The

Eur

opea

n U

nion

as

a P

olity

(I)

INTR

ODU

CTIO

N

Sinc

e the

wor

k of

~M

ax Web

er a

nd o

ther

s at

the

star

t of

the

tw

entie

th c

entu

ry,

it w

as a

lmos

t un

iver

sally

acc

epte

d th

at p

oliti

cs a

nd g

over

n-

men

t co

uld

only

tak

e pl

ace

with

in a

'sta

te':

a hi

erar

chic

al

polit

ical

or

gani

zatio

n, w

ith t

he

sove

reig

n po

wer

to m

ake

and

enfo

rce

deci

sion

s on

a (

pref

erab

ly)

hom

ogen

ous

soci

ety.

A c

en-

tury

late

r, th

ese

idea

s no

w se

em ra

ther

qua

int!

The

Web

eria

n st

ate

larg

ely

exis

ted

in a

parti

cu-

lar

geog

raph

ic r

egio

n of

the

wor

ld (

the

far

wes

tern

ped

pher

y of

the

Eur

asia

n co

ntin

ent)

an

d in

a r

athe

r sh

ort p

erio

d of

hum

an h

isto

ry

(fro

m t

he s

even

teen

th t

o th

e m

id-tw

entie

th

cent

urie

s). A

nd, w

ith th

e gl

obal

dev

olut

ion

of

pow

er to

regi

ons,

loca

litie

s and

non

-sta

te o

rga-

ni

zatio

ns, a

nd t

he d

eleg

atio

n of

aut

hori

ty t

o su

pran

atio

nal

bodi

es s

uch

as t

he E

urop

ean

Uni

on a

nd t

he W

orld

Tra

de O

rgan

izat

ion,

po

litic

al p

ower

is

now

dis

pers

ed w 's

hare

d'.

This

dee

s no

t m

ean

that

the

'sta

te'

does

not

exist

But

, it d

oes

mea

n th

at p

oliti

cs a

nd g

ov-

ernm

ent

now

exi

st i

n m

any

cont

exts

eith

er

outs

ide

or b

eyon

d th

e cl

assi

c st

are

(cf.

Bad

ie

and

Birn

baum

198

3).

SIM

ON

HIX

This

is p

reci

sely

the

situ

atio

n w

ith t

he E

U

whe

re, i

n th

e se

cond

hal

f of t

he tw

entie

th c

en-

tury

, the

wes

tern

Eur

opea

n na

tion-

stat

es v

ol-

unta

rily

de

lega

ted

sign

ific

ant

exec

utiv

e,

legi

slat

ive a

nd ju

dici

al p

ower

s to

a n

ew s

et o

f in

stitu

tions

at

the

Euro

pean

le

vel,

and

so

esta

blis

hed

a ne

w p

olity

. T

he E

U i

s th

e fi

st

genu

ine

'supr

anat

iona

l po

lity'

, an

d so

is

sui

gene

ris, b

y de

finiti

on. B

ut, a

t one

leve

l, all

pol

i- tie

s ar

e un

ique

. T

he U

S ha

s a

uniq

ue f

orm

of

fede

ralis

m, B

ritai

n ha

s a

uniq

ue f

orm

of

par-

lia

men

tary

gov

ernm

ent,

and

so o

n. A

t ano

ther

le

vel, all

fa

ce a

com

mon

set

of

issu

es,

such

as h

ow fa

r pow

er is

cen

traliz

ed, h

ow d

eci-

sion

s sh

ould

be

mad

e at

the

cen

tre,

or w

ho

win

s an

d w

ho lo

ses

in th

e po

licy

proc

ess.

Put

this

way

, if

the

EU is

not

a u

niqu

e ca

se (a

n 'N

of

l')

, it

can

be t

reat

ed

as j

ust

anot

her

(alth

ough

adm

itted

ly s

tran

ge) m

oder

n po

lity.

Th

e re

cogn

ition

of

the

EU a

s 'ju

st a

noth

er

polit

y' e

nabl

ed a

new

gen

erat

ion

of s

chol

ars

to

gppr

oach

the

EU f

rom

the

field

s of c

ompa

rativ

e po

litic

s an

d co

mpa

rativ

e pu

blic

pol

icy

(e.g

. Sc

harp

f 19

88;

htti

ni

1990

; St

reec

k an

d Sc

hmitt

er

1991

; Sb

ragi

a 19

92;

Alte

r an

d M

euni

er-A

itsah

alia

199

4; T

sebe

lis 1

994;

Bow

ler

and

Farr

ell 1

995;

Cro

mbe

z 19

96; M

ajon

e 19

96;

142

HA

ND

BO

OK

OF

EUR

OPE

AN U

NIO

N P

OLI

TIC

S

McK

ay 1

996;

Pie

rson

199

6; v

an d

er E

ijk a

nd

Fr,a

nklii

199

6; H

oogh

e an

d M

arks

199

8). T

his

new

gen

erat

ion

brou

ght

a ne

w s

et o

f re

sear

ch

ques

tions

(cf

Hk

199

4, 1

998)

. Unt

il th

e ea

rly

1990

s, th

e m

ain

focu

s ha

d be

en t

o ex

plai

n ba

rgai

ning

beh

vecn

the

mem

ber

stat

es, p

ower

re

latio

ns b

etw

een

the

mem

ber

stat

es a

nd t

he

supr

anat

iona

l in

stitu

tions

, an

d th

e ge

nera

l lo

ng-r

un p

roce

ss o

f ec

onom

ic a

nd p

oliti

cal

inte

grat

ion

in E

urop

e, m

ainl

y fr

om th

e fie

ld o

f in

tern

atio

nal

rela

tions

. A

who

le n

ew s

et o

f re

sear

ch q

uest

ions

hav

e no

w b

een

adde

d to

this

lis

t, su

ch a

s ho

w d

oes

exec

utiv

e po

wer

wor

k,

whi

ch a

ctor

s are

mos

t inf

luen

tial i

n th

e EU

leg

- isl

ativ

e pr

oces

s, ho

w in

depe

nden

t fro

m p

oliti

cal

cont

rol i

s the

Eur

opea

n C

ourt

of J

ustic

e, w

hy d

o so

me

citiz

ens

supp

ort

the

EU w

hile

oth

ers

oppo

se it

, why

doe

s th

e EU

pro

duce

som

e po

l- icy

out

com

es b

ut n

ot o

ther

s? T

hese

que

stio

ns,

and

man

y ot

hers

, are

bre

ad-a

nd-b

utte

r iss

ues i

n co

mpa

rativ

e go

vern

men

t an

d co

mpa

rativ

e pu

blic

pol

icy,

and

the

se f

ield

s ha

ve a

n es

tab-

lis

hed

anal

ytic

al to

ol-k

it to

hel

p an

swer

the

m.

Hen

ce, t

reat

ing

the

EU a

s a

polit

y ha

s en

able

d re

sear

cher

s to

answ

er n

ew q

uest

ions

, app

ly n

ew

empi

rical

tec

hniq

ues,

dis

cove

r new

fac

ts, d

raw

ne

w a

naly

tical

inf

eren

ces,

and

brin

g to

geth

er

scho

lars

hip

in in

tern

atio

nal r

elat

ions

and

com

- pa

rativ

e po

litic

s in

the

stud

y of

the

EU.

As a

resu

lt, th

e la

st d

ecad

e ha

s se

en a

rapi

dly

grow

ing

set

of l

itera

ture

tha

t ap

proa

ches

the

Eu

rope

an U

nion

as

a po

lity.

It

is im

poss

ible

an

d w

ould

be

inap

prop

riat

e to

rev

iew

all

this

re

sear

ch h

ere.

' T

his

rese

arch

has

pr

ovid

ed

insi

ghts

and

cum

ulat

ive k

now

ledg

e ab

out i

nter

al

ia th

e de

sign

of

the

EU i

nstit

utio

ns, p

oliti

cs

with

in a

nd b

ehve

en t

he E

U i

nstit

utio

ns,

the

aim

s an

d im

pact

of

the

polic

y ou

tput

s of

the

EU

, and

the

mec

hani

sms

of d

emoc

ratic

con

- tro

l of

the

EU

. In

this

ess

ay I

aim

to

build

on

this

lite

ratu

re a

nd it

s fin

ding

s to

prov

ide

a ge

n-

eral

ove

rvie

w o

f how

the

EU w

orks

as a

'pol

ity:

Sect

ion

2 co

nseq

uent

ly lo

oks

at th

e al

loca

tion

of p

olic

y po

wer

s be

twee

n th

e m

embe

r st

ates

an

d th

e EU

leve

l. Se

ctio

n 3

look

s at

the

des

ign

and

oper

atio

n of

age

nda-

setti

ng a

nd v

eto

pow

- er

s am

ong

the

EU i

nstit

utio

ns:

the

Cou

ncil,

C

omm

issi

on, P

arlia

men

t, an

d C

ourt

of J

ustic

e.

In o

ther

wor

ds, t

hese

two

sect

ions

loo

k at

the

two

clas

sic

dim

ensi

ons

of t

he

inst

itutio

nal

desi

gn o

f de

moc

ratic

po

litie

s (e

.g.

Lijp

hart

19

99).

Sect

ions

3 a

nd 4

then

loo

k at

how

this

pa

rtic

ular

ins

titut

iona

l de

sign

sha

pes

polit

ics

and

dem

ocra

tic a

ccou

ntab

ility

in th

e EU

. T

he k

ey p

oint

s of

this

ana

lysi

s are

as f

ollo

ws.

The

basi

c in

stitu

tiona

l ('c

onst

itutio

nal')

arc

hi-

tect

ure

of t

he E

U i

s ex

trem

ely

stab

le,

and

a m

yria

d of

che

cks-

and-

bala

nces

ens

ure

that

th

ere

are

few

lo

sers

fr

om

EU

polic

ies.

N

ever

thel

ess,

th

e de

sign

of

EU

co

nstr

ains

do

mes

tic p

olic

y ch

oice

s, a

nd i

t is

diff

icul

t to

ch

ange

EU

po

licie

s on

ce t

hey

have

be

en

adop

ted.

Dire

ct d

emoc

ratic

con

trol

on

the

EU

is al

so e

xtre

mel

y w

eak.

-4s

a re

sult,

in th

e co

m-

ing

year

s, t

he E

U f

aces

a c

halle

nge:

how

to

unde

rtak

e si

gnifi

cant

pol

icy

refo

rms

in a

sys

- te

m t

hat d

oes

not

prov

ide

a di

rect

dem

ocra

tic

man

date

for

suc

h re

form

s.

ALLO

CAT

ION

OF

CO

MPE

TEN

CES

BE

TWEE

N T

HE

STAT

ES A

ND

TH

E EU

: AN

UPS

IDE-

DO

WN

PO

LITY

In t

he E

U, a

s in

all

mul

ti-le

vel

polit

ies,

som

e po

licy

com

pete

nces

are

allo

cate

d to

the

cent

ral

leve

l of g

over

nmen

t whi

le o

ther

s are

allo

cate

d to

th

e lo

wer

(m

embe

r st

ate)

leve

l. Fr

om a

nor

ma-

tiv

e pe

rspe

ctiv

e, p

olic

ies

shou

ld b

e al

loca

ted

to

diff

eren

t lev

els t

o pr

oduc

e th

e bes

t ove

rall

polic

y ou

tcom

e. F

or e

xam

ple,

if t

here

is

an i

nter

nal

mar

ket

then

the

abol

ition

of i

nter

nal t

rade

bar

- rie

rs m

ust

be t

ackl

ed a

t th

e ce

ntre

. Po

licie

s w

here

sta

te d

ecis

ions

cou

ld h

ave

,a n

egat

ive

impa

ct o

n a

neig

hbou

ring

sta

te (

an 'e

x~er

nal-

ity

'), s

uch as e

nvir

onm

enta

l sta

ndar

ds o

r pr

od-

uct

stan

dard

s, a

re a

lso

best

deal

t w

ith a

t th

e ce

ntre

. Sim

ilarly

, pol

icie

s whe

re p

refe

renc

es a

re

hom

ogen

eous

acr

oss c

itize

ns in

diff

eren

t loc

ali-

ties,

such

as b

asic

soci

al an

d ci

vil r

ight

s, co

uld

be

deal

t with

cen

trally

(A

lesi

na e

t al

. 200

1). A

nd,

the

cent

re s

houl

d be

re

spon

sibl

e fo

r se

tting

in

tere

st r

ates

as

wel

l as

inc

ome

dist

ribu

tion

from

ric

h to

poo

r st

ates

, on

the

grou

nds

that

ce

ntra

l m

onet

ary

polic

ies

inev

itabl

y co

nstr

ain

the

tax

and

wel

fare

pol

icie

s of t

he s

tate

s [B

rotv

n an

d O

ates

198

7; O

ates

199

9) - a

lthou

gh t

he

THE

EUR

OPE

AN U

NIO

N A

S A

POLI

TY (

I)

143

cent

re sh

ould

pro

vide

har

d bu

dget

ary

cons

train

ts

on s

tate

exp

endi

ture

s (t

o pr

even

t hig

h de

ficits

) an

d re

gula

tory

and

exp

endi

ture

pol

icie

s sh

ould

be

de-

cent

raliz

ed, t

o fo

ster

pol

icy

com

petit

ion

and

inno

vatio

n (W

eing

ast

1995

; Q

uin

and

\Vei

ngas

t 19

97).

From

a p

ositi

ve p

ersp

ectiv

e, in

con

tras

t, th

e al

loca

tion

of c

ompe

tenc

es is

the

resu

lt of

a sp

e-

cific

con

stitu

tiona

l an

d po

litic

al b

arga

in,

and

how

act

ors

with

diff

eren

t po

licy

goal

s ha

ve

beha

ved

with

in t

his

barg

ain

(Rik

er

1975

; iL

IcK

ay

1996

, 20

01).

For

exam

ple,

so

cial

de

moc

rats

usu

ally

pre

fer

regu

lato

ry a

nd f

iscal

po

licie

s to

be

cent

raliz

ed (

to a

llow

for

inco

me

redi

stri

butio

n an

d ce

ntra

l va

lue

allo

catio

n),

whe

reas

ec

onom

ic

liber

als

pref

er

stro

ng

chec

ks-a

nd-b

alan

ces

on t

he e

xerc

ise

of t

hese

po

licie

s by

the

cen

tral

gov

ernm

ent.

In a

ddi-

tio

n, s

ome

cons

titut

iona

l de

sign

s ar

e m

ore

rigid

tha

n ot

hers

. For

exa

mpl

e, t

he s

tate

s ca

n be

pro

tect

ed a

gain

st 'p

olic

y dr

ift'

to th

e ce

ntre

vi

a a

clea

r cat

alog

ue o

f co

mpe

tenc

es a

nd in

de-

pend

ent

judi

cial

re

view

of

com

pete

nce

dis-

pu

tes.

Nev

erth

eles

s, u

nder

all

cons

titut

iona

l de

sign

s, t

he d

ivis

ion

of c

ompe

tenc

es is

nev

er

com

plet

ely

fmed

, and

the

lon

g-te

rm t

rend

in

mos

t m

ulti-

leve

l po

litie

s ha

s be

en

polic

y ce

ntra

lizat

ion.

Fo

r exa

mpl

e, c

onsi

der

the

evol

utio

n of

com

- pe

tenc

es i

n th

e EU

and

the

US.

Bot

h po

litie

s st

arte

d w

ith a

low

leve

l of p

olic

y ce

ntra

lizat

ion.

H

owev

er,

polic

y ce

ntra

lizat

ion

occu

rred

re

mar

kabl

y qu

ickl

y in

the

EU c

ompa

red

to th

e U

S, a

nd

in s

ome

area

s fa

ster

th

an o

ther

s (P

olla

ck 1

995,

2000

). By

the

end

of

the

1990

s,

mos

t re

gula

tory

and

mon

etar

y po

licie

s w

ere

deci

ded

pred

omin

antly

at t

he E

U le

vel.

In c

on-

trast

, m

ost

expe

nditu

re,

citiz

en,

and

fore

ign

polic

ies

wer

e co

ntr0

lled

.b~ th

e st

ates

. In

the

U

S, i

n co

ntra

st, f

orei

gn p

olic

ies

wer

e ce

ntra

l-

ized

bef

ore

econ

omic

pol

icie

s. I

n th

e ar

ea o

f re

gula

tory

pol

icie

s, th

e ha

rmon

izat

ion

of ru

les

gove

rnin

g th

e pr

oduc

tion,

di

stri

butio

n an

d ex

chan

ge o

f go

ods,

ser

vice

s an

d ca

pita

l is

now

m

ore

exte

nsiv

e in

the

EU

tha

n in

the

US

(Don

ohue

and

Pol

lack

200

1). F

or e

xam

ple,

in

the

field

of

soci

al r

egul

atio

n, w

here

the

re a

re

few

fed

eral

rul

es i

n th

e U

S, th

e EU

has

com

- m

on s

tand

ards

cov

erin

g w

orki

ng h

ours

, rig

hts

of p

art-

time

and

tem

pora

ry w

orke

rs, w

orke

rs

cons

ulta

tion,

an

d so

on

. ,4

lso,

aft

er

the

high

poi

nt

of

regu

lato

ry p

olic

y-m

akin

g by

LV

ashi

ngto

n in

198

0, th

e 19

90s s

aw th

e de

regu

- la

tion

of U

S-fe

dera

l re

gim

es a

nd i

ncre

asin

g re

gula

tory

com

petit

ion

betw

een

the

stat

es

(Fer

ejoh

n an

d LV

einga

st 19

92).

Fina

lly, i

n th

e ar

ea o

f ta

xatio

n, w

here

as t

he E

U h

as h

arm

o-

nize

d sa

les t

au, t

here

are

no

EU ru

les

gove

rnin

g th

e ap

plic

atio

n of

inc

ome

tax.

