The Politicl System of the Europecn Union – Simon Hix cnd Bjørn Høylcnd
Summary by Daniëlle Graman
Chapter 1: Introduction: Explaining the EU political system
The EU started out as a common market in coal and steel products and has evolved into an
economic, social and politcal union. The aim of this book is to understand and explain how the EU
works today.
The Insttutonal and Policy rrchitecture of the EU
In the 1960s, Western Europe became the frst region in the world to establish a customs union, with
an internal free-trade area and a common external tarif, and also the frst genuinely supranatonal
public spending programme: the Common rgricultural Policy (CrP). There are fve main types of EU
policy:
1. Regulatory policies – these are rules on the free movement of goods, services, capital and
persons in the single market
2. Expenditure policies – these policies involve the transfer of resources through the EU budget
3. Macroeconomic policies – these are pursued in the European Monetary Union (EMU), where
the European Central Bank (ECB) manages the money supply and interest rate policy, while
the Council pursues exchange rate policy
4. Interior policies – rules to extend and protect the economic, politcal and social rights of the
EU citizens
5. Foreign policies – aimed at ensuring that the EU speaks with a single voice on the world
stage, including trade policies
Where the Commission is the executve (with a monopoly on policy initatve), the legislaton is
adopted through a bicameral procedure between the Council and the European Parliament (and the
Council usually acts by qualifed-majority votng – QMV), and law is directly efectve and supreme
over natonal law and the ECJ has full powers of judicial review and legal adjudicaton. Politcal
partes have infuence in each of the EU insttutons. Natonal partes compete for natonal
governmental ofce, and the winners of this competton are represented in the Council. Members of
the European Parliament (MEPs) are elected every fve years in ‘direct’ electons to the European
Parliament. Interest groups are voluntary associatons of individual citizens, such as trade unions,
business associatons, consumer groups, and environmental groups. Natonal interest groups lobby
natonal governments or approach the EU insttutons directly, and like-minded interest groups from
diferent member states join forced to lobby the Commission, Council working groups and MEPs.
Figure 1.1 (see page 10) plots the approximate locaton of major EU treates on two
dimensions: (1) the x-axis represents the degree of policy integraton resultng from a treaty, and (2)
the y-axis represents the extent of supranatonal decision-making resultng from a treaty. The main
innovatons in the Single European rct (SEr) were on the insttutonal side: the delegaton of new
agenda-setng powers to the Commission to initate over 300 pieces of legislaton to complete the
single market; the extension of QMV in the Council, and new legislatve powers for the European
Parliament, under the new ‘cooperaton procedure’. The rmsterdam Treaty focused on insttutonal
rather policy reforms: extending supranatonal decision-making in the new ‘area of freedom security
and justce’. The main objectve if the Nice Treaty was to reform the EU insttutons in preparaton for
the accession of 12 new member states from Central, Eastern and Southern Europe. It simplifed the
votng system in the Council, introduced a new permanent President of the European Council, and
created a new positon of High Representatve for the Union in Foreign rfairs and Security Policy.
The Lisbon Treaty also made the co-decision procedure the ‘ordinary legislatve procedure’, which is
now used for adoptng most EU laws. On the policy side, the Lisbon Treaty incorporated the Charter
,of Fundamental Rights into the EU Treaty for the frst tme. The basic policy architecture of the EU
now has a certain coherent logic. First, the EU level is responsible for creatng and regulatng a single
market on a contnental scale, while taxing and spending remain mainly at the natonal level. Second,
the EU governments coordinate a range of policies that afect the free movement of goods, services,
capital and labour in the single market and their collectve interests as a contnental-scale polity.
What is the EU? r politcal System but not a State
The EU can be conceptualised as a politcal system according to the framework developed by rlmond
and Easton. They defned a politcal system as having four key characteristcs:
1. There is a stable and clearly defned set of insttutons for collectve decision-making
2. Citizens seek to realiize their politcal desires through the politcal system
3. Collectve decision in the politcal system have a signifcant impact on the distributon of
economic resources and the allocaton of values across the whole system
4. There is a contnuous interacton between these politcal outputs, new demands on the
system, new decisions, etc.
The EU has all four of them. What is interestng however, is that the EU does not have a ‘monopoly
on the legitmate use of coercion’. The EU is thus not a ‘state’ in the traditonal Weberian meaning of
the word. The power of coercion, through policy security forced, remains in the hands of the natonal
government of the EU member states.
