutions), but a lot of those structures may not be so popular with the
population.
-> there is only a indirect links between the people and the central
government, which goes by the states.
-> McGormick says with this that the EU Parliament is not a full democratic
parliament; not because the elections are unfair, but because to few
people show up for elections.
- An international organisation is a body set up to promote cooperation
between or among states, based on the principles of voluntary
cooperation, communal management and shared interests.
-> you keep your own powers as a state, but you cooperate on a case-by-
case basis.
-> on some fields, the EU comes close to this approach; on most policy
fields, it moved way beyond that.
- The EU as a political system: multi-level governance
- If we talk about government, we talk about politicians, policy makers that
are interacting with each other and they make policy.
- If we talk about governance, this is much broader, there are all kinds of
stakeholders, companies, lobby groups, environmental groups, unions,
which all have some kind of influence, but it is mostly unclear what that
influence is.
-> but in the end there is also policy; but not only about politicians.
- The multi-level is quite obvious: there is an EU-level, a national level,
sometimes even a regional level.
- EU-governance: arrangement in which laws and policies are made and
implemented as a result of interactions among a complex variety of
actors, including member state governments, EU institutions, interest
groups and other sources of influence.
- Also it is not only hierarchical ordered; some interest groups are really
powerful, but not always it is in negotiation with all the actors that leads
to policy.
-> it is a messy power game, with member states putting something
forward, with the European Commission having its own interests, the EU
Parliament having their own interests.
-> high stakes, lots of money and power involved.
,- Three institutions responsible for legislative process: EU Parliament, EU
Commission, Council of EU (Council of Ministers)
-> commission proposes legislation, parliament together with council of
ministers discusses the legislation and adopts the legislation.
- But this is not all, we also have a multi-level governance perspective.
-> not only at elected politicians, but also at all kinds of stakeholders that
are in the surroundings of the political system; might not be elected, but
they do have influence on commission proposal
-> consultation grounds where the commission tries to gather information
about what the stakeholders want.
- Apart from the EU-level, we also have the member state level.
-> various institutions have links with the institutions at the EU-level.
-> national ministries have a direct link with the Council of ministers (they
are national ministers of member states); in the Council of ministers there
are also public officials from the member states, discussing in detail the
proposals form the EU Commission.
-> the national government also has links with the EU, because ministers
go the Brussels to discuss certain high-level issues in the Council of
Ministers.
-> the population can vote for a national parliament, but also for the EU
Parliament; where McGormick says that the relation between the citizens
and the EU Parliament is not so significant, others say that this is an
example of the EU being a federation.
-> and a national parliament controls the national government by its
decisions, but also those taken at the EU-level.
- There is also a European Council, where only the heads of state of member
states are a part of looking at the big questions in the EU (dealing with
crises, setting up treaties, etc.)
-> in this Council, the major strategic decisions of European integration
are made.
-> it is becoming much more important in de EU, and becoming more
institutionalized and structured.
, - Another important institution is the European Court of Justice, with strong
links to national courts; they are there to make sure that the legislations
are followed by the member states, but also by the EU Commission.
-> EU law is superior to national law.
Why integrate?
- Why did European countries decide to integrate many of their policies and
voluntarily transfer powers to European institutions?
- For this we have to go back to the First World War, where a lot of people
died and politician decided that we couldn’t continue doing this.
-> in combination with a big economic crisis, and another World War, it
was clear that Europe had to change.
- The idea was to integrate European countries so that they would stop
waging war on each other they wanted to harmonize the ‘main
ingredients’ for waging war.
-> coal and steel became common property for the original 6 member
states (European Coal and Steel Community) rules for crossing borders
related to coal and steel were lowered.
-> beginning of the internal market.
-> they also wanted to make atomic energy common (Euratom) trying
to prevent such a thing to be concentrated in the hands of only one of the
member states.
- Also a strong notion to increase wealth in Europa, because poverty
(especially after the 1929 economic crisis) was one of the main ingredients
for war.
- Result:
-> 1947: Marshallplan
-> 1950: Schumanplan
-> 1952: Treaty of Paris (Coal and Steel)