In

the

US,

in

cont

rast

, th

ere

are

few

fed

eral

res

trict

ions

on

the

appl

icat

ion

of c

onsu

mpt

ion

taxe

s by

the

st

ates

, but

inco

me

taxe

s are

levi

ed b

y bo

th th

e st

ate

and

fede

ral a

utho

ritie

s.

Thes

e va

riatio

ns s

tem

fro

m v

ery

diff

eren

t so

cial

, pol

itica

l and

his

toric

al e

.xpe

rienc

es. B

ut,

give

n th

ese

diff

eren

ces i

n th

e U

S an

d EU

, the

re

has

been

a r

emar

kabl

y si

mila

r ex

perie

nce

in

the

area

of

soci

o-ec

onom

ic p

olic

ies.

A n

orm

a-

tive

pers

pect

ive

wou

ld

pred

ict

that

m

arke

t in

tegr

atio

n m

ust b

e ta

ckle

d at

the

cent

re. F

rom

a

posi

tive

pers

pect

ive,

how

ever

, in

both

the

EU

and

the

US,

bas

ic c

onst

itutio

nal

prov

isio

ns

guar

ante

eing

the

rem

oval

of b

arri

ers t

o th

e fre

e m

ovem

ent

of g

oods

and

ser

vice

s ha

ve b

een

used

by

the

cent

ral

inst

itutio

ns t

o es

tabl

ish

new

com

mon

sta

ndar

ds in

oth

er a

reas

, suc

h as

so

cial

rig

hts,

and

the

gra

dual

int

egra

tion

of

othe

r ec

onom

ic p

ower

s, s

uch

as a

sin

gle

cur-

re

ncy,

an

d co

nstr

aint

s on

fis

cal

polic

ies.

M

eanw

hile

, the

dir

ect r

edis

tribu

tive

capa

city

of

the

US

fede

ral

gove

rnm

ent

rem

aine

d lim

ited

until

the

193

0s, w

hile

the

dire

ct r

edis

tribu

tive

capa

city

of

the

EU i

s tin

y co

mpa

red

to t

he

expe

nditu

re p

ower

of

the

EU m

embe

r st

ates

(t

he E

U b

udge

t is

only

app

roxi

mat

ely

1% o

f EU

GD

P).

As

a re

sult.

bot

h th

e EU

and

the

US

deve

l- op

ed a

s 're

gula

tory

sta

tes'

rath

er t

han

'redi

s-

trib

utiv

e' o

r 'w

elfa

re'

stat

es

(cf.

Skow

rone

k 19

82; h

lajo

ne 1

993,

1996

). In

the

US,

the

regu

- la

tory

cap

acity

of

the

cent

ral

gove

rnm

ent

grad

ually

dev

elop

ed b

etw

een

the

late

nin

e-

teen

th c

entu

ry a

nd th

e en

d of

the

1970

s. In

the

EU

it to

ok

a m

uch

shor

ter

time:

bet

wee

n th

e la

te 1

960s

and

the

mid

-199

0s. B

ut, o

nce

the

sing

le

mar

ket

was

com

plet

ed

and

the

EU

was

giv

en t

he n

eces

sary

pol

icy

com

pete

nces

to

reg

ulat

e th

is m

arke

t, a

new

Eur

opea

n

144

HA

ND

BO

OK

OF

EUR

Of 'E

AN U

NIO

N P

OLI

TIC

S

THE

EU

RO

PEAN

UN

ION

AS

A P

OLI

TY (

I)

145

'con

stitu

tiona

l se

ttlem

ent'

had

effe

ctiv

ely b

een

natio

nal

polit

ical

off

ice

and

only

sec

onda

rily

conc

erne

d w

ith t

he b

attle

s fo

r Eu

rope

an p

oliti

- fis

cal

polic

y ch

oice

s. T

here

is

little

evi

denc

e th

at t

hese

pol

icie

s ha

ve l

ead

to 's

ocia

l du

mp-

in

g': w

here

mem

ber s

tate

s w

ith h

ighe

r lev

els o

f so

cial

pro

tect

ion

and

taxa

tion

have

bee

n fo

rced

to c

ut th

ese

prov

isio

ns u

nder

the

thre

at

of c

apita

l tlig

ht to

stat

es w

ith lo

wer

pro

duct

ion

cost

s. N

ever

thel

ess,

the

part

icul

ar mix o

f m

ar-

ket (

de)r

egul

atio

n an

d m

onet

ary

polic

ies a

t the

E

urop

ean

leve

l pre

sent

s si

gnifi

cant

con

stra

ints

on

wel

fare

com

prom

ises

and

cho

ices

at

the

dom

estic

leve

l, an

d in

par

ticul

ar f

orce

s m

em-

ber

stat

es t

o ho

ld-d

own

tax

rate

s on

cap

ital

and

non-

wag

e la

bour

cos

ts (

Scha

rpf

1997

, 19

99).

Thi

s pre

sent

s pa

rtic

ular

pro

blem

s fo

r dem

o-

crat

ic p

oliti

cs in

the

EU. O

n th

e on

e ha

nd,v

ot-

ers,

par

ties,

and

the

med

ia h

ave

few

ince

ntiv

es

to m

obili

ze a

roun

d th

e po

licy

issu

es a

t sta

ke a

t th

e Eu

rope

an l

evel

, as

the

EU-le

vel p

olic

ies

are

not

part

icul

arly

sal

ient

. O

n th

e ot

her

hand

, th

e lo

w s

alie

nce

EU-le

vel p

olic

ies

have

sig

nifi-

ca

nt c

onst

rain

ts o

n th

e ch

oice

s ci

tizen

s an

d po

litic

ians

ca

n m

ake

in h

ighl

y sa

lient

eco

- no

mic

and

soc

ial p

olic

ies.

Thi

s pa

rtly

exp

lain

s th

e co

ncer

ns a

bout

the

'de

moc

ratic

de

ficit'

in

the

EU

. H

owev

er,

the

prob

lem

s re

sulti

ng

From

the

par

ticul

ar a

lloca

tion

of c

ompe

tenc

es

in t

he E

U p

olity

are

con

foun

ded

by th

e de

sign

an

d op

erat

ion

of th

e de

cisi

on-m

akin

g in

stitu

- tio

ns a

t the

Eur

opea

n le

vel.

of p

ower

s bet

wee

n th

e ex

ecut

ive

(pre

side

nt) a

nd

the

legi

slat

ure (

cong

ress

), or

'st

rong

bic

amer

al-

ism', o

r a s

yste

m o

f in

depe

nden

t jud

icia

l rev

iew

, or

a c

ombi

natio

n of

the

se f

acto

rs (

e.g.

Tse

belis

19

95, 2

002)

. H

owev

er o

ne m

ight

mea

sure

it,

polic

y-m

akin

g in

the

EU is

at t

he e

xtre

me

end

of

the

maj

orita

rian-

cons

ensu

s sp

ectr

um,

and

is

esta

blis

hed:

whe

re t

he E

urop

ean

leve

l of

gov-

er

nmen

t is

resp

onsi

ble

for

the

crea

tion

and

regu

latio

n of

th

e m

arke

t (a

nd t

he r

elat

ed

exte

rnal

tra

de p

olic

ies)

; the

dom

estic

leve

l of

go

vern

men

t is

resp

onsi

ble

for

taxa

tion

and

-

-

cal o

ffic

e. F

or e

xam

ple,

vot

ers

care

muc

h m

ore

abou

t w

heth

er

thei

r ta

xes

will

inc

reas

e or

w

heth

er h

ealth

care

spe

ndin

g w

ill b

e in

crea

sed

than

whe

ther

the

EU si

ngle

mar

ket i

s mor

e ne

o-

Libe

ral o

r hi

ghly

regu

late

d. L

ikew

ise,

pol

itici

ans

and

polit

ical

par

ties

wou

ld r

athe

r w

in n

atio

nal

gove

rnm

ent

offic

e an

d na

tiona

l pa

rliam

enta

ry

redi

stri

butio

n (w

ithin

con

stra

ints

agre

ed a

t the

E

urop

ean

leve

l); a

nd t

he d

omes

tic g

over

n-

perh

aps

mor

e co

nsen

sus-

orie

nted

in

its d

esig

n th

an a

ny p

olity

in

the

hist

ory

of d

emoc

ratic

go

vern

men

t! In

the

tirs

t pla

ce, a

gend

a-se

tting

pow

er - in

te

rms

ofw

ho in

itiat

es p

olic

ies -

is s

plit

betw

een

two

inst

itutio

ns. T

he E

urop

ean

Cou

ncil,

whi

ch

brin

gs t

oget

her

the

head

s of

sta

te a

nd g

over

n-

men

ts a

re c

olle

ctiv

ely

resp

onsi

ble

for

polic

ies

on i

nter

nal

secu

rity

(just

ice

and

crim

e) a

nd

elec

tions

th

an

be

nom

inat

ed

to

the

EU

Com

mis

sion

or i

ncre

ase

thei

r re

pres

enta

tion

in

exte

rnal

sec

urity

(de

fenc

e an

d fo

reig

n).

Thi

s se

ttlem

ent w

as e

ssen

tially

set

up

by t

he S

ingl

e E

urop

ean

Act

, an

d th

en

amen

ded

by

the

Maa

stric

ht T

reat

y. T

he su

bseq

uent

ref

orm

s (i

n th

e A

mst

erda

m a

nd N

ice

Trea

ties

and

even

in

the

draf

t C

onst

itutio

nal

Trea

ty w

hich

w

as

sign

ed i

n Ju

ne 2

004)

hav

e no

t al

tere

d th

e se

t-

the

Euro

pean

Par

liam

ent.

This

con

sequ

ently

e.

qlai

ns w

hy E

urop

ean

Parli

amen

t el

ectio

ns in

al

mos

t ev

ery

EU

mem

ber

stat

e ar

e al

way

s 'se

cond

or

der

natio

nal

elec

tions

': m

id-t

erm

po

lls o

n th

e po

pula

rity

of

the

gove

rnin

g pa

rty

men

t of

the

EU

m

embe

r st

ates

, de

cide

s on

Tr

eaty

refo

rms

(whi

ch d

eter

min

e th

e al

loca

tion

of p

olic

ies

to

the

EU

leve

l) an

d se

ts t

he

med

ium

-ter

m p

olic

y ag

enda

(by

invi

ting

the

Com

mis

sion

to

initi

ate

legi

slat

ion

in a

par

ticu-

la

r po

licy

area

). T

he E

urop

ean

Com

mis

sion

, m

eanw

hile

, ha

s a

form

al m

onop

oly

on t

he

initi

ativ

e of m

ost E

U le

gisl

atio

n.

In

muc

h of

th

e lit

erat

ure

on E

urop

ean

or p

artie

s in

the

mem

ber s

tate

rath

er th

an a

bout

th

e pe

rfor

man

ce a

nd p

olic

ies

of t

he p

artie

s in

th

e Eu

rope

an

Parli

amen

t (R

eif

and

Sch

itt

1980

; van

der

Eijk

and

Fra

nklin

199

6). T

his

also

dem

ent

subs

tant

ially

. Fo

r ex

ampl

e, t

he d

raft

C

onst

itutio

n pr

opos

ed to

est

ablis

h a

cata

logu

e of

com

pete

nces

whi

ch w

ould

lock

-in t

he e

xist

- in

g qu

asi-

cons

titut

iona

l set

tlem

ent:

with

a se

p-

arat

ion

betw

een

excl

usiv

e co

mpe

tenc

es o

f th

e EU

(fo

r th

e es

tabl

ishm

ent t

he m

arke

t); s

hare

d co

mpe

tenc

es b

etw

een

the

EU a

nd th

e m

embe

r

expl

ains

why

the

outc

ome

of m

ost r

ehre

ndum

s on

EU

que

stio

ns (w

heth

er to

join

the

EU, t

o jo

in

the

sing

le cu

rren

cy, o

r to

ratif

y an

EU

trea

ty) a

re

influ

encs

d as

muc

h, if

not

mor

e, b

y do

mes

tic

polit

ical

con

side

ratio

ns t

han

the

pref

eren

ces o

f in

tegr

atio

n an

d EU

pol

itics

, th

e C

omm

issi

on

is r

egar

ded

as h

avin

g si

gnifi

cant

ly d

iffer

ent

pref

eren

ces

from

the

EU

m

embe

r st

ates

. In

th

e ea

rly

neo-

func

tiona

list

theo

ries

, th

e C

omm

issi

on w

as t

houg

ht t

o be

ide

olog

ical

ly

com

mit

ted

to

Eur

opea

n in

tegr

atio

n (c

f L

indb

erg

and

Sche

ingo

ld

1970

). In

m

ore

stat

es (

mai

nly

for

the

regu

latio

n of

the

mar

- ke

t);

'coo

rdin

atio

n co

rnpe

tenc

es'

(cov

erin

g ci

tizen

s on

the

spec

ific

EU q

uest

ion

on th

e ba

l- lo

t (Fr

ankl

in et

al.

1995

; Hug

200

2).

mac

ro-e

cono

mic

pol

icie

s, i

nter

ior

affa

irs, a

nd

fore

ign

polic

ies)

, and

exc

lusi

ve c

ompe

tenc

es o

f th

e m

embe

r st

ates

(in

mos

t ar

eas

of t

axat

ion

and

expe

nditu

re).

Nev

erth

eles

s, a

s M

orav

csik

(20

01:

163-

4)

Non

ethe

less

, th

e po

licy

com

pete

nces

at

the

EU

leve

l ha

ve s

igni

fican

t in

dire

ct

dist

ribu

- tio

nal c

onse

quen

ces

at t

he d

omes

tic le

vel.

As

a re

sult

of t

he E

U s

ingl

e m

arke

t and

EU

com

pe-

titio

n po

licie

s, t

he E

U h

as

forc

ed m

embe

r re

cent

lit

erat

ure,

th

e C

omm

issi

on

was

as

sum

ed t

o be

mor

e fa

vour

able

tow

ards

EU

po

ints

out

: st

ates

to r

educ

e th

eir

inte

rven

tion

in th

e ec

on-

omy.

For

ex

ampl

e, a

s a

resu

lt of

th

e EU

, re

gula

tion

than

alm

ost

all E

U m

embe

r st

ates

, ei

ther

to

prom

ote

its o

wn

inst

itutio

nal

inte

r-

ests

or b

ecau

se it

is a

llied

to a

par

ticul

ar s

et o

f so

cial

or

econ

omic

int

eres

ts w

ho e

xpec

t to

be

nefit

fro

m n

ew E

U r

ules

(e.

g. S

andh

oltz

and

Z

ysm

an

1989

; M

ajon

e 19

96;

Cra

m

1997

; Po

llack

199

7a, 2

003)

. If

the

Com

mis

sion

has

ou

tlyin

g pr

efer

ence

s, i

t is

likel

y to

be

able

to

use

its a

gend

a-se

tting

pow

ers

to s

ecur

e si

gnifi

-

The EU p

lays

alm

ost

no r

ole -

at m

ost

a w

eak

sort

of

inte

rnat

iona

l co

oper

atio

n -

in m

ost

of t

he i

ssue

-are

as

abou

t whi

ch E

urop

ean

vote

rs c

are

mos

t, su

ch a

s ta

ra-

tion,

wel

fare

sta

te p

rovi

sion

, de

fenc

e, h

igh

fore

ign

pol~

cy, p

olic

ing,

ed

ucat

ion,

cu

lnlr

al

polic

y, h

uman

rig

hts,

an

d sm

all

busi

ness

po

licy

... T

he E

U w

as

desi

gned

as,

and

rem

ains

prim

arily

, a

limite

d na

tiona

l in

stitu

tion

to c

oord

inat

e na

tiona

l re

gula

tion

of t

rade

SEPA

RATI

ON

OF

POW

ERS

AT T

HE

CENT

RE:

A H

YPER

-CQ

NSE

NSU

S PO

LITY

ai

r tr

ansp

ort,

tel

ecom

mun

icat

ions

, en

ergy

su

pply

and

fin

anci

al s

enic

es h

ave

been

sig

nif

ican

tly l

iber

aliz

ed,

ofte

n ag

ains

t th

e pr

efer

- en

ces

of i

nflu

entia

l do

mes

tic v

este

d in

tere

sts.

A

key

fac

tor

dete

rmin

ing

how

pol

icie

s ar

e m

ade

by p

oliti

es is

how

far a

gend

a-se

tting

and

ve

to

pow

er

is c

entra

lized

or

dis

pers

ed

(cf

Lijp

hart

1999

). A

t on

e ex

trem

e, a

pol

ity c

an

have

a s

ingl

e ag

enda

-set

ter a

nd v

eto-

play

er, a

s in

the

cla

ssic

'maj

orita

rian

' m

odel

of

sing

le-

part

y go

vern

men

t, ex

ecut

ive

dom

inan

ce o

f th

e le

gisl

atur

e, a

wea

k se

cond

cha

mbe

r, an

d a

we-

ak

judi

ciar

y. A

t th

e ot

her

extre

me,

a 'c

onse

nsus

' po

lity

tend

s to

ha

ve m

ultip

le

veto

-pla

yers

, ei

ther

th

roug

h pr

opor

tiona

l re

pres

enta

tion

and

coal

ition

gov

ernm

ents

(par

ticul

arly

whe

re

a gr

and-

coal

ition

is p

reva

lent

), or

a se

para

tion

Mor

eove

r, in

the

are

a of

soc

ial

regu

latio

n, t

he

EU h

as te

nded

to

esta

blis

h vo

lunt

ary

com

mon

st

anda

rds,

rat

her

than

har

mon

ized

sta

ndar

ds

at a

rel

ativ

ely

high

lev

el (

whi

ch t

he E

U h

as

done

in th

e ar

ea o

f env

iron

men

tal

regu

latio

n),

whi

ch h

as a

llow

ed th

ose

stat

es w

ith lo

w le

vels

of s

ocia

l pr

otec

tion

to c

ontin

ue th

ese

polic

ies

(esp

. Stre

eck

1995

, 199

6). A

nd, i

n th

e ar

ea o

f m

onet

ary

polic

y, t

he S

tabi

lity

and

Gro

wth

Pa

ct, t

he e

xces

sive

def

icits

pro

cedu

re, a

nd t

he

syst

em o

f m

ultil

ater

al s

urve

illan

ce p

rese

nt s

ig-

nific

ant

cons

trai

ns o

n EM

U m

embe

r st

ates

'

in g

oods

and

ser

vice

s, a

nd t

he r

esul

ting

flow

s of

eco

- no

mic

iac

tors

. ...