Two Theories of EU Politcs
There are two broad theoretcal frameworks for understanding EU politcs. The frst one is known as
intergovernmentclism. The core assumpton of this framework is that EU politcs is dominated by the
member state governments, in general, and the governments of the ‘big’ member states in partcular
(especially Germany, France and Britain). In the ‘liberal’ version of this approach, member state
preferences can vary across policy areas and over tme. One of the main propositons of
intergovernmentalism is that the ember states are careful in what they delegate to the three
supranatonal insttutons: the Commission, the European Parliament and the ECJ. Delegaton to
these insttutons only occurs to further collectve interests of the governments. rnother propositon
is that every member state is on average a winner from the process of European integraton and Eu
politcs. This does not mean that every member state does equally as well out of the EU. The second
framework is suprcnctoncl politis, with a central propositon which pits ideas collectvely against
intergovernmentalism: that the governments of the member states do not have it all their own way
in the EU. The supranatonal insttutons are not simply seen as passive ‘agents’ of the governments.
Instead, the Commission, the European Parliament, and the ECJ have their own insttutonal
interests, policy preferences and resources and powers. This means that the rules governing
decision-making in the EU shape policy outcomes, sometmes in the way governments can predict
and at other tmes in ways they cannot predict as easily. r key empirical propositon of the
supranatonal politcs framework is that as a result of the autonomous interests and powers of the
Commission, the Parliament and the ECJ, and how the decision-making rules and policy bargains play
out over tme, EU policy outcomes can be diferent from the original intentons of the governments.
r second propositon deriving from these ideas is that the EU has a ‘democratc defcit’. This defcit
results from the fact that as the governments have delegated powers to the European level, policy-
making in Brussels has become isolated from domestc public opinion and natonal parliaments,
which has led to a degree of ‘policy drif’ away from the preferences of some natonal European wide
average citizen.
Box 1.3: Insttutonal architecture of the EU
, - Couniil of the Europecn Union cnd the Europecn Couniil: The Council of the EU is
composed of ministers from the member states’ governments. The Council is a legislatve
and an executve body. On most legislatve issues the Council decides by a system of
weighted majority (QMV), whereas on most executve issues the Council decides by
unanimous vote.
- Europecn Commission: The Commission is composed of one member from each member
state and is the main executve body of the EU. The Commission is responsible for proposing
EU legislaton, managing and implementng EU policies and the budget, enforcing EU law
(jointly with the ECJ) and representng the EU on the internatonal state.
- Europecn Pcrlicment: there ate 736 MEPs, who are elected every fve years by the EU
citizens, and organiize together in transnatonal politcal groups. The Parliament is half of the
EU’s legislatve authority (jointly with the Council) the Parliament amends and adopts EU
legislaton and the budget, and monitors the work of the other EU insttutons.
- Europecn Court of Justie: The ECJ, together with the natonal courts, is the judicial
authority of the EU. The ECJ ensures that EU legislaton is interpreted and applied in the
same way in all member states and undertakes judicial review of treates, secondary
legislaton and tertary instruments of the EU.
- Europecn Centrcl Bcnk: is responsible for monetary policy, including setng interest rates fr
the European single currency (the Euro)
- Europecn Court of Auditors: checks that EU funds are properly collected and spelt legally
- Committee of the Regions: represents regions and local authorites in the member states in
the EU policy-making process
Chapter 2: Executive Politics
Theories of Executve Politcs
The key challenge for the principle in the principle-agent theory is to ensure that the agent executes
the task in a neutral fashion. First, the agent may be targeted by groups lobbying on behalf of
segments of the society afected by the task. Second, agencies may want to increase their own
infuence over the policy process. rccording to classical ratonal choice theory, public ofcials want to
maximiize their budget. Third, bureaucrats may be more interested in maximiizing their independence
from their principals and their ability to shape policy rather than maximiize their budget. The principal
has two means of controlling how the agent executed the task: selecton and control.
The Member States: Executve Power, Delegaton, and Discreton
The Treaty of Paris established the Europeans Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), which was
essentally a deal between France and Germany. The Treaty of Rome established the European
Economic Community (EEC) and the European rtomic Energy Community (Euratom). The Single
European rct (SEr) centred on the economic goals of establishing a ‘single market’ by 31 December
1992 in return for new social and environmental ‘fanking policies’. The Treaty on European Union or
the Maastricht Treaty insttutonaliized the Commission-brokered plan for EMU. The main policy
innovaton in the rmsterdam Treaty was the transfer of the provisions for establishing the free
movement of persons to the EC part of the EU Treaty. The Nice Treaty mainly aimed to reform the EU
insttutons in preparaton for the accession of Central, Eastern, and Southern European countries.
The Lisbon Treaty formaliized the allocaton of policy competence between the member states and
the EU in a ‘catalogues of competences’. The Lisbon Treaty also created a separaton between the
Presidency of the Council and the President of the European Council. While the Presidency of the
Council rotates on a six-monthly basis and has a mainly legislatve role, the European Council elects
its President for a renewable two-and-a-half-year term.