The

EU

cons

titut

iona

l or

der

is no

t on

ly b

arel

y a

fede

ral s

tate

; it

is ba

rely

rec

ogni

zabl

e as

a

stat

e at

all.

ca

nt c

hang

es t

o th

e po

licy

stat

us q

uo. T

his

at

leas

t par

tially

exp

lain

s th

e ra

pid

deve

lopm

ent

of E

U i

nteg

ratio

n in

the

lat

e 19

80s,

foU

ovvi

ng

the

dele

gatio

n of

sig

nific

ant

agen

da-s

ettin

g po

wer

to

th

e C

omn~

issi

on in

th

e Si

ngle

The

con

cent

ratio

n of

pol

icy-

mak

ing

capa

city

at

the

low

er le

vel o

f gov

ernm

ent

rath

er th

an a

t the

hi

gher

leve

l of

gove

rnm

ent

mea

ns th

at d

emoc

- ra

tic p

oliti

cs i

n th

e EU

is

'ups

ide

dow

n' c

om-

pare

d to

mos

t oth

er m

ulti-

leve

l pol

ities

: whe

re

citiz

ens,

par

ties,

pol

itici

ans,

and

the

med

ia a

re

Euro

pean

Act

. N

ever

thel

ess,

rec

ent

rese

arch

sug

gest

s th

at

the

Com

mis

sion

is

not

in f

act

a pr

efer

ence

- ou

tlier

. B

elow

the

lev

el o

f th

e po

litic

ally

pr

imar

ily i

nter

este

d on

the

ele

ctor

al b

attle

s fo

r

HAN

DBO

OK

OF

EURO

PEAN

UN

ION

PO

LITI

CS

THE

EURO

PEAN

UN

ION

AS

A PO

LITY

(I)

147

appo

inte

d C

omm

issi

oner

s,

Hoo

ghe

(199

9,

2001

) ha

s fo

und

that

the

mai

n pr

edic

tors

of

the

polic

y pr

efer

ence

s of

the

seni

or o

ffici

als

in

the

Com

mis

sion

's bu

reau

crac

y ar

e th

eir

natio

nal o

rigi

ns an

d na

tiona

l par

ty a

ffili

atio

ns.

At t

he p

oliti

cal l

evel

, the

mem

ber s

tate

gov

ern-

m

ents

cho

ose

'thei

r' C

omm

issi

oner

s. M

ost o

f th

ese

polit

icia

ns ar

e st

rong

ly ti

ed to

the

polit

i-

cal p

artie

s who

cho

se th

em a

nd se

ek to

ret

urn

to d

omes

tic p

oliti

cs a

fter

the

ir c

aree

rs in

the

C

omm

issi

on. H

ence

, th

e C

omm

issi

oner

s ar

e lik

ely

to r

efle

ct th

e pr

efer

ence

s of

the

par

ties

and

gove

rnm

ents

who

nom

inat

ed t

hem

. And

, si

nce

the

colle

ge o

f Com

mis

sion

ers d

ecid

es b

y a

maj

ority

vot

e, th

e C

omm

issi

on s

houl

d in

iti-

ate

polic

ies

that

are

pre

ferr

ed b

y th

e m

edia

n m

embe

r of

the

Com

mis

sion

, and

the

med

ian

mem

ber

of t

he C

omm

issi

on is

lik

ely

to h

ave

rela

tivel

y ce

ntri

st p

olic

y pr

efer

ence

s on

both

of

the

mai

n di

men

sion

s of E

U p

oliti

cs - EU

int

e-

grat

ion,

and

the

left

-rig

ht (e

sp. C

rom

bez

1997

; H

ug 2

003)

. Th

e C

omm

issio

n Pr

esid

ent m

ight

be

an in

flu-

entia

l age

nda-

sette

r ins

ide

the

Com

mis

sion

, and

so

be

able

to in

flue

nce t

he p

olic

ies i

nitia

ted

by

the

Com

mis

sion

. H

owev

er,

until

th

e N

ice

Trea

ty

ente

red

into

fo

rce

in

2003

, th

e C

omm

issi

on P

resi

dent

was

cho

sen

by u

nani

m-

ity a

mon

gst

the

mem

ber

stat

es. L

sth

a un

a-

nim

ity r

ule,

the

mem

ber

stat

e cl

oses

t to

the

polic

y st

atus

quo

(us

ually

the

lea

st i

nteg

ra-

tioni

st m

embe

r st

ate)

was

abl

e to

cho

ose

the

Com

mis

sion

Pre

side

nt.

In t

he s

elec

tion

of

mos

t re

cent

Com

mis

sion

Pre

side

nts,

Brit

ain

was

the

leas

t int

egra

tioni

st m

embe

r sta

te. A

s a

resu

lt, M

arga

ret

Tha

tche

r w

as a

ble

to v

eto

Cla

ude

Che

ysso

n in

fav

our

of J

acqu

es D

elor

s (w

ho s

he f

elt w

as m

ore

he-m

arke

t an

d le

ss

fede

ralis

t!),

John

M

ajor

ve

toed

Je

an-L

uc

Deh

aene

in fa

vour

of J

acqu

es S

ante

r, an

d To

ny

Bla

ir pr

opos

ed R

oman

o Pr

odi.

In o

ther

wor

ds, t

he C

omm

issi

on is

like

ly to

in

itiat

e po

licie

s th

at a

re

rela

tivel

y ce

ntri

st.

And

, if

the

Com

mis

sion

, 3s

the

agen

da-s

ette

r, is

cent

rally

-loca

ted

rath

er t

han

loca

ted

at o

ne

of t

he e

xtre

mes

, th

en t

he i

nflu

ence

of

the

Com

mis

sion

on

polic

y ou

tcom

es i

s le

ss t

hen

one

mig

ht e

xpec

t. If

the

Com

mis

sion

is a

pre

f- er

ence

-out

lier,

with

str

ongl

y 'in

tegr

atio

nist

' or

stro

ng 'm

arke

t reg

ulat

ion'

pref

eren

ces,

it w

ould

prop

ose

legi

slat

ion

that

wou

ld p

rom

ote

faste

r E

urop

ean

inte

grat

ion

or

a hi

gh

leve

l of

E

urop

ean

regu

latio

n.

In

cont

rast

, if

the

Com

mis

sion

is a

lread

y lo

cate

d w

ithin

, or

clos

e to

, the

set

of

polic

ies

that

hav

e al

read

y be

en

adop

ted

and

cann

ot b

e ch

ange

d [t

he w

in-s

et),

the

Con

lmis

sion

will

onl

y w

ant t

o in

itiat

e leg

- is

latio

n in

thos

e ar

eas w

here

the

exis

ting

polic

y st

atus

quo

is ra

ther

ext

rem

e.

Furt

herm

ore,

the

pow

ers o

f the

EU

age

nda-

se

tters

are

hea

vily

con

stra

ined

by

the

rule

s of

th

e EU

leg

islat

ive

proc

ess

as th

ey a

re c

urre

ntly

de

sign

ed. U

nder

the

inst

itutio

nal d

esig

n of

the

Trea

ty o

f R

ome

and

the

Sing

le E

urop

ean

Act

, th

e C

omm

issi

on w

as e

xtre

mel

y po

wer

ful (

e.g.

Ts

ebel

is an

d K

repp

el 1

998)

. Thi

s w

as b

ecau

se

legi

slat

ion

was

m

ainl

y ad

opte

d by

th

e EU

C

ounc

il, w

ith

only

lim

ited

inpu

t by

th

e E

urop

ean

Parl

iam

ent.

The

intr

oduc

tion

of t

he

so-c

alle

d 'c

oope

ratio

n pr

oced

ure'

in th

e Si

ngle

Eu

rope

an A

ct ga

ve t

he E

urop

ean

parl

iam

ent

two

read

ings

of

le

gisl

atio

n,

but

the

Com

mis

sion

mai

ntai

ned

the

righ

t to

dec

ide

whe

ther

to

acce

pt o

r re

ject

the

Par

liam

ent's

pr

opos

ed

amen

dmen

ts

and

the

Cou

ncil

rem

aine

d th

e fin

al le

gisla

tive

cham

ber,

deci

d-

ing

whe

ther

to a

ccep

t or

reje

ct t

he f

inal

pro

- po

sal

of t

he C

omm

issi

on (

cf.

hlos

er

1996

; Ts

ebel

is 19

91). W

here

una

nim

ity w

as r

equi

red

in th

e C

ounc

il, th

e C

omm

issi

on h

ad to

sat

isfy

th

e m

embe

r sta

te g

over

nmen

t tha

t was

clo

sest

to t

he s

tatu

s qu

o, a

nd s

o co

uld

not

chan

ge

man

y ex

istin

g po

licie

s. H

owev

er, w

here

onl

y a

qual

ifie

d-m

ajor

ity w

as re

quir

ed in

the

Cou

ncil

(as i

n th

e ad

opte

d of

mos

t of t

he le

gisl

atio

n fo

r th

e cr

eatio

n of

the

sin

gle

mar

ket)

; the

siz

e of

th

e se

t of

pol

icie

s th

at a

maj

ority

in

the

Cou

ncil

pref

erre

d to

the

sta

tus

quo

was

con

- si

dera

bly

bigg

er, w

hich

gav

e th

e C

omm

issi

on

the

pow

er t

o m

ove

polic

y ou

tcom

es c

lose

r to

its p

olic

y pr

efer

ence

s - re

gard

less

of

whe

ther

its

pre

fere

nces

wer

e ex

trem

ely i

nteg

ratio

nist

or

cent

rist

(cf

. Gar

rett

1992

; Ste

unen

berg

199

4;

Cro

mbe

i 199

6).

Thi

s w

as

chan

ged

by

the

Maa

stri

cht,

Am

ster

dam

, and

Nic

e Tr

eatie

s, w

hich

sig

nifi-

ca

ntly

red

uced

the

age

nda-

setti

ng p

ower

of

the

Com

mis

sion

, and

inc

reas

ed t

he n

umbe

r of

vet

o-pl

ayer

s in

the

EU

's le

gisla

tive

syst

em.

The

Maa

stri

cht

Trea

ty,

in

1993

, in

trod

uced

the

co-d

ecis

ion

proc

edur

e. T

his

proc

edur

e in

trod

uced

th

e ru

le

that

if

the

Eur

opea

n Pa

rliam

ent a

nd C

ounc

il di

sagr

ee af

ter h

~o

re

ad-

ings

of

legi

slatio

n, a

'con

cilia

tion

com

mitt

ee' i

s co

nven

ed,

of

equa

l re

pres

enta

tives

of

the

Parli

amen

t and

Cou

ncil.

The

n, a

fter t

he c

onci

li-

atio

n co

mm

ittee

, the

Eur

opea

n Pa

rliam

ent c

an

reje

ct th

e leg

islat

ion

outri

ght.

In o

ther

wor

ds, f

or

the

tint

tim

e, th

e ir-

laas

trich

t Tre

aty

esta

blish

ed

the

Euro

pean

Par

liam

ent a

s a v

eto-

play

er.

The

Am

ster

dam

Tr

eaty

, in

19

99,

then

re

form

ed a

nd e

xten

ded

the

co-d

ecis

ion

proc

e-

dure

: in

crea

sing

the

pow

er o

f th

e Eu

rope

an

Parli

amen

t with

in t

he p

roce

dure

and

ext

end-

in

g th

e pr

oced

ure

to m

ost

area

s pr

evio

usly

co

vere

d by

the

coo

pera

tion

proc

edur

e. A

rid,

the

Nic

e Tr

eaty

, in

2003

, fur

ther

ext

ende

d th

e co

-dec

isio

n pr

oced

ure a

nd ra

ised

the

thre

shol

d fo

r pa

ssin

g le

gisl

atio

n by

a q

ualif

ied-

maj

ority

in

the

Cou

ncil.

Th

ese

refo

rms

esta

blis

hed

that

in

mos

t po

licy

area

s the

EU

has

a tr

i-ca

mer

a1 le

gisl

a-

tive

syst

em: w

here

leg

isla

tion

is in

itiat

ed b

y th

e C

omm

issi

on, a

nd c

an t

hen

be a

men

ded

beyo

nd t

he C

omm

issi

on's

inte

ntio

ns b

y a

maj

ority

in

the

Eur

opea

n Pa

rlia

men

t an

d a

qual

ifie

d-m

ajor

ity i

n th

e C

ounc

il. A

ddin

g th

e E

urop

ean

Parl

iam

ent

as a

n in

depe

nden

t ag

enda

-set

ter

and

a ve

to-p

laye

r, an

d ra

isin

g th

e qu

alif

ied-

maj

ority

th

resh

old

in

the

Cou

ncil

ha\,e

mad

e it

mor

e di

ffic

ult

for

EU

legi

slat

ion

to b

e ad

opte

d (b

y re

duci

ng th

e se

t of

pol

icie

s th

at a

re a

ccep

tabl

e to

all

thre

e ac

tors

), an

d so

hav

e re

duce

d th

e ag

enda

- se

tting

pow

ers o

f th

e C

omm

issi

on (

Cro

mbe

z 20

01;

Tseb

elis

and

Yat

agan

as 2

002)

. T

his

intu

itio

n is

als

o su

ppor

ted

by

empi

rica

l re

sear

ch,

whi

ch h

as s

how

n th

at w

hile

the

m

ove

from

una

nim

ity to

qua

lifie

d-m

ajor

ity

votin

g in

the

Cou

ncil

gene

rally

redu

ced

the

leng

th o

f tim

e it

too

k to

ado

pt l

egis

latio

n,

invo

lvin

g the

Eur

opea

n Pa

rlia

men

t inc

reas

ed

the

time

need

ed (

Schu

lz a

nd K

6nig

200

0; c

f. G

olub

199

9) -e

mpi

rica

l re

sear

ch h

as n

ot y

et

mal

ysed

the

im

pact

of

the

incr

ease

in

the

quaI

ifie

d-m

ajor

ity t

hres

hold

in

the

Cou

ncil

by th

e N

ice

Trea

ty.

In a

dditi

on

to

the

chec

ks-a

nd-b

alan

ces

hn

n the

Cou

ncil

and

the

Com

mis

sion

in

rite

initi

atio

n of

leg

isla

tion,

and

the

mul

tiple

veto

-pla

yers

in t

he le

gisla

tive

proc

ess,

the

EU

has

a hi

ghly

dev

elop

ed s

yste

m o

f ju

dici

al

revi

ew. T

he E

urop

ean

Cou

rt o

f Ju

stic

e (E

CJ)

wa

s or

igin

ally

est

ablis

hed

in t

he T

reat

y of

R

ome

to

over

see

the

beha

viou

r of

th

e C

omm

issi

on a

nd t

he i

mpl

emen

tatio

n of

EU

legi

slat

ion

by t

he m

embe

r sta

tes.

Also

, the

re is

no

cle

ar h

iera

rchy

of c

ompe

tenc

es o

r nor

ms

in

the

EU T

reat

ies,

or a

cle

ar ri

ght o

f th

e EC

J to

ex

erci

se w

hat c

onst

itutio

nal l

awye

rs ca

ll 'co

m-

pete

nce-

com

pete

nce'

(th

e ab

ility

to

deci

de

whe

n th

ere

is a

disp

ute

over

who

has

com

pe-

tenc

e in

a g

iven

pol

icy

area

). H

owev

er, t

he in

i-

tial

pow

ers

of t

he E

CJ a

nd t

he l

ack

of c

lear

co

nstr

aint

s on

the

EU j

udic

iary

, hav

e al

low

ed

the

ECJ t

o de

velo

p as

a p

ower

ful p

oliti

cal a

ctor

(e

.g. M

anci

ni 1

989;

Weil

er 1

991)

. Alth

ough

the

ECJ

has

rare

ly s

truc

k-do

wn

EU

legi

slat

ion

once

it h

as p

asse

d, it

cer

tain

ly h

as th

e rig

ht to

do

so

if th

e le

gisl

atio

n is

beyo

nd t

he s

cope

of

the

EU T

reat

ies o

r is

in b

reac

h of

som

e fu

nda-

m

enta

l no

rms,

as

set o

ut, f

or e

xam

ple,

in th

e (n

on-b

indi

ng) C

hart

er o

f Fu

ndam

enta

l Rig

hts

of t

he E

urop

ean

Uni

on.

In o

ther

wor

ds, i

t is

rem

arka

ble

that

the

EU

is ab

le to

do

anyt

hing

! The

gov

ernm

ents

mus

t fi

st ag

ree u

nani

mou

sly t

o ad

d a p

olic

y co

mpe

- te

nce t

o th

e EU

. Hav

ing

mad

e th

is d

ecis

ion,

the

gove

rnm

ents

th

en

deci

de (

by u

nani

mity

') ei

ther

to

pass

leg

isla

tion

in t

his

polic

y ar

ea

by

unan

imity

(af

ter

a pr

opos

al

from

the

C

omm

issi

on)

or t

o al

low

leg

isla

tion

to b

e ad

opte

d by

the

co-

deci

sion

pro

cedu

re (

whe

re

law

s m

ust

be s

uppo

rted

by

maj

oriti

es i

n all

thre

e of

the

EU's

legi

slativ

e in

stitu

tions

- th

e C

omm

issi

on, t

he C

ounc

il an

d th

e Eu

rope

an

Parl

iam

ent)

. The

n, f

inal

ly, t

he E

CJ

can

reje

ct

the

legi

slat

ion

if it

brea

ches

the

com

pete

nces

of

the

EU.

The

pos

itive

sid

e of

this

ela

bora

te sy

stem

of

chec

ks-a

nd-b

alan

ces

is t

hat

noth

ing

can

be

done

by

the

EU w

ithou

t ov

envh

elm

ing

'con-

se

nsus

' am

ongs

t all

the

mai

n m

embe

r st

ates

, po

litic

al p

artie

s, a

nd i

nter

est g

roup

s. In

sta

rk

cont

rast

to

a cl

assic

maj

orita

rian

sys

tem

of

gove

rnm

ent, n

o sin

gle

party

-pol

itica

l or m

em-

ber

stat

e m

ajor

ity c

an 'g

over

n' a

t th

e EU

lev

el ag

ains

t the

int

eres

ts o

f a

part

icul

ar m

inor

ity.

Diff

use

inte

rest

s, s

uch

as

wom

en's

grou

ps,

labo

ur u

nion

s or

env

iron

men

tal g

roup

s, w

ho

HAN

DBO

OK

OF

EUR

OPE

AN U

NIO

N P

OLI

TIC

S TH

E EU

RO

PEAN

UN

ION

AS

A PO

LITY

(I)

1

49

are

norm

ally

less

abl

e to

mob

ilize

to

influ

ence

go

vern

men

t th

an c

once

ntra

ted

(mai

nly

pro-

du

cer)

inte

rest

s, ar

e w

ell-r

epre

sent

ed i

n th

e EU

po

licy-

mak

ing

proc

ess,

in th

e C

omm

issi

on, t

he

Cou

ncil,

the

Eur

opea

n Pa

rliam

ent,

and

the

ECJ (

e.g.

Pol

lack

199

7b; G

reen

woo

d 20

03).

As

a re

sult,

the

fea

r th

at t

he E

U w

ould

im

pose

a

busi

ness

int

eres

t-bia

sed

form

of

plur

alis

m o

n th

e so

cial

dem

ocra

tic m

odel

s of c

orpo

ratis

nl at

th

e na

tiona

l lev

el is

ext

rem

ely

over

blow

n (e

sp.

Stre

eck a

nd S

chm

itter

199

1). B

usin

ess i

nter

ests

ar

e sim

ply

inca

pabl

e of

dom

inat

ing

in a

syst

em

with

so

man

y ac

cess

poi

nts

and

inst

itutio

nal

veto

-pla

yers

. N

ever

thel

ess,

ther

e ar

e se

vera

l neg

ativ

e co

n-

sequ

ence

s of

suc

h a

hype

r-co

nsen

sual

form

of

gove

rnm

ent.

Firs

t, w

hen

legi

slat

ion

is ha

rd t

o pa

ss,

cour

ts, b

urea

ucra

cies

and

ind

epen

dent

ag

enci

es ha

ve a

hig

h de

gree

of d

iscr

etio

n in

the

impl

emen

tatio

n of

leg

isla

tion

(e.g

. LV

einga

st 19

96; T

sebe

lis 2

002)

. In

a m

ajor

itaria

n sy

stem

, if

a co

urt m

akes

a r

ulin

g, o

r a

bure

aucr

acy

or

agen

cy im

plem

ents

a la

w in

a w

ay th

at th

e go

v-

ernm

ent

or

legi

slat

ive

maj

ority

do

es

not

like,

the

gov

ernm

ent

or l

egis

lativ

e m

ajor

ity

can

sim

ply

pass

a n

ew p

iece

of

legi

slat

ion.

In

the

EU, i

n co

ntra

st, i

f th

e EC

J m

akes

a r

ulin

g th

at a

pro

porti

on o

f go

vern

men

ts o

r an

inte

r-

est

grou

p do

not

lik

e, o

r if

the

Com

mis

sion

ov

er-im

plem

ents

a l

egis

lativ

e ac

t, it

is hi

ghly

un

likel

y th

at n

ew E

U l

egis

latio

n w

ill b

e pa

s-

sed

to o

vertu

rn t

he a

ctio

n of

the

EC

J or

the

Com

mis

sion

(T

sebe

lis a

nd G

arre

tt 2

001)

. H

ence

, w

hen

appl

ying

or

im

plem

enti

ng

EU l

aw,

natio

nal

and

Euro

pean

jud

ges

and

bure

aucr

ats

have

ver

y lit

tle f

ear

of p

oliti

cal

repr

isal

. Se

cond

, al

thou

gh n

o pa

rticu

lar

grou

p ca

n go

vern

aga

inst

the

inte

rest

s of

a m

inor

ity, t

he

flip-

side

is th

at, i

n a

hype

r-co

nsen

sus

syst

em, i

t is

easy

for m

inor

ity in

tere

sts

to b

lock

ref

orm

s th

at c

omm

and

over

whe

lmin

g su

ppor

t. Fo

r ex

ampl

e, in

the

US,

whi

ch h

as a

for

m o

f non

- m

ajor

itaria

nism

that

is n

ot a

s ext

rem

e as

in th

e EU

, hea

lthca

re r

efor

m o

r gu

n-co

ntro

l leg

isla

- tio

n ha

s be

en r

epea

tedl

y bl

ocke

d by

con

cen-

tra

ted

inte

rest

s. Th

e pr

oble

m in

the

EU c

onte

xt

is th

at o

nce

legi

slat

ion

is ad

opte

d fo

r th

e fir

st

time

(fro

m an

ext

rem

e sta

tus q

uo p

ositi

on),

the

chec

ks-a

nd-b

alan

ces

allo

w a

ny c

once

ntra

ted

inte

rest

to

bloc

k re

form

. Sch

arpf

(19

88)

first

ob

serv

ed t

his

with

the

Com

mon

Agr

icul

tura

l Po

licy,

whi

ch f

aced

wha

t he

caU

ed.a

'jo

int-

deci

sion

trap

'. B

ut, t

he p

robl

em is

now

uni

ver-

sa

l in

the

EU

, fo

r ex

ampl

e in

the

ref

orm

of

sing

le m

arke

t re,

plat

ions

, th

e re

form

of l

abou

r m

arke

t ru

les,

or th

e re

form

of

the

EU b

udge

t. O

nce

polic

y ha

s be

en a

dopt

ed i

t is '

lock

ed-in

', un

less

the

pre

fere

nces

of a

ll th

e ac

tors

cha

nge

so d

ram

atic

ally

that

the

new

stat

us q

uo is

wel

l ou

tsid

e th

e se

t of

feas

ible

pol

icie

s th

at c

an b

e ad

opte

d.

Third

, w

ith a

wea

kene

d C

omm

issi

on a

s a

resu

lt of

the

high

thr

esho

lds

for p

assi

ng le

gis-

la

tion,

and

a k

agm

ente

d st

ruct

ure

of g

over

- na

nce

in t

he E

urop

ean

Cou

ncil

[whe

re t

he

Pres

iden

cy r

otat

es e

very

6 m

onth

s),

the

EU

suff

ers

from

a s

ever

e la

ck o

f po

litic

al l

eade

r-

ship

. Jac

ques

Del

ors

was

the

exce

ptio

n. H

e w

as

not

only

a c

leve

r pol

itici

an, b

ut h

e w

as h

elpe

d by

the

par

ticul

ar i

nstit

utio

nal e

nviro

nmen

t in

w

hich

he

foun

d hi

mse

lf. A

t th

at t

ime,

it

was

re

lativ

ely e

asy

for t

he C

omm

issi

on to

forc

e le

g-

isla

tion

thro

ugh

the

Cou

ncil

(und

er th

e co

n-

sulta

tion

or c

oope

ratio

n pr

oced

ures

), A

lso, t

he

task

of

the

Del

ors

Com

mis

sion

was

to

pass

a

lot o

f new

legi

slat

ion

to c

reat

e th

e si

ngle

mar

- ke

t, w

hich

mea

nt t

hat

alm

ost

anyt

hing

the

C

omm

issi

on

prop

osed

w

as

pref

erre

d by

al

mos

t all

mem

ber s

tate

s to

the

exi

stin

g st

atus

qu

o (o

f no

sing

le m

arke

t).

Sinc

e th

e pe

rcei

ved

failu

re o

f th

e Sa

nter

C

omm

issi

on,

the

gove

rnm

ents

hav

e tri

ed t

o in

crea

se t

he a

utho

rity

of

the

Com

mis

sion

Pr

esid

ent,

by

allo

win

g th

e C

omm

issi

on

Pres

iden

t to

veto

the

gove

rnm

ents

' nom

inee

s as

Com

mis

sion

ers

and

then

to

allo

cate

por

tfolio

s am

ong

the

nom

inat

ed C

omm

issi

oner

s. Th

is h

as

stre

ngth

ened

the

pow

er o

f th

e C

omm

issi

on

Pres

iden

t in

side

the

Com

mis

sion

. H

owev

er,

thes

e ch

ange

s hav

e no

t add

ress

ed t

he p

robl

em

that

the

Com

mis

sion

has

bee

n si

gnifi

cant

ly

wea

kene

d as

a re

sult

of th

e re

form

s of

the

leg-

isl

ativ

e pr

oced

ures

, w

hich

hav

e re

duce

d th

e C

omm

issi

on's

agen

da-s

ettin

g po

wer

s. Th

ese

refo

rms

also

hav

e no

t ad

dres

sed

the

prob

lem

th

at th

e m

ain

issu

e no

w is

to r

efor

m le

gisl

atio

n an

d pr

ogra

mm

es

that

ha

ve

alre

ady

been

ad

opte

d, w

hich

is e

xtre

mel

y di

ffic

ult i

n th

e ne

w

hype

r-co

nsen

sus

mod

el o

f EU

gov

ernm

ent.

Hav

ing s

aid

that

, one

uni

nten

ded

cons

eque

nce

of t

he X

ice

Trea

ty is

tha

t, as

a r

esul

t of

the

ch

ange

in

the

way

the

Com

mis

sion

is

now

'el

ecte

d', t

he E

U h

as t

he p

oten

tial

to b

ecom

e sl

ight

ly m

ore

maj

orita

rian.

The

Nic

e Tr

eaty

pr

ovid

ed f

or t

he C

omm

issi

on P

resi

dent

and

th

e C

o~nm

issi

on to

be

nom

inat

ed b

y a

qual

i- fie

d-m

ajor

ity r

athe

r th

an u

nani

mity

in

the

Euro

pean

Cou

ncil,

and

then

(as b

efor

e) p

asse

d by

a

sim

ple

maj

ority

in

th

e Eu

rope

an

farli

amen

t. A

t th

e tim

e of

the

Nic

e In

ter-

go

vern

men

tal C

onfe

renc

e, th

is r

efor

m s

eem

ed

a ra

ther

smal

l min

or ch

ange

, mai

nly

to a

ddre

ss

the

conc

ern

that

enl

arge

men

t to

25

mem

ber

stat

es w

ould

mak

e it

very

diff

icul

t to

agre

e on

a C

omm

issi

on P

resi

dent

. H

owev

er, t

his

chan

ge

has

the

pote

ntia

l to

be

quite

pro

foun

d: b

y es

tabl

ishi

ng t

hat

the

sam

e po

litic

al m

ajor

ity

(in

the

Cou

ncil

and

Euro

pean

Par

liam

entj

can

elec

t the

age

nda-

sette

r and

the

n ad

opt l

egis

la-

tion

prop

osed

by

the

agen

da-s

ette

r. So

, if

the

sam

e po

litic

al m

ajor

ity w

as a

ble

to c

ontro

l aU

th

ree

of t

he E

U's

legi

slat

ive

inst

itutio

ns

(the

C

omm

issi

on,

the

Cou

ncil,

an

d th

e Pa

rliam

ent),

the

EU m

ight

be

able

to o

verc

ome

the

cons

train

ts o

f th

e hy

per-

cons

ensu

al d

eci-

sion

rul

es. T

his,

how

ever

, is

likel

y to

be

a ra

re

cond

ition

, gi

ven

the

tend

ency

for

Eur

opea

n Pa

rliam

ent

elec

tions

to

prod

uce

maj

oriti

es

oppo

sed

to th

ose

in th

e C

ounc

il.

POLI

TIC

S IN

TH

E EU

IN

TW

O

RECE

NT P

ERIO

DS

To il

lust

rate

how

the

EU p

olity

\vor

ks in

pra

c-

tice

we

can

look

at t

wo

rece

nt p

erio

ds: (

1) th

e cr

eatio

n an

d re

gula

tion

of th

e si

ngle

mar

ket i

n th

e m

id-1

980s

to

the

mid

-199

0s;

and

(2)

the

refo

rm o

f the

Eur

opea

n so

cial

mod

el as

par

t of

the

sad

led

'Lis

bon

Age

nda'

in th

e la

te 1

990s

an

d at

the

star

t of t

he n

ew m

illen

nium

. The

re

wer

e th

ree

sign

ifica

nt d

iffer

ence

s in

the

way

th

e EU

wor

ked

behv

een

thes

e tw

o pe

riods

. Fi

rst.

the

inst

itut

iona

l de

sign

of

the

EU

changed

In t

he l

ate

1980

s an

d ea

rly 1

990s

, w

ith th

e co

oper

atio

n pr

oced

ure

and

the

exte

n-

sion

of

qu

alif

ied-

maj

ority

vo

ting

in

the

Cou

ncil,

th

e C

omm

issi

on

had

sign

ifica

nt

agen

da-s

ettin

g po

wer

. By

th

e la

te

1990

%

how

ever

, with

the

new

co-

deci

sion

proc

edur

e th

e EU

inst

itutio

ns w

ere

mor

e hy

per-

cons

ensu

al.

Seco

nd, t

he lo

catio

n of

exi

stin

g po

licie

s (th

e st

atus

quo

) was

diff

eren

t. In

the

late

198

0s an

d ea

rly 1

990s

, whe

n th

e ai

m w

as to

ado

pt m

any

new

law

s to

crea

te a

nd re

gula

te a

sing

le m

arke

t, vi

rtual

ly a

ll ac

tors

pre

ferr

ed a

ny E

U le

gisl

atio

n to

the

sta

tus

quo

(of

no s

ingl

e m

arke

t ru

les)

. By

the

late

199

0s in

con

trast

, the

mai

n po

licy

aim

was

to

refo

rm n

atio

nal

and

EU r

egul

a-

tions

, w

here

som

e go

vern

men

ts a

nd p

artie

s pr

efer

red

to m

ove

exis

ting

EU le

gisl

atio

n le

ft-

war

ds (

for

exam

ple,

to

adop

t ne

w E

U s

ocia

l re

gula

tions

or

tax

ha

rmon

izat

ion)

, w

hile

ot

hers

pre

ferr

ed t

o m

ove

e-xi

sting

EU

leg

isla-

tio

n rig

htw

ards

(fo

r ex

ampl

e, t

o pa

ss r

ules

lib

eral

izin

g la

bour

mar

kets

). Th

ird,

the

loca

tion

of s

ome

of th

e ke

y ac

tors

ch

ange

d. I

n th

e la

te 1

980s

and

ear

ly 1

990s

, of

the

thre

e la

rges

t mem

ber s

tate

s, Fr

ench

soci

alis

t Pr

esid

ent

Fran

gois

Mitt

erra

nd

advo

cate

d a

'soci

al d

imen

sion

' to

the

sin

gle

mar

ket

pro-

gr

amm

e, a

nd w

as l

arge

ly s

uppo

rted

in t

his

agen

da b

y H

elm

ut K

ohl's

Chr

istia

n de

moc

ratic

- lib

eral

coa

litio

n in

Ger

man

y. A

t th

e ot

her

extre

me,

Mar

gare

t Tha

tche

r's c

onse

rvat

ive g

ov-

ernm

ents

sup

port

ed t

he s

ingl

e m

arke

t bu

t ad

aman

tly o

ppos

ed E

U s

ocia

l reg

ulat

ions

-'w

e di

d no

t rol

l bac

k th

e st

ate

in L

ondo

n to

hav

e it

re-im

pose

d th

roug

h th

e ba

ckdo

or

from

Br

usse

ls',

as s

he p

ut i

t in

her

fam

ous

Bru

ges

spee

ch.

That

cher

was

mar

gina

lized

, th

ough

, as

th

e m

edia

n m

embe

r of

th

e D

elor

s C

omm

issi

on w

as c

onsi

dera

bly

to th

e le

ft of

her

, an

d th

e m

~jor

ity i

n th

e Eu

rope

an P

arlia

men

t w

as o

n th

e ce

ntre

-left,

dom

inat

ed b

y a

coal

ition

of

soc

ialis

ts (Party

of E

urop

ean

Soci

alis

ts),

lib-

eral

s (E

urop

ean

Libe

ral,

Dem

ocra

t and

Ref

orm

Pa

rty),

gree

ns (

Gre

en g

roup

), an

d ra

dica

l le

ft M

EPs

(Eur

opea

n U

nite

d Le

ft) (

parti

cula

rly i

n th

e 19

89-9

4 pe

riod)

. In

the

late

199

0s th

e si

tuat

ion

was

qui

te d

id-

fere

nt.

This

tim

e, G

erha

rd S

chra

der's

soc

ial

dem

ocra

t-gre

en g

over

nmen

t was

furth

est t

o th

e le

ft of

the

thre

e la

rges

t mem

ber s

tate

s - an

d, as

a

resu

lt, w

as o

utvo

ted

mos

t in

the

Cou

ncil

in th

is

perio

d (M

attil

a an

d La

ne

2001

). Fr

ench

Pr

esid

ent I

acqu

es C

hira

c was

a c

onse

rvat

ive,

but

on t

he is

sue

of r

efor

m o

f th

e w

elfa

re st

ate

and

HAN

DBO

OK

OF E

URO

PEAN

UN

ION

PO

LITI

CS

FR A

G

ER

U

K

(Mitt

erra

nd)

(Koh

l) Cn

cl,, (T

hatc

her)

LEFT

I

1 I

1 R

IGH

T (p

ro E

U

EPm

a, Co

rn,, (a

nti E

U

regu

latio

n)

(SO

C + Li

bs +

(Del

ors)

ra

nge

of

SQ

1 re

gula

tion)

Grn

s +

Left)

po

licy

outc

omes

GE

R

FRA

U

K

(Sch

:ode

r) (C

hp

c) C

nclg

gqm

v C

nc10

4qm

v (B

lair)

LEFT

'

I I

I I

' T

RIG

HT

(pro

old

Co

m99

,,, S

Q2

C0r

n04,

~,

EPm

I (p

ro li

bera

l so

cial

mod

el)

(Pro

di)

(Bar

roso

) (E

PP

+ Li

bs +

rang

e of

C

ons)

po

licy

outc

omes

Figu

re 6

.1

Polit

ics i

n th

e EU

. (a)

Cre

atio

n an

d Re

gula

tion

ofth

e Si

ngle

'Lia

rket

(m

id-1

980s

to m

id-1

990s

). (b

) Ref

orm

oft

he E

urop

ean

Soci

al ~

CIo

del (la

te 1

990s

to ea

rly

2000

s). N

ote:

SQ,, SQ,

=po

licy

star

u qu

os in

perio

d 1

and

peri

od 2

, res

pect

ivel

y; C

ncl*

, Cn

c199

,_:

Cn

~lO

4~

~,

=pi

vota

l mem

ber

ofth

e C

ounc

il un

der q

ualif

ied-

maj

ority

vot

ing;

EP

rq =

p~vo

tal m

embe

r of

the

Euro

pean

Par

liam

ent

unde

r sim

ple-

maj

ority

vot

ing;

and

C

ornx

q C

0m

99

~~

Co

mM

,,, =

pivo

tal m

embe

r of

the

Euro

pean

Com

mis

sion

und

er si

mpl

e-

maj

ority

vot

ing.

labo

ur m

arke

ts w

as c

lose

r to

mor

e tra

ditio

nal

soci

alis

ts th

an s

ocia

l dem

ocra

t mod

erni

zers

like

M

i K

ok o

r To

ny B

lair.

The

Bla

ir go

vern

men

t, m

eanw

hile

, was

on

the

cent

re-r

ight

at

the

EU

leve

l: su

ppor

ting

liber

al r

efor

ms

(suc

h as

the

Ta

keov

er D

irect

ive)

and

oppo

sing

new

EU

soc

ial

regu

latio

ns

(suc

h as

th

e W

orki

ng

Tim

e D

irect

ive)

. N

ever

thel

ess,

the

maj

ority

in

the

C

ounc

il ch

ange

d be

twee

n 19

99-2

004,

as

man

y of

the

cen

tre-le

ft go

vern

men

ts t

hat

dom

inat

ed

the

Cou

ncil

in t

he la

te 1

990s

wer

e re

plac

ed b

y ce

ntre

-rig

ht g

over

nmen

ts.

The

cha

ngin

g m

ake-

up o

f th

e C

ounc

il w

as

then

ref

lect

ed in

the

chan

ging

mak

e-up

of

the

Com

mis

sion

, si

nce

the

gove

rnm

ents

cho

ose

the

Com

mis

sion

ers.

Whe

reas

the

199

9-20

04

Com

mis

sion

led

by

Rom

ano

Prod

i had

a c

en-

tre-le

ft m

ajor

ity, t

he 2

004-

09 C

omm

issi

on le

d by

Jos

C M

anue

l B

arro

so h

ad a

cen

tre-

righ

t m

ajor

ity. N

onet

hele

ss, a

fter

the

1999

and

200

4 E

urop

ean

elec

tions

, th

e E

urop

ean

Parli

amen

t w

as d

omin

ated

by

a ce

ntre

-rig

ht c

oalit

ion

of

Chr

istia

n de

moc

ratlc

onse

rvat

ives

(E

urop

ean

Peop

le's

Part

y-E

urop

ean

Dem

ocra

g),

liber

als

(Alli

ance

of

L

iber

als

and

Dem

ocra

ts

for

Eur

ope)

, an

d na

tiona

l-con

serv

ativ

es

(Uni

on

for a

Eur

opea

n of

Nat

ions

). Fi

gure

6.1

ill

ustra

tes

the

basi

c st

ruct

ure

of

polit

ics

in t

hese

two

perio

ds. T

he f

irst t

hing

to

note

is th

at th

e m

ain

dim

ensi

on o

f pol

itics

in th

e EU

is s

imila

r to

the

clas

sic '

left-

right

' dirn

ensi

on

of E

U p

oliti

cs, a

lthou

gh w

ith a

slig

htly

diff

eren

t m

eani

ng to

the

dirn

ensi

on in

the

two

perio

ds (c

f. H

ix 19

99; M

arks

and

Ste

enbe

gen

2002

). Th

is

way

of

conc

eptu

aliz

ing

EU p

oliti

cs is

qui

te d

if-

fere

nt to

the

tradi

tiona

l ne

w in

Eur

opea

n in

te-

grat

ion

stud

ies,

whe

re m

ost

theo

rists

ass

umed

th

at t

he m

ain

dirn

ensi

on o

f co

dict

was

the

sp

eed

and

natu

re o

f Eu

rope

an i

nteg

ratio

n, w

ith

som

e m

embe

r st

ates

and

the

EU

ins

titut

ions

su

ppor

ting

fast

er in

tegr

atio

n an

d ot

her m

embe

r st

ates

su

ppor

ting

sl

ower

in

tegr

atio

n (e

.g.

Ho

ha

nn

196

6; b

lora

vsci

k 19

98).

In t

he c

re-

atio

n of

the

sing

le m

arke

t, th

e le

ft-rig

ht a

nd th

e pr

olan

ti-in

tegr

atio

n di

men

sion

s w

ere

rela

ted,

w

ith

the

left

gene

rally

sup

port

ing

mor

e EU

(m

id)

regu

latio

n an

d th

e rig

ht g

ener

aIly

sup-

po

rtin

g le

ss (

and

volu

ntar

istic

) re

gula

tion

(esp

.

THE

EURO

PEAN

UNI

C

Hoo

ghe

and

Mar

ks 1

998)

. In

the

late

199

0s,

how

ever

, the

rel

atio

nshi

p be

twee

n th

e d

iien

- si

ons

is le

ss c

lear

. For

exa

mpl

e, w

hile

the

rig

ht

gene

rally

opp

osed

mor

e EU

so

cial

reg

ulat

ion

and

tau

harm

oniz

atio

n th

ey w

ere

also

in f

avou

r of

the

EU fo

rcin

g th

e m

embe

r sta

tes t

o lib

eral

ize

thei

r sen

ice

sect

or, l

abou

r m

arke

ts a

nd ta

keov

er

rule

s, an

d th

e le

ft ha

d th

e re

vers

e se

t of

pref

er-

ence

s. Em

piric

al re

sear

ch al

so s

uppo

rts

this

con

- ce

ptio

n of

EU

po

litic

s,

in

that

th

e m

ain

dirn

ensi

on o

f vot

ing

beha

viou

r in

the

Euro

pean

Pa

rliam

ent a

nd th

e EU

Cou

ncil

is th

e le

h-rig

ht

and

not

the

prol

anti-

inte

grat

ion

dim

ensi

on

(Mat

tila

2004

; Hi

et a

l. 20

05,2

006)

. A

sec

ond

issu

e of

not

e in

the

fig

ure

is t

he

rela

tive

loca

tion

of t

he p

ivot

al a

ctor

s in

the

C

ounc

il an

d th

e E

urop

ean

Parl

iam

ent

in

the

two

perio

ds. B

ecau

se E

urop

ean

Parl

iam

ent

elec

tions

ten

d to

be

mid

-ter

m n

atio

nal

con-

te

sts,

foug

ht o

n th

e ba

ttle

for

natio

nal

gove

rn-

men

t of

fice

rath

er t

han

on i

ssue

s on

the

EU

ag

enda

, th

ese

elec

tions

te

nd

to b

e w

on b

y op

posi

tion

parti

es (

Mar

sh 1

998)

. As

a re

sult,

w

hile

gov

erni

ng p

artie

s ar

e re

pres

ente

d in

the

C

ounc

il, o

ppos

ition

par

ties

tend

to

dom

inat

e th

e E

urop

ean

Parli

amen

t. Fo

r ex

ampl

e, i

n th

e la

te 1

980s

, the

maj

ority

of

gove

rnm

ents

in

the

Cou

ncil

wer

e on

the

cent

re-r

ight

and

the

left

won

the

1989

Eur

opea

n el

ectio

ns. S

imila

rly, i

n th

e la

te 1

990s

, the

Cou

ncil

was

dom

inat

ed b

y ce

ntre

-lef

t go

vern

men

ts a

nd t

he

Eur

opea

n Pe

ople

's Pa

rty e

mer

ged

as th

e la

rges

t gro

up in

th

e 19

99 E

urop

ean

elec

tions

. As

a re

sult,

lik

e m

any

polit

ies

with

exe

cutiv

e an

d le

gisl

ativ

e el

ectio

ns a

t di

ffer

ent

times

(c

f. A

lesi

na a

nd

Ros

enth

zl 1

994)

, 'div

ided

gov

ernm

ent'

is th

e no

rm i

n th

e EU

. T

his

cons

eque

ntly

co

m-

poun

ds t

he c

onse

nsua

l de

sign

of

the

EU,

by

ensu

ring

tha

t th

e pr

efer

ence

s of

tw

o of

the

m

ain

veto

-pla

yers

are

usu

ally

far

apar

t. It

is e

asy

to s

ee f

rom

the

stru

ctur

e of

inst

itu-

tiona

l ru

les,

the

loc

atio

ns o

f th

e st

atus

quo

s,

and

the

loca

tions

of t

he a

ctor

s th

at it

was

muc

h ea

sier

for

the

EU

to

adop

t le

gisl

atio

n in

the

19

86s

and

early

199

0s th

an i

n th

e la

te 1

990s

an

d ea

rly 2

000s

. In

the

ear

lier

peri

od,

with

a

cons

ider

able

dis

tanc

e b

etm

en

xhc

pivo

tal

mem

ber

of th

e C

ounc

il (C

ncl,,

in F

igur

e 6.

la)

and

the

stat

us q

uo (

SQ,),

th

e C

omm

issi

on

coul

d pr

opos

e an

y pa

licj

in

th

e ra

nge

)N A

S A

PO

LITY

(I)

151

Cor

nmLi

-SQ

, and

it w

ould

be

acce

pted

by

the

Cou

ncil

and

a m

aior

ity

in

the

Eur

opea

n Pa

rlia

men

t (a

lthou

gh t

his

was

not

nec

essa

ry

until

the

Maa

stric

ht T

reat

y in

199

3).

The

situ

atio

n w

as r

athe

r di

ffer

ent i

n th

e la

te

1990

s. Fo

llow

ing

the

1999

Eur

opea

n el

ectio

ns,

the

EU w

as 'g

ridlo

cked

'. T

he P

rodi

Com

mis

sion

an

d th

e C

ounc

il m

ajor

ity w

ere

to th

e le

ft of

mos

t po

licy

stat

us

quos

w

here

as

the

Eur

opea

n Pa

rliam

ent

maj

ority

was

now

to

the

right

of

mos

t sta

tus

quos

. Thi

s pe

riod

cons

eque

ntly

saw

se

vera

l hig

h-pr

ofile

bat

tles b

etw

een

the

thre

e EU

in

stitu

tions

, fo

r ex

ampl

e on

the

End

-of-

Life

V

ehic

le D

irect

ive,

whe

re th

e ce

ntre

-rig

ht m

ajor

- ity

in th

e Eu

rope

an P

arlia

men

t wat

ered

-dow

n a

high

ly r

egul

ator

y C

omm

issi

on p

ropo

sal w

hich

ha

d be

en s

uppo

rted

by

a soc

ialis

t-gre

en co

aliti

on

in th

e C

ounc

il.

Follo

win

g th

e 20

04 E

urop

ean

elec

tions

and

th

e in

vest

iture

of t

he B

arro

so C

omm

issi

on, t

he

EU m

oved

out

of

grid

lock

. B

arro

so w

as t

he

first

Com

mis

sion

Pre

side

nt to

be

elec

ted

unde

r th

e N

ice

Trea

ty r

ules

, by

a qu

alifi

ed-m

ajor

ity

inst

ead

of

unan

imity

. H

ad

unan

imity

bee

n us

ed,

Chi

rac

and

Schr

oder

wou

ld p

roba

bly

have

bee

n ab

le t

o se

cure

the

ele

ctio

n of

the

ir

pref

erre

d ca

ndid

ate,

th

e B

elgi

an

Prim

e M

inis

ter

Guy

Ver

hofs

tadt

. H

owev

er,

Fran

ce

and

Ger

man

y w

ere

forc

ed t

o ac

cept

Bar

roso

w

hen

it w

as c

lear

that

he

had

the

supp

ort o

f a

qual

ified

-maj

ority

. In

ear

ly 2

005,

for

the

firs

t tim

e, th

e EU

had

a c

entr

e-ri

ght m

ajor

ity in

the

Cou

ncil,

the

Eur

opea

n Pa

rliam

ent

and

the

Com

mis

sion

. W

ith

a C

ounc

il m

ajor

ity

(Cnc

l04,

, in

Fig

ure

6.lb

) an

d a

Euro

pean

Pa

rlia

men

t maj

ority

(EP,

,) no

w to

the

right

of

the

stat

us q

uo (S

Q2)

, the

Bar

roso

Com

mis

sion

co

uld

prop

ose

liber

al r

efor

ms

(in

the

rang

e S

Q,&

0m04

~~

) that

wou

ld p

ass

thro

ugh

the

Cou

ncil

and

the

Eur

opea

n Pa

rliam

ent.

How

ever

, Bar

roso

's in

itial

legi

slat

ive a

gend

a,

whi

ch

incl

uded

a

quite

lib

eral

Se

rvic

es

Dire

ctiv

e, h

ad to

be

dela

yed

beca

use

of o

ppos

i-

tion

in F

ranc

e to

'Ang

lo-S

axon

' EU

ref

orm

s.

Fran

ce c

ould

hav

e be

en o

utvo

ted

(as

it ha

d be

en i

n th

e el

ectio

n of

Bar

roso

). B

ut, F

ranc

e w

as d

ue t

o ho

ld a

ref

eren

dum

on

the

EU

Con

stitu

tion,

and

the

mai

n op

posi

tion

to t

he

Con

stitu

tion

was

fro

m t

he l

eft.

Hen

ce,

the

pote

ntia

l fo

r ge

nuin

e m

ajor

itari

an p

oliti

cs i

n

152 HANDBOOK OF EURC

the EU was thwarted by collective agreement not to undertake reforms that would make any member state worse during the ratification of the Constitution, and so provoke opposition in that country.

These case studies consequently illustrate the difficulty of making policy in the EU's hyper- consensus polity. With a weakened Commission, a powerful European Parliament, a hgh voting threshold in the Council, and a majority in the European Parliament that is likely to be the opposite colour to the majority in the Councd, the EU is only likely to be able to adopt policies in those areas where existing policies are strongly undesirable for all concerned (for example, a fragmented financial services market). Where the policy status quo is more centrist, as in the bulk of eisting single market legislation, the EU is lkely to be gridlocked.

The Nice Treaty, which allowed for the Commission President to be elected by a qualified-majority in the European Council, injected an element of majoritarianism into the system. However, the first time the EU experi- enced'unified governmentJ- with a centre-right majority in the Commission, the Council, and the European Parliament in 200445 - poliq-

- . making was stalled. This was partly a collective choice by the EU institutions while the member states and the Commission focused on ratifying the EU Constitution. But, this also reflected-the difficulties of a particular party-political major- ity 'governing' in such a consensus-oriented polity. The problem is that those on the minor- ity side (such as the French government in 2004-05) questioned the legitimacy of the liber- alizing agenda pursued by the new centre-right majorities in the Commission, Council, and European Parliament. Even when unified- government does exist in the EU, there simply is no democratic 'mandate' to move policy in a particular direction.

DEMOCRACY IN THE EU: NO MANDATE FOR ACTION

The final problem for the EU polity is perhaps the most intractable: the so-called 'democratic

IPEAN UNION POLITICS

deficit: A huge amount has been written about this issue since the question arose in the late 1980s (for an excellent review and critique see Moravcsik 2002). Also, there is no single defin- ition of the EU democratic-deficit (cf. Weiler et al. 1995; Siedentop 2000). Nevertheless, most contemporary commentators make one or more of the faflowing claims.

First, European integration has increased the power of the executive at the expense of national parliamentary control. EU decisions are made primarily by executive actors: the Commission and national ministers in the Council. This has meant a decrease in the power of national parliaments, as governments can ignore their parliaments when making decisions in Brussels or can be out-voted in the Council (where qualified-majority voting is used) (e.g. Andersen and Burns 1996).

Second, the reduction of the power of national parliaments has not been compensated by increased power of the European Parliament. Despite the Treatyreforms, which have strength- ened the power of the European Parliament, the Council still dominates the Parliament in the legislative process and in the adoption of the budget. Also, EU citizens are not as well con- nected to their MEPs as to their national parlia- mentarians (e.g. Wdliams 1991; Lodge 1994).

Citizens are not able to vote on EU policies, except in periodic referendums on EU mem- bership or treaty reforms. National elections are fought on domestic rather than European issues, and parties collude to keep the issue of Europe off the domestic political agenda (Hix 1999; lL1ark.s et al. 2002). European Parliament elections are also not about Europe, as parties and the media treat them as mid-term national contests, as discussed.

The EU is 'too distant' and too complex. The Commission is neither a government nor a bureaucracy, and is appointed through an obscure procedure rather than elected by the people or a parliament (cf. Magnette 2b01). The Council is the only legislature in the democratic world that makes decisions in secret. The European Parliament is impenetra- ble because of the multilingual nature of debates. And, the policy process is technocratic rather than political (Wallace and Smith 1995).

T THE EUROPEAN UNlC

I As a result of all these factors, the EU adopts policies that are not supported by a majority of

I citizens in many (or even most) member states, such as a neo-liberal regulatory frame-

I work for the single market, a neo-monetarist framework for EMU, and mdssive subsidies to farmers through the Common Agricultural Policy (e.g. Scharpf 1997, 1999).

However, these arguments are not univer- sally accepted. In particular, Giandomenlco Majone and Andrew Moravcsik have vehe- mently critic~zed these clauns. As discussed, Majone sees the EU is essentially a 'regulatory state', which does not engage in redistributive or value-allocative policies (Majone 1998, 2000, 2002a, b). Following from this, because regulatory policies should be pareto-improving (benefiting everyone) rather than redistribu- tive, EU policy-making should be isolated from the standard processes of majoritarian democratic politics - in the same way that courts and central banks should be indepen- dent of legislatures and executives. From Majone's perspective, the problem for the EU is less a democratic deficit, than a 'credibility crisis' or 'legitimacy deficit'. The solut~on, he believes, is procedural rather than more funda- mental. What the EU needs is more transpar- ent decision-making, ex-post review by courts and ombudsmen, greater professionalism and technical expertise, rules that protect the rights of minority interests, and better scrutiny by private actors, the media, and parliamentari- ans at both the EU and national levels. A more 'democratic' EU, dominated by the European Parliament or with a directly elected Commission President, would politicize regu- latory policy-making. And, politicization would result in redistributive rather than pareto-efficient outcomes, and so undermine rather than increase the legit~macy of the EU

t (cf. Dehousse 1995).

Moravcsik (2002) goes even further, pre- senting an extensive critique of all the main democratic-defica claims. Against the argu-

j ment that power has been centralized in the executive, Moravcslk points out that na t~ond governments are the most directly accountable politicians in Europe. Against the crit~que that

I the executives are beyond the control of

IN AS A POLITY (I) 153

representative institutions, he argues that the most significant institutional development in the EU in the past two decades has been the increased powers of the European Parliament in the legislative process and in the selection of the Commission. He also argues that EU policy-making is more transparent than most domestic policy-making processes, that the EU technocrats are forced to listen to multiple societal interests, that there is extensive judicial review of EU actions by both the ECJ and national courts, and that the European Parliament and national parliaments have increasing scrutiny powers, which they are not afraid to use. Finally, against the so-called 'social democratic critique' that EU policies are systematically biased against the median voter, Moravcsik argues that the EU's system of checks-and-balances ensures that an over- whelming consensus is required for any poli- cies to be agreed. As a result, free market liberals are just as unhappy with the centrist EU policy regime as social democrats.

But, there are at least three reasons why democracy, in terms of competitive elections to choose policies and leaders, is better than the sort of 'enlightened technocracy' advo- cated by Majone and Moravcsik. First, in either majoritarian or more consensual mod- els of democracy, competitive elections guar- antee that policies and elected officials respond to the preferences of citizens (Powell 2000). Electoral contests provide incentives for elites to develop rival policy ideas and propose rival candidates for political office. They also allow citizens to punish politicians who fail to implement their electoral promises or who are dishonest or corrupt (Fearon 1999). Where the EU is concerned, policies might be in the interests of citizens when they were first agreed, but without electoral competition there are few incentives for the Commission or the governments to change these policies in response to changes in citizens' preferences.

Second, political competition is an essential vehicle for fostering political debate, which in turn promotes the formation of public opin- ion on different policy options. Without the policy debate that is an inherent by-product of

154 HANDBOOK OF EURO

electoral competition, voters would not be able to form their preferences on complex policy issues. An example of this in the EU is the debate about structural reform of the European economy. The EU has the legal instruments and powers to force member states to liberalize their labour markets. But, without a public debate, the public cannot form opinions about the options for the EU, and the EU institutions do not have the incen- tives or the legitimate mandate to undertake such reforms.

Third, elections have a powerful formative effect, promoting a gradual evolution of polit- ical identities. For example, in the history of American and European democracies, the replacement of local identities by national identities occurred through the process and operation of mass elections and party compe- tition (Key 1961; Rokkan 1999). In the EU, rather than assuming that a European 'demos' is a prerequisite for genuine EU democracy, a European democratic identity could only form through the practice of democratic competi- tion; where citizens accept being on the losing side in one particular contest in the expecta- tion that they will be on the winning sidein the not too distant future (Habermas 1995).

The EU may be able to produce policy out- puts that are close to some notional European- wide median voter. However, this is insufficient to guarantee public support for the EU polity. In times of economic growth, non- democratic regimes are as stable as democratic regimes. However, when the regime fails to continue to provide such benefits, for example in an economic downturn, non-democratic regimes tend to be far less stable than democ- ratic regimes (Acemoglu and Robinson 2001; Przeworski 2004). This is because in non- democratic regimes the citizens blame the regime as a whole for the failed policies, whereas in democratic regimes citizens blame

current government of the day, which they replace, rather than the regime as a whole.

However, because the powers of the govern- to run the EU would be significantly

by either a more powerful European or an elected Commission

resident, it is unlikely that the governments

PEAN UNION POLITICS

will transform the EU into a genuine competitive- democracy any time soon. The proposed EU Constitution, which the 25 governments agreed to unanimously, would not have made any significant changes in this respect. Nevertheless, we may reach a point when European citizens turn against the EU polity for its repeated policy failures, the lock-in of unpopular policies, and the constant institu- tional gridlock. Only then might governments consider more dramatic reform.

CONCLUSION

One perspective, as cogently argued by Moravcsik (2003), is that 'if the EU ain't broke why fuc it?' The European Union is a remark- able achievement. It is a historically unique experiment in the creation of a supranational polity, with some of the powers of a traditional 'state', at least in the fields of economic, social and environmental regulation. The EU has guaranteed prosperity, economic growth, political stability, and security in western Europe for the past 30 years and, as a result, has been a magnet to states in southern, eastern, and south-eastern Europe to undertake demo- cratic political reforms and free market eco- nomic reforms in order to join it. The EU has also played its part in the global political econ- omy, promoting global trade integration, eco- nomic and political development, and integration in other regions of the world.

Nevertheless, judged by the standards of modern democratic polities, the EU has some serious problems. The policy mix of the EU - with the regulation of the single market and monetary policies at the European level and taxation and spending at the national level - severely constrains the policy choices of national governments. The EU decision- making system, with its hyper-consensus structure of checks-and-balances, is incapable of enacting policy reforms which might force national governments to take on vested inter- ests that are preventing them from liberalizing their labour markets (particularly in France, Germany and Italy). And, without a more

THE EUROPEAN UNlO

democratic and competitive contest over the policy-agenda of the EU, there is no mandate for political leadership at the European level.

It may be unfair to judge the EU by these standards, as it has been designed precisely to constrain 'politics', with no clearly identifiable winners and losers. However, these are the standards by which many of Europe's citizens judge it. As a result, support for European inte- gration has steadily declined since its peak in the early 1990s. In the wake of the Dutch and French [ejections of the EU Constitution, it seems that the majority of EU citizens are relatively sceptical towards most things 'European'. The challenge for the EU is how to deliver the things Europe's citizens want - a functioning single market, economic growth, and structural reforms - without also reform- ing the institutional design to establish a more Qrectly democratic system of accountability.

NOTE

I . For a book-length survey of recent research on the EU as a 'pulirical system'see HIX (2005).

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The European Union as a Polity (11 )

M A R K U S J A C H T E N F U C H S

INTRODUCTION

One of the eternal themes of the study of the European Union consists in the issue of whether the EU is an N of 1. This debate is not about whether the EU has particular charac- teristics which make it unique in some holistic way. In that sense, nobody would deny that there is only one EU as there is only one United Nations, one US and one United Airlines. Events, decisions, policies, or institutions are always unique in this sense, but few scholars would deny that they can nevertheless be analysed scientifically. Despite much contro- versy in the philosophy of science, most social scientists attempt to explain something by relating it to more general laws. Thus, the real debate is not about whether the EU is unique and needs a special theory in order to explain it or whether important aspects of the EU can be explained by general theories. Instead, the debate is about which general theories are more powerful for explaining the most rele- vant aspects of the European Union: theories of international relations or theories of domes- tic politics.

For those who argued in favor of international relations, this analytical perspec- tive followed from the fact that the EU was not a state but a creation of independent states. For those who argued in favor of domestic politics, the EU was so untypical an international orga- nization that fieories of international relations seemed inapplicable. This split goes back to the early days of integration theory. Both Haas (2004) and his counterpart Hoffmann (1966) have tried to explain the European Union from the vantage point of international relations theory whereas Lindberg and Scheingold (1970) have instead written about 'Europe's Would-Be Polity' from a domestic politics per- spective. Nowadays, Moravcsik (1998) takes sides with Haas and Hoffmann while further refining their approaches, whereas Hix (2005) has joined Lindberg and Scheingold in analysing the political system of the EU.

Both perspectives have made important contributions to the better understanding of the EU. Yet each of them has blind spots that the other approach does not necessarily cover. The international relations perspective essentially regards the EU as a highly institutionalized negotiating system among states which still

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s of

ana

rchy

and

the

sec

urity

di

lem

ma

whi

ch a

re s

o cr

ucia

l to

inte

rnat

iona

l re

latio

ns b

ut c

lose

ly re

sem

bles

nor

mal

pol

itics

in

W

este

rn

dem

ocra

cies

(c

.f.

the

deba

te

betw

een HK (1

994,

1996

) on

the o

ne h

and

and

Hur

rell

and

Men

on (

1996

) on

the

othe

r). T

he

deba

te b

ehve

en t

hese

two

com

petin

g pe

rspe

c-

tives

som

etim

es o

bscu

res

the

fact

tha

t th

e di

vidi

ng li

ne b

etw

een

the

two

subd

isci

plin

es o

f po

litic

al sc

ienc

e is e

rodi

ng. I

deal

ly, a

mor

e .,e

n-

era1

app

roac

h to

pol

itica

l sc

ienc

e sh

ould

be

able

to

offe

r an

int

egra

ted

view

(S

char

pf

I997

a; iv

1iln

er 1

998)

. Su

ch a

wid

ely

acce

pted

inte

grat

ed th

eory

of

polit

ical

sci

ence

is n

ot y

et a

vaila

ble.

We

shou

ld

ther

efor

e ke

ep in

min

d th

at th

e re

spec

tive

con-

ce

ptua

l le

nses

of

inte

rnat

iona

l re

latio

ns o

r co

mpa

rativ

e po

litic

s m

ight

ove

rlook

im

por-

ta

nt p

arts

of

the

Euro

pean

Uni

on w

hich

are

ne

verth

eles

s re

leva

nt a

nd c

an b

e ex

plai

ned

sci-

entif

ical

ly. R

egar

ding

the

Euro

pean

Uni

on a

s a

syst

em o

f m

ulti-

leve

l go

vern

ance

has

in

rece

nt

year

s be

com

e a

prom

inen

t w

ay o

f ac

hiev

ing

that

goa

l. A

lthou

gh it

has

dev

elop

ed o

ut o

f the

co

mpa

rativ

e po

litic

s vi

ew, i

t off

ers

the

pote

n-

tial

to c

over

blin

d sp

ots

of b

oth

inte

rnat

iona

l re

latio

ns a

nd c

ompa

rativ

e po

litic

s ap

proa

ches

w

hile

rem

aini

ng o

pen

to th

eir

cent

ral i

nsig

hts

and

to te

stin

g an

d em

piric

al s

crut

iny

by c

on-

side

ring

the

Euro

-Pol

ity a

s pa

rt o

f a

larg

er s

et

of g

over

nanc

e sys

tem

s.

THE

EU A

S A

SYST

EM O

F M

ULTI

-LEV

EL G

OVE

RNAN

CE - T

HE

INTE

LLEC

TUAL

OR

IGIN

S

The

Aft

erm

ath

of G

rand

In

tegr

atio

n T

heor

y

New

per

spec

tives

on

an is

sue o

ften

deve

lop

out

of a

n in

abili

ty o

f pr

evai

ling

pers

pect

ives

to

deal

with

the

issu

es r

esea

rche

rs a

re in

tere

sted

in

. The

y do

not

ref

ute

prev

ailin

g th

eorie

s by

test

ing

and

fals

ifyin

g th

em b

ut s

impl

y ig

nore

th

em a

nd s

tart

som

ethi

ng n

ew, o

ften

with

out

offe

ring

alte

rnat

ive

gran

d th

eorie

s in

the

firs

t pl

ace.

Thi

s was

the

situ

atio

n of

Eur

opea

n in

te-

grat

ion

stud

ies

in t

he 1

970s

. The

pas

sion

ate

deba

te i

n th

e 19

60s a

bout

whe

ther

Eur

opea

n in

tegr

atio

n co

uld

be b

ette

r ex

plai

ned

by

auto

nom

ous

stat

e ac

tors

(i

nter

gove

rnm

en-

talis

m)

or so

cial

pro

cess

es (

neof

unct

iona

lism

) w

as w

ither

ing

away

(Pu

chal

a 19

72;

Haa

s 19

75).

Why

the

Euro

-Pol

ity h

ad e

mer

ged

and

wha

t sig

nific

ance

it h

ad f

or in

tern

atio

nal

rela

- tio

ns b

ecam

e le

ss in

tere

stin

g to

the

maj

ority

of

scho

lars

. Ins

tead

, the

act

ual f

unct

ioni

ng o

f thi

s po

lity -

its p

olic

ies - s

eem

ed t

o be

a m

ore

prom

isin

g fie

ld o

f re

sear

ch (

c.f.

Jach

tenf

uchs

20

01, f

or a

n ov

ervi

ew).

The

depe

nden

t va

riabl

e of

a l

arge

par

t of

Eu

rope

an i

nteg

ratio

n st

udie

s sh

ifted

fro

m t

he

polit

y to

its p

olic

ies,

sym

boliz

ed b

y th

e pu

bli-

catio

n of

the

first

edi

tion

of 'P

olic

y-m

akin

g in

th

e Eu

rope

an

Com

mun

ity'

(Wal

lace

et

al.

1977

). M

ost p

olic

y st

udie

s in

itial

ly fo

cuse

d on

th

e C

omm

unity

leve

l onl

y. A

not

able

exc

eptio

n is

Puch

ala

(198

4: T), w

ho a

rgue

d th

at E

C po

licy-

mak

ing

coul

d on

ly

be

adeq

uate

ly

unde

rsto

od i

f 'th

e sh

iftin

g of

pol

icy

deba

tes

back

and

fo

rth

behv

een

inte

rnat

iona

l an

d do

mes

tic a

rena

s' w

as t

aken

int

o ac

coun

t (c

.t'.

Bul

mer

198

3).

Ger

man

-Am

eric

an

App

roac

hes

to

Com

para

tlve

Fed

eral

ism

The

sym

bolic

ref

eren

ce p

oint

for

the

sta

rt o

f th

e m

ulti-

leve

l pe

rspe

ctiv

e in

EU

stu

dies

is

Scha

rpf's

(19

88) '

Join

t-Dec

isio

n Tr

ap'. S

char

pf

(198

8: 2

39)

star

ted

from

the

obs

erva

tion

that

th

e pr

oces

s of

Eur

opea

n in

tegr

atio

n se

emed

to

be c

augh

t in

a s

tabl

e st

atus

quo

cha

ract

eriz

ed

by '

frus

trat

ion

wit

hout

dis

inte

grat

ion

and

resi

lienc

e with

out p

rogr

ess'.

With

resp

ect t

o th

e de

velo

pmen

t of t

he E

uro-

Polit

y, th

is a

ppro

ach

defie

d bo

th n

eofu

nctio

nalis

m a

nd i

nter

gov-

er

nmen

talis

m.

The

EU

, it

was

arg

ued,

pro

- du

ced

subo

ptim

al p

olic

y-ou

tput

s w

itho

ut

faili

ng a

ltoge

ther

(a

s in

terg

over

nmen

talis

m

wou

ld e

xpec

t) bu

t at

the

sam

e tim

e w

ithou

t be

ing

able

to re

form

itse

lf (a

s neo

func

tiona

lism

wou

ld

antic

ipat

e).

This

sit

uati

on,

Scha

rpf

argu

ed, w

as th

e sy

stem

atic

resu

lt of

a p

artic

u-

lar

inst

itutio

nal

conf

igur

atio

n lin

king

the

Eu

rope

an a

nd th

e m

embe

r st

ate

leve

l. Si

mila

r ob

serv

atio

ns c

ould

be

mad

e w

ith r

efer

ence

to

Ger

man

pol

icy-

mak

ing.

In

esse

nce,

the

repr

e-

sent

atio

n of

the

ins

titut

iona

l se

lf-in

tere

sts

of

cons

titue

nt g

over

nmen

ts i

n ce

ntra

l de

cisi

on-

mak

ing

proc

esse

s le

ad t

o th

e jo

int-d

ecis

ion

trap:

Con

stitu

ent g

over

nmen

ts re

sist e

ffici

ency

- or

ient

ed p

olic

y re

form

s w

hen

thei

r in

stitu

- tio

nal s

elf-

inte

rest

s m

ight

be

thre

aten

ed.

Wha

t is

impo

rtan

t fo

r EU

stu

dies

is

the

nove

l per

spec

tive

it in

trodu

ced.

Sch

arpf

com

- pa

red

the

EU w

ith G

erm

any -

unus

ual

for

both

IR

sch

olar

s an

d co

mpa

rativ

ists

- b

ut

adop

ted

a pu

rely

ana

lytic

al p

ersp

ectiv

e w

ith-

out a

rgui

ng th

at th

e EU

was

a s

tate

or

that

it

coul

d or

sho

uld

beco

me

one.

The

ana

lytic

al

cate

gorie

s us

ed -

dec

isio

n st

yles

, de

cisi

on

rule

s, in

stitu

tiona

l con

figur

atio

ns, e

tc. -

are

to

a la

rge

degr

ee o

f a v

ery

gene

ral n

atur

e an

d no

t sp

ecifi

c to

inte

rnat

iona

l rel

atio

ns, c

ompa

rativ

e po

litic

s, or

EU

stu

dies

.The

und

erly

ing

idea

is a

po

litic

al s

yste

m c

onsi

stin

g of

tw

o in

terr

elat

ed

laye

rs - th

is is

the

ana

lytic

al d

efin

ition

of f

ed-

eral

ism

with

out

the

norm

ativ

e te

leol

ogy

of

Euro

-fed

eral

ism

. Due

to th

e st

ruct

ural

sim

ilar-

iti

es b

etw

een

Ger

man

and

Eur

opea

n fe

dera

l- is

m,

it is

not

surp

risin

g th

at c

once

ptua

lizin

g th

e Eu

rope

an U

nion

as

a m

ulti-

leve

l sy

stem

ha

s be

com

e pa

rticu

larly

pop

ular

in

Ger

man

y (~

en

z

2000

; Sc

harp

f 20

01;

Jach

tenf

uchs

and

K

ohle

r-K

och

2003

; K

ohle

r-K

och

2003

). In

ad

ditio

n, G

erm

an a

utho

rs ar

e us

ed to

livi

ng in

a '

sem

i-sav

erei

gn s

tate

' (K

atze

nste

in 1

987)

and

thus

fin

d it

easy

to

acce

pt t

he i

dea

of t

heir

coun

try

bein

g pa

rt o

f a

larg

er m

ulti-

leve

l sy

stem

of g

over

nanc

e, ,

This

is d

iffer

ent

for

US a

utho

rs. L

ivin

g in

a

supe

rpow

er g

ives

a l

ot o

f pl

ausi

bilit

y to

the

id

ea th

at s

tate

s co

ntro

l int

erna

tiona

l org

aniz

a-

tions

and

that

the

EU

is

cont

rolle

d by

the

Big

Th

ree

(Fra

nce,

Ger

man

y, a

nd th

e U

K) -

a pe

r-

spec

tive w

hich

is a

rgua

bly

not s

hare

d by

man

y G

erm

ans.

As

a re

sult,

the

Am

eric

an

deba

te

abou

t the

Eur

opea

n U

nion

has

to

a co

nsid

er-

able

deg

ree

been

dom

inat

ed b

y ap

proa

ches

in

spire

d by

inte

rnat

iona

l rel

atio

ns (c

.f. P

olla

ck

2001

). B

ut t

he U

S is

not

onl

y a

supe

rpow

er, i

t

is al

so a

fed

eral

sys

tem

, alth

ough

the

leve

ls of

go

vern

men

t ar

e m

ore

clea

rly s

epar

ated

tha

n th

ey a

re i

n G

erm

any

or i

n th

e EU

. Ea

rly

Am

eric

an a

ttem

pts

to a

ppro

ach

the

EU a

s a

mul

ti-le

vel

or f

eder

al p

olity

cam

e pr

imar

ily

from

leg

al s

chol

ars,

prob

ably

bec

ause

alre

ady

in t

he 1

980s

, law

yers

had

writ

ten

abou

t th

e qu

asi-f

eder

al s

truc

ture

of

the

Euro

pean

lega

l or

der

(Ste

in 1

981;

Wei

ler

1981

, 19

82).

This

m

ade

it ea

sier

for

law

yers

tha

n fo

r po

litic

al

scie

ntis

ts to

mov

e aw

ay f

rom

the

inte

rnat

iona

l re

latio

nslin

tern

atio

nal

law

per

spec

tive.

The

tra

nsat

lant

ic 'I

nteg

ratio

n Th

roug

h La

w' p

ro-

ject

pro

duce

d a

num

ber

of m

onog

raph

s com

- pa

ring

the

lega

l or

der

of t

he U

S an

d th

e EU

(C

appe

lletti

et al

. 198

5; R

ehbi

nder

and

Ste

war

t 19

85)

as f

eder

al s

yste

ms.

A m

ajor

the

me

in

thes

e st

udie

s w

as

the

stru

ctur

al

tens

ion

betw

een

hvo

leve

ls of

gov

ernm

ent

in f

eder

al

syst

ems

and

the

resu

lting

nee

d fo

r co

nfic

t re

solu

tion

and

adju

dica

tion

by ju

dges

and

the

lega

l ord

er.

Am

eric

an p

oliti

cal

scie

ntis

ts jo

ined

in

late

r. H

ere,

th

e sy

mbo

lic r

efer

ence

is

Sbra

giaS

(1

992a

) ed

ited

volu

me

on 'E

uro-

Polit

ics'

to

whi

ch

a nu

mbe

r of

co

mpa

rativ

ists

co

n-

tribu

ted.

Dra

win

g on

the

lite

ratu

re o

n co

m-

para

tive

fede

ralis

m

and

also

on

Scha

rpf's

ar

gum

ent

abou

t th

e 'jo

int-

deci

sion

tra

p',

Sbra

gia

(199

2b, 1

993)

mad

e a

gene

ral p

lea

for

look

ing

at th

e EU

in

term

s of

inte

rlock

ed le

v-

els

of g

over

nmen

t. M

arks

(19

92, 1

993)

arg

ued

that

maj

or f

inan

cial

red

istri

butio

ns i

n th

e EU

, th

e so

-cal

led

'stru

ctur

al p

olic

y', c

ould

not

ade

- qu

atel

y be

exp

lain

ed b

y ap

proa

ches

der

ived

fr

om

inte

rnat

iona

l re

latio

ns

rely

ing

on

inte

rsta

te b

arga

ins

but o

nly

if th

e EU

was c

on-

cept

ualiz

ed a

s a

syst

em o

f m

ultip

le a

ctor

s an

d de

cisi

on-m

akin

g ar

enas

. To

geth

er

with

H

oogh

e, h

e fu

rthe

r de

velo

ped

and

exte

nded

th

is a

ppro

ach

(Hoo

ghe

1996

; M

arks

et

al.

1996

; Mar

ks a

nd H

oogh

e 20

00; H

oogh

e an

d M

arks

200

1,20

03).

Thes

e w

orks

, w

hich

wer

e di

scus

sed

here

on

ly in

an

exem

plar

y fa

shio

n, m

ade

an im

por-

ta

nt c

ontr

ibut

ion

to t

he b

ette

r un

ders

tand

ing

of E

urop

ean

inte

grat

ion.

The

y pa

ved

the

way

to

a b

ette

r un

ders

tand

ing

of t

he E

urop

ean

Uni

on w

ithou

t re

sorti

ng t

o an

int

erna

tiona

l re

latio

ns p

ersp

ectiv

e bu

t w

ithou

t fa

lling

bac

k

162 HANDBOOK OF EUROPEAN UNION POLITICS

to sui generis terminology. They have also led to the widely accepted view that institutional developments, political processes and substan- tive policies in the European Union can be better understood by regarding the EU as a system of two interlocking levels of govern- ment with a strong role for its member states. Finally, they have contributed to an increasing awareness among comparativists that cross- national studies of politics or policy-making in EU member states cannot ignore any more the impact of the EU on national patterns of poli- tics and policy, as is the case in domestic multi- level systems. But, in order to see what difference a multi-level perspective on the EU makes, it is necessary to summarize the main findings about the nature of the multi-level EU polity.

WHAT DOES THE EU LOOK LIKE?

Considering the EU as a political system allows one to apply the comparative method (Peters 1998) and thus to gain substantive and sound new analytical insights without entering the highly controversial normative debate about whether the EU could or should become a state. Although the notion of a 'political system' only makes real sense if it is not used synonymously with the notion of a 'state', this concurrent usage is often the rule. Historically, it is the result of the debate between interna- tional and comparative approaches to the EU. In order to strengthen their case against inter- national approaches, comparativists easily overstate the similarities between the EU and ideal-typical Western democratic states. Unintentionally, this could lead to the same teleology that was criticized with reference to neofunctionalism: At least in normal times when no intergovernmental conferences take place, the EU very much looks like a state, and like a rather unitary one: It adopts public poli- cies, different institutions execute these poli- cies, legislate, and adjudicate, interest groups and political parties compete for influence and power, and so on. All these processes do indeed take place, and it makes perfect sense to

analyse them from a point of view of comparative politics.

Still, these similarities should not make us forget that the EU is not a state and that it is rather different even from strongly federal states hke the US or Germany. These are the differences highlighted by a multi-level gover- nance perspective. What makes up the distinc- tiveness of the EU as a polity is not a single feature taken alone but their combination.

No Monopoly of Force, No Monopoly of Taxation

Max Weber's argument that the state is distinct from al l other forms of political organization by its possession of the monopoly of the legit- imate use of force is still convincing (Poggi 1990: Ch. 2). Historically, gaining effective control over the means of force (and over financial resources) was the decisive advantage that territorial entities had over their competi- tors (Tilly 1975; Reinhard 1999). In many respects, the EU as a polity is not very different any more from the polities of its member states. This is particularly striking if we look at the development of the Euro-polity in scope and depth from the beginning in the 1950s until the present (c.f. Hix 2005: 20-1). But, despite impressive developments in the field of justice and home affairs as well as in foreign and security policy, particularly since the early 1990s, the 'government' of the European Union does not control an army and it does not control a police force. On the contrary, military and police remain under the exclusive authority of the member states.

The EU would probably have an integrated army under the control of some kind of European government had the European Defense Community been adopted in the 1950s. But it failed in 1954, and the impressive development of military cooperation in the EU after decades of stagnation is not aiming at its resurrection. Instead, it is about intensive inter-state cooperation in clearly limited areas of security policy (Wagner 2003). The member states retain the last word about the use of the means of force.

THE EUROPEAN UNION AS A POLITY (11) 163

This is also the case with regard to the police. The creation of Europol (Occhipinti 2003) has strongly contributed to the institutionahation of cooperation among police authorities and member states. The harmonization of criminal law, exchanges of information, executive coop- eration, for instance in 'joint investigation teams', and most notably the European Arrest Warrant certainly go much beyond the tradi- tional notion that, in military and police mat- ters, state sovereignty is stdl intact. In fact, the monopoly of force of the member states becomes increasingly embedded into a larger institutional setting within the political system of the EU (Jachtenfuchs 2005). But there is no sign of an emerging competition for the monopoly of force between the central EU insti- tutions and the member states. This is the deci- sive dfference between the political system of the European Union and federal states. The latter usually have centralized military forces. The federal level also has either its own police forces or at least a firm constitutional grip on the police forces of lower levels of government (Bayley 1985).

However, political systems cannot rely on coercion alone in order to maintain themselves and to pursue public policies. Even in interna- tional relations, the 'managerial school' of compliance argues that the threat of force is not sufficient to achieve compliance with jointly agreed rules (Raustiala and Slaughter 2002). Hierarchy combined with force may become increasingly dysfunctional as a mode of governance in modern, highly differentiated societiesrBut having no monopoly of force at all is different from having it without using it most of the time. In the Euro-Polity, the threat and the actual use of force is not available for the center even in extreme circumstances. Governance and politics take place in a system which is in the last resort exclusively based on voluntary agreement.

Besides the monopoly of force, the second resource that the modern state has successfully claimed during its development is control over taxation. In the major industrialized countries, the tax take as a share of GDP rose to about 40%. As a result, states have enormous financial resources at their disposal. Like the monopoly

of force, the monopoly of taxation is under pressure tiom globalization and Europeanization (Genschel 2005). But it still exists. The finan- cial resources available to the EU are by far smaller than the financial resources available to the member states and to a large degree consist of member state contributions. As a result, the EU level has only rather limited financial resources at its disposal. Although politics does not simply and exclusively con- sist of spending money, having it makes a big difference, as large infrastructure projects or a redistributive welfare state with massive effects on political affiliation (Flora and Heidenheimer 1981) are feasible options only for the member states.

A Hierarchical Legal System

) W e the EU has no monopoly of force and no monopoly of taxation, it has a h~erarchlcal legal system and a supranat~onal constitubonal order, most concisely expressed by the doc- trines of 'dlrect effect' and of 'supremacy' (Weller 1999; Alter 2001) Accordrng to the first, EU Treaties and secondary legislation do under certaln conditions create direct mdlv~d- ual rights and obligations w~thout having to be transposed mto natlonal law According to the second, European U n ~ o n law IS superior to national law, lncludmg nat~onal const~tut~onal law Both doctrines have met wlth considerable resistance but are now by and large accepted both by the pol~tlcal and the legal actors of EU member states. I

As a result, the structure of the EU's legal system can to some degree compensate for the lack of a monopoly of force. In the first place, intentional non-~mplementat~on is not a promlslng optlon for member states res~stlng a certam pollcy Due to the d~rect-effects doc- trine, EU rules can create individual legal rights even if they are not Implemented. These rights can be cla~med from domestic courts. If states resist a legal act of the EU, ~t does not oppose a 'foreign' legal order by domest~c courts and thus risksleopardizlng as own judl- clal system Declslon-malung and implemen- tation thus take place under the shadow of

legal hierarchy. This considerably raises the costs for non-implementation. Although European law is still not like domestic law, mainly because its degree of political internal- ization is lower, it clearly has a higher legal quality than international law (Ziirn and CVolf 1999). As a result, compliance is not systemat- ically lower in the European Union than in territorial states (Ziirn and Joerges 2005).

Weak Political Parties

In established democracies, political parties, interest groups and the media are the moit com- mon intermediary institutions between citizens and government. Of these, political parties are arguably the most important ones as they estab- lish a rather direct link between individual polit- ical preferences and political action.

The development of the Euro-Polity has clearly stimulated the organization and coher- ence of political parties at the EL-level. Whereas the first wave of literature which appeared on the occasion of the first direct elections to the European Parliament in 1979 has shown limited programmatic and organi- zational coherence despite great expectations in this direction (Reif et al. 1980)- organiza- tional structures, programmatic coherence, and voting coherence of European level politi- cal parties have greatly increased since then (Gabel and Hix 2002; H i et al. 2005). Although party politics at the European level thus increasingly looks like party politics at the national level, party politics is less relevant on the European level than it is on the member state level. This 1s so for several reasons.

In the first place, European elections in many member states are still second-order national elections (Reif and Schmitt 1980). Overall turnout in elections to the European Parliament has been steadily declining since 1979, and electoral campaigns are not about alternative choices for European public poli- cies but mainly about national political issues. Apart from major European constitutional choices which often have a high mobilization potential, even major issues of European Union politics do not figure prominently in

domestic debates and party politics. And, despite the increasing degree of programmatic integration on the left-right scale, the national cleavage is still very strong with respect to grand constitutional questions (Jachtenfuchs 2002). This is typical for territorially seg- mented systems such as the European Union.

The European Parliament as the arena where party politics takes place in the European Union is only one player in the EU legislative process. Although there are signs of a sloxv move away from the early technocratic image towards a more political view, the European Commission is not responsive to popular elections and thus does not show a strong ideological profile. This applies even more to the Council, which constantly changes its political composition as a result of different national election dates. The Council is not a corporate actor but a collective actor with con- stantly shifting composition. Thus, the Euro- Polity follows neither the model of a party government nor the model of a presidential system. Instead, it is a negotiating system with a limited role for political parties and a very strong role for national governments and their institutional and socioeconomic interests.

Negotiation is a mode of collective decision- making fundamentally different from voting which is prevalent in parliamentary politics (Scharpf 1997a: 151-70; Elster 1998). Whereas, in voting, the winning majority 'takes ali' and thus has to make fewer compromises even if it is a coalition, negotiation ideal-typically requires the consent of all players and thus a larger readi- ness for compromise than voting. Although the Council increasingly decides by qualified major- ity, votes are still the exception rather than the rule and are used as a means to decide only after the fadure of negotiations when compromises have already been made. Xs a result, the Euro- Polity still has a strong tendency to moderate socioeconomic cleavages and thus to reduce the role of political parties.

Weak Coupling of Levels of Government

The implicit understanding of much of the scientific and the political literature on the EU

as a multiievel system assumes neatly sepanted levels of government, usually two - the EU- level and the member state level. There are several sources of this idea, ranging from fiscal federalism to the Catholic doctrine of sub- sidiarity. The basic thrust of the argument is that governmental activity can and should be organized at different territorial levels, depending on the issue at stake, in order to maximize policy-making efficiency and citizen involvement: Whereas garbage collection should be organized at the local level, defense should be located at the highest level of the political system. The merits and problems of this idea as a normative theory are not at issue here. As an analytical model, however, the con- cept of the EU consisting of independent levels of government is misleading as it supposes that each level of government has the resources and powers to carry out its tasks without having to rely on other levels.

The reality of the EU corresponds more to the Gcrman system of two interlocked levels of government than to an idealized US model of nvo clearly separated levels. The most illustra- tive case for this argument is the Council. In terms of decision-making, the Council was the overwhelmingly important body and remains crucial even after the constant rise of the European Parliament. Although the Council is an institution at the EU level, it represents national governments responsive to national electorates on national issues. It is not an equivalent to the US Senate which dues not consist of state governors but of Senators specific* elected for it. Instead, the Council is closer to the German Bundestag, which con- sists of representatives of the Lander govern- ments elected in Liindej elections. In the terminology of Sbragia (19931, the representa- don of territorial interests in the European Union is much stronger than in federal states.

The EU does not only lack a monopoly of force that cuuld be used to implement laws against open resistance, it also lacks the per- sonnel and the powers to implement its laws in normal times. Instead, it has to rely on the member states to implement its laws and poli- cies and to collect its resources (even the so-called 'own resources').

But the EU is also different from German federalism with respect to the relationship between the two main levels of government. Whereas, in Germany, both Ievels are tightly coupled, they are only loosely coupled in the EU (on the concept of 'coupling c.f. Orton and Weick 1990). Strict coupling in the context of German federalism means that representa- tives of Lander governments in the Bundesrat have precise mandates for their negotiation strategy from which they usually will not devi- ate. The reason for this behavior is that both levels of government in German federalism are Linked through political parties which exist as integrated organizations at both levels. The logic of party interests thus often supersedes the logic of territorial interests. As a result, the Bundesrat becomes involved into the power game at the federal Level, a situation which is most visible when the respective majorities in the Bundestag and in the Bundesrat differ.

This is different in the EU context. iUthough several attempts have been made to coordinate the positions of the large party groups before major European Council meetings, Euro- parties usually have no influence on the posi- tions of negotiators in the sectoral Council meetings which are responsible for the day-to- day governance of the EU, As a result. negotiat- ing positions of governmental representatives in the EU Council are not linked to an overall political struggle at the EU level. Instead, nego- tiators in the Council have much more leeway than negotiators in the Bundesrat. In the European Union, the EU and the member state level are only loosely coupled (Benz 2000, 2003).

CONSEQUENCES FOR POLICY-MAKING AND POLITICS

These particular features of the EL multilevel system - the lackof a monopoly of force and of taxation, the hierarchical legal system, the weakness of political parties and the loose cou- pling of levels of government - have specific consequences for poliq-making and political processes in the European Union.

HANDBOOK OF EUROPEAN UNION POLITICS 7 A Specific Mode of Governance: Negotiatlon and Deliberation

Elster (1998: 5) has argued that there are only three pure forms of collective decision- making: voting, bargaining or negotiation, and deliberation (c.f. Scharpf 1997a). In political reality, there are often mixed or combined forms such as deliberations followed by a vote, mixtures of negotiation and deliberation, or negotiations in the shadow of a vote. The typ- ical decision-making mode for democracies is voting (Dahl 1989: 1 3 5 6 2 ) . Voting is a very efficient means of decision-making as it pro- duces clear decisions quickly (if we neglect the problems of cyclical majorities). For this reason, the increased resort to majority voting is usually presented as a means to increase the decision-making efficiency of the EU and to prevent it from collapse in the face of an ever- expanding membership. However, voting does not change the preferences of the participants, it does not require compromises between the different positions, and it creates winners and losers. Hence, the acceptance of the. majority decision by the minority is a structural problem. The factors usuaUy identified for favoring acceptance are the realistic,prospect of also being part of the majority in a not too distant future and a collective identity which makes losing easier as it takes place in a community.

The European Union is very heterogeneous in terms of both socio-economic development and of cultural identity. Decisions need to be accepted by all participants and can only be enforced through legal procedures (in the areas where the European Court of Justice has juris- diction) but not through the use of force. This is why its decision-making procedures are characterized by the search of consensus, with the exception of voting in the European Parliament. The Commissioners, although for- mally entitled to adopt decisions by simple majority, usually try to reach agreement by consensus (Hix 2005: 41). The Council also tries to avoid voting (Mattila and Lane 2001) although qualified majority voting is possible in an increasing number of areas. Whereas, in the democratic state, voting is the major

dec~sion-malung rule, in the European Unlon a is negotiation and deliberat~on.

Negotlatlon also does not change pdrtlcl- pants' preferences. Contrary to votlng, how- ever, ~t requires cornpromlses and avolds losers I as all participants have to sacrifice something in order to reach an agreement. It is therefore l~kely to be more frequent in decentralized sys- tems with weak hierarchical elements such as the European Union than in more hierarchical systems. Indeed, negotiation prevails in the EU with the Council being the incarnation of a negotiation system. The Council decision- making process on aU levels - from the minis- terial level to COREPER and the Council working groups - is a highly institutionalized negotiation process. The same applies to the Comitology system (Joerges and Vos 1999) and to a large degree to relations between the Commission, the Council, and the European Parliament. The various 'dialogues' with soci- etal actors are also partly negotiations. Beate Kohler-Koch has argued that the EU system is characterized by consociation instead of majoritarianism (c.f. Lijphart 1999) as a con- stitutional principle and by the prevalence of individual interests over the common good (Kohler-Koch 1999). h a result, outcomes are negotiated in consensus-oriented arenas with various participants (c.f. the contributions in Kohler-Koch and Eising 1999).

Deliberation, Elster's third mode of collective decision-making, involves changing prefer- ences. Deliberation is the process of arriving at cognitive and normative agreements among, participants by mutual conviction alone. It creates no losers and doesnot even require actors to 'give id to a negotiation outcome which does not correspond to their preferences. Instead, deliberation leads to a change of actors' preferences so that in the end they all agree on a common course of action because they are con- vinced that this is the best and right collective decision even if they would have liked another outcome initially. Collective agreements reached through deliberation are thus self- enforcing and not vulnerable to unilateral action (which is a weakness of negotiated agree- ments). They are ideal for heterogeneous poli- ties such as the EU but they also carry a heavy

THE EUROPEAN UNION AS A POLITY (11) 167

price in the form of high time requirements or the risk of non-decisions.

Deliberation is a difficult concept, mostly because the transition from social macro- theories to empirical research is very difficult and has not yet led to much agreement about how to operationalize deliberation. There is also no clear demarcation from related con- cepts such as a 'problem-solving' negotiation style or 'arguing: In addition, distinguishing between deliberation and negotiation not only requires fine-grained and detailed empirical analysis (e.g. Holzinger 2001), but also access to the verbatim proceedings of the respective bodies (Elster 1992). Although micro-analyocal analyses of the meetings of EU bodies are rare, there is clear evidence that negotiations among member states are not characterized by pure negotiation but also have a major deliberation component (Lewis 1998). This seems to be particularly strong in Comitology, where 'delib- erative supramationalism' partly replaces inter- governmental bargaining (Joerges and Neyer 1997a, b; Gehring 1999).

A System-Specific Policy Mix?

The EU is a multilevel political system consist- ing of two interlinked levels of governance with relatively weak political parties and a weak collective identity. Like any institutional setting, this particular t p e of polity may have specific consequences for policy-making and governance.

Severat attempts have been made to classify the multitude of substantive policy fields in a few groups in order to be able to systematically relate them to politicai processes and political institutions. The distinction between redistrib- utive and regulatory policies based on Lowi's (1964, 1972) proposals is of particular rele- vance for the EU. Distributive policies, Lowi's third category, will be neglected here as hardly any policies nowadays sirnply distribute an inexhaustible resource across constituencies and thus create only winners without taking it from anybody. This classification is not com- prehensive as it does not cover foreign and security policies as well as what in Euro-speak

is called 'justice and home affairs'. But it captures a key feature of the political system of the European Union, namely its system- atic difficulties to carry out redistributive poli- cies and the ensuing focus on regulatory policy-making.

Redistributive policies are characterized by the explicit transfer of resources from one party to another by public agents. By defini- tion, they fail to meet the Pareto criterion and make some actors worse off than before the policy was initiated. They create winners and losers in a zero-sum logic of political interac- tion and lead to more conflictual political processes. Examples from the EU include agri- cultural policies or regional policy. The prime example from the member states is the welfare state. Regulatory policies set standards for cer- tain behavior by market participants. They do not make direct use of financial resources and are intended to be Pareto-improving, Examples include environmental standards, technical regulations, or standards for health and safety in the workplace.

Regulatory policies ,also have financial con- sequences. But the key difference between reg- ulatory and redistributive policies is that, in the latter case, the financial effects are inten- tional and clearly visible. In the field of regula- tory policies, differential financial effects also exist but are in many cases unintended conse- quences of policies aiming at other goals. Often, the redistributive effects of regulatory policies are not clearly visible and are not borne by the addressees of the regulation but can be shifted onto others. In addition, regula- tory policies often require a high degree of professional knowledge (e.g, when new phar- maceuticals or chemicals have to be assessed) which mdke their financial consequences even less visible.

Majone (1994, 1996) has forcefully argued that the European Union is very strong in reg- ulatory policy-making but weak in redistribu- tive policy-making. His analysis has now become a folk-theorem of European Union studies. Although the EU has a number of major redistributive policies (agriculture, regional policy, research, and development) which clearly surpass what can be found in

168 HANDBOOK OF EURC

other international institutions, these policies by far do not match the amount of redistribu- tion linked to the welfare state. Whereas EU spending is leveled at about 1% of the EU's GDP, governmental spending in its member states on average amounts to almost half of the national GDP (Hix 2005: 272). At the same time, EU regulatory policies have steadily grown in scope and depth. In Majone's (1993) words, the EU is strong in social regulation but weak in social policy. This is not only an issue for policy-making. As the EU has structural difficulties to develop into a redistributive wel- fare state or to surpass a relatively modest level of public spending, it forgoes a major source of political support which is extensively used by the member states and constitutes a major step in their development (Ziirn and Leibfried 2005). Majone and others have argued that this focus on regulatory policy-making is caused by structural properties of the Euro-polity. In other words, even if the governments of all member states wanted to create an EU-wide welfare state, they would face major difficul- ties. Why?

The main reason lies in the lack of democra- tic legitimacy of the European Union. Redistributive policies take resources from some actors and give them to others. Thus, they make actors worse off than before. Regulatory policies are much more unlikely to do so as their prime target is overall efficiency improvement and financial effects are only secondary and often less visible. However, poli-

, cies need to be regarded as legitimate in order to be accepted by citizens and social groups. This is even more true in a system which can- not draw on the monopoly of force as a means of last resort.

Although the functioning of executive and legislative bodies at the EU level closely resem- bles their equivalents on the member state level, democratic political processes in the EU are weaker than in the democratic state. Large- scale and generalized redistributive policies would require solidarity between citizens of different nations. Neither intergovernmental decision-making of democratically elected governments in the Council nor parliamentary politics in the EP are sufficient to legitimate

)PD\N UNION POLITICS

far-reaching redistribution on the EU level. The EU does not possess the collective identity of a demos in whose name these decisions could be taken nor political parties strong enough to mediate between EU-level decisions and citizens' preferences (Weiler et al. 1995; Kielrnansegg 2003; c.f. Majone 2005). As a result, its potential for redistribution is far smaller than the respective potential in the member states (Scharpf 1999). In sum, the growth of the policy-making powers of the EU has by and large followed the EU's capacity to legitimate the respective decisions. Conversely, the growth of regulatory policy-making in the Euro-Polity can be explained precisely by the relative autonomy of the Commission in par- ticular and the relative weakness of political par ties.

The Problem-Solving Capacity of the EurePolity

The above paragraph has only dealt with an inbuilt bias of the Euro-Polity to deal with reg- ulatory policies rather than with redistributive policies. The respective literature did not make strong claims about the quality of these poli- cies. With the ever increasing growth of EU policy-making, however, several authors have claimed that the EU systematically produces suboptimal policy outcomes, in other words that all other things being equal the quality of public policies is worse in the EU than in the member states.

The most substantive statement,of this the- sis is the 'joint-decision trap' (Scharpf 1988). The joint-decision trap is a decision-making pathology. As long as member state govern- ments are represented in EU-level decision- making and (quasi-)unanimity is the decision rule, policies will be suboptimal and, worse, the system will remain incapable of self- reform. In recent years, it has been argued that the joint-decision trap is not without escape (Peters 1997; Blom-Hansen 1999) and that the introduction of qualified majority rule has removed one of the criteria for its application.

Still, the literature was full of suspicion that the EU was not a political system like any other

T THE EUROPEAN UNll

but instead was highly selective in dealing with certain issues and specific (and possibly sub- optimal) in its outcomes. Scholars were con- cerned with the potential misrepresentation of diffuse interests (Pollack 1997), empty spots in the EU's agenda (Streeck 1995), or the preva- lence of 'negative' over 'positive' integration (Scharpf 1996). However, after a decade of detailed empirical work on the problem- solving capacity of the EU, initial hypotheses about lowest-common-denominator out-

I comes between member states in most cases cannot be upheld. On the contrary, some EU

I policies unexpectedly even had adopted high standards (E~chener 1997).

As is usually the case in scientific debates, bold m~tial statements become more refined in the course of the debate as concepts become more sophisticated or problematized and more empirical results are available. In this debate, the problematization mainly concerned the concept of 'problem-solving' and the general issue of how to assess the substantive outcomes of a policy. The dilemma for political scientists in this respect is that on the one hand they can- not simply ignore the outcomes of public poli- cies altogether but that on the other hand as political scientists they lack the professional competence for assessing most of these out- comes (c.f. Young 1999: 11-23). Although it is certainly true that the professional competence of political sc~entlsts relates to lnteractlon results only (Scharpf 1997a: l l ) , polit~cal sci- entists have frequently made judgments about the successes of public policies, often without properlydefining the criteria for success or failure (Mayntz 1987: 188). Even extreme cases are controversial: Is the Common Agricultural Policy a disaster or does it have the latent func- tion of a social policy for a declining sector in

1 profound structural change which avoids both ' malor social hardships and food shortages 1 (fieger 2000)?

I Still, even with these qualifications, the debate about the problem-solving capacity of the European Union (Scharpf 1997b) has by

i and large led to the result that the problem- 1 solving capacity of the EU has effectively man- / aged to escape deadlock (Hkritier 1999). As a I matter of fact, analyses show that conditions I

3N AS A POLITY (11) 169

for unsuccessful policy-making such as uncooperative actor constellations, insufficient capacities for implementation, or lacking public support are not limited to the European Union but are also present in the member states. Hence, the argument that the EU systematically and across the board leads to inferior outcomes is not supported. There is even substantial evi- dence that in a number of policy fields, the EU performed much better than expected (Grande and Jachtenfuchs 2000), even in the field of social policy where expectations were low (Falkner 2003).

Although there is no general theory linking the EU's problem-solving capacity to its insti- tutional structure, it may be that the surpris- ingly high problem-solving capacity of the EU has to do with some of its system properties. One possible candidate is the relatively weak role of political parties and political competi- tion in EU policy-making. Contrary to the sit- uation in German federalism, this avoids specific issues to be superseded by party com- petition and the logic of adversarial politics. In addition, the EU has shown a high degree of institutional differentiation and of splitting up and combining issues and assigning them to appropriate institutional arenas (Gehring 1999, 2002). In this perspective, the relatively fluid and complex world of EU committees in the broadest sense is not an indicator of chaos or member state dominance but functional for problem-solving.

Against this generally positive view of EU policy-making which may be due to a certain bias towards positive cases is Scharpf's (2003) position that the high consensus requirements of negotiated solutions and the impossibility of majoritarian solutions in the EU prevent the adoption of policies in a number of areas such as foreign and security policies or the means to cope with the erosion of national welfare states due to the integrated European market. As a result, Scharpf claims, the EU is incapable of acting in a number of areas where the member states have lost their autonomous capacity to act due to European integration. While in the field of market regulation the balance is rather positive, the EU is still rather ineffective in areas requiring strong legitimation - a

HANDBOOK OF EUROPEAN UNION POLITICS T resource that the Euro-Polity only possesses to a limited extent.

CONCLUSION

The European Union is a highly institutional- ized system of governance. As such, it can be compared with other systems of governance. However, in order to come to meaningful rela- tionships between causes and effects, the nature of this system of governance as a potential causes of political processes and public policies has to be spelled out in detail as not much follows from broad classifications such as 'inter- national organization' o r 'political system: Analysing the EU as a multi-level system of gov- ernance tries to bridge the gap between the international relations and the comparative politics view of the European Union with a broader and more general concept. Still, the label itself does not lead very far if it is not accompanied by a more detailed description of the characteristic features of such a multi-level system. From these features - the lack of a monopoly of force and taxation, a hierarchical legal system, a weak role of political parties, and a loose coupling of the two main system levels - a number of rather specific conclusions can be drawn with regard to a specific mode of gover- nance, typical patterns of policy-making o r the overall problem-solving capacity of the EU. Such an approach in the last resort is not spe- cific to EU studies any more bu t operates at the level of theories of the middle range o r of ana- lytical toolkits inviting comparisons with other systems of governance having similar proper- ties. This comparison is essential. The European Union constitutes a laboratory for studying many of the features of modern governance and politics. In order to realize this potential and avoid the potential parochialism of studying e.g. American, German, o r Swedish politics, stu- dents of European Union politics should not only refer to general political science theories and concepts but also seek comparisons with international as well as domestic institutions, processes and substantive policies outside the European Union.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I would like to thank Mark Pollack for helpful and constructive comments.

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