Europe and Europeanisation

1
Europe and Europeanisation

• Alistair Cole

2
What is Europeanisation?

• The success of the concept of Europeanisation in
  recent years is due to the realization that EU
  policy has become domestic policy, with 80 per
  cent of all policy sectors influenced in one way
  or another by the Union.
• Such processes might better be described as
  EUisation, insofar as they refer to the impact
  of the institutions, actors and policies of the
  European Union on its member states.
• But most scholars prefer to reason in terms of
  Europeanisation and to avoid the unattractive
  phraseology of the alternative term.

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Definitions 1

• Ladrech (1994, p. 70), namely Europeanization
  is an incremental process reorienting the
  direction and shape of politics to the degree
  that EC political and economic dynamics become
  part of the organizational logic of national
  politics and policy-making.
• Elsewhere, I have identified four main uses of
  Europeanisation as an independent variable
  driving policy and institutional change, as a
  form of emulative policy transfer, as a
  smokescreen for domestic reform and as an
  imaginary constraint (Cole and Drake, 2000, Cole,
  2001b).
• Europeanisation can also signify the uploading
  of state preferences or prevailing intellectual
  frames to the EU level, itself a measure of the
  competition between national models in the hybrid
  quasi-polity that the European Union has become.

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Europeanisation as an independent variable

• Europeanisation acts as an independent variable,
  when it can be demonstrated that the European
  Union has produced policy change industrial
  policy, public services, environmental policy,
  or health and safety.
• The regulatory policy style of the European Union
  can either conflict with or comfort the policy
  norms prevalent in member-states. In the case of
  France, the role of individual commissioners as
  policy entrepreneurs, such as Leon Brittan,
  Karel van Miert or Mario Monti in the sphere of
  competition policy, has highlighted the tension
  between EU regulatory norms and national
  political traditions.
• In the British tradition, competition policy is
  an example of best practice, of preventing state
  interventionism and ensuring a level playing
  field between firms and countries. In the French
  tradition, competition policy has triumphed at
  the expense of industrial policy,
• This strong use of Europeanisation is the one
  that causes the most difficulty... as it
  conflicts with national traditions, by definition
  variable.

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Europeanisation as lesson-drawing and best
practice

• Soft Europeanisation refers to the process
  whereby member-states are influenced by strong
  national models within their midst.
• The case is demonstrated clearly in the monetary
  sphere, with the German model of monetary policy
  management acting as a benchmark for others.
• Best practice and a desire to imitate the most
  successful can produce a type of institutional
  isomorphism (Radaelli, 1997, 2004). Insofar as
  this involves importing models from a non-native
  political culture, this can also be considered as
  a form of Europeanisation.
• Europeanisation is actively promoted by the EU
  Commission, as well as by member-states anxious
  to retain ownership of more integrated processes.
  
• Thus the Open method of Coordination is all
  about benchmarks in employment policy and the
  Lisbon agenda. Thus, the Bologna process of HE
  reform was initiated by member-states, not the
  Commission, and goes well beyond the actual EU.
  But it is a form of Europeanisation.

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Europeanisation as ideational change

• In a more ideational sense, the European
  perspective has affected cognitive assumptions
  about national and European models.
• In all countries, public policy has become less
  self-sufficient, far more embedded in
  interdependent structures, and national elites
  have had to engage in policy learning and to
  experiment with new discursive forms.
• Role of trans-national elites in banking and
  finance especially. Role of epistemic communties,
  think tanks, benchmarking

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Europeanisation as a smokescreen

• Europeanisation has also been used as a
  smokescreen for domestic political strategies
• The European constraint has been evoked to
  make it easier to implement difficult domestic
  reforms. Administrative modernizers in France,
  Italy and elsewhere used Europe as a powerful
  domestic political resource for driving through
  change (Lequesne, 1993, 1996, Radaelli, 1997).
• Conforming with the Maastricht convergence
  critieria provided an opportunity to cut public
  expenditure and raise taxes the Italian case was
  exemplary in this respect. Overdue reforms could
  be laid at the door of the European Union.
• But since the early 2000s, also, the EU has been
  routinely blamed for national economic ills to
  the extent that the key supranational
  institutions of the Union have had to fight hard
  for their legitimacy.

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Anti-Europeanisation and euroscepticism

• There is also a much more constructed, bottom
  up, version of Europeanization and of
  euro-scepticism, its mirror image.
• How do people come to define and use Europe in
  their domestic arenas whether positively or
  negatively to justify and advance particular
  positions? This offers an actor-centred and not
  just an institution-focused approach.
• Rozenbergs four euro-scepticisms.

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Europeanisation as adaptation

• Adaptation/adjustment of preferences to the
  perceived requirements of integration is the
  strongest form of Europeanisation. There has been
  a proliferation of work looking at the domestic
  effects of European integration on political
  (typically executive) structures and on public
  policies.

10
Inertia and rejection

• Inertia signifies the absence of any causal
  relationship between European-level and domestic
  change (Börzel, 2002). Policy change, or changing
  relations between the state and non-state actors,
  for example, might have nothing to do with EU
  level processes.
• Rejection is much stronger. Social movement and
  party actors use an anti-EU discourse to shape
  their own strategies, while policy-makers resist
  unwelcome developments in European integration by
  all available means at their disposal.

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A word of caution

• There is common agreement that European
  integration has called into question many
  features associated with traditional models of
  European politics and policies (Bulmer, 2005,
  Featherstone and Radaelli, 2004, Cole and Drake,
  2000, Ladrech 1994).
• It is difficult, however, to disentangle the
  impact of European integration from other causes
  of policy change, such as economic globalisation,
  changing policy fashions and endogenous political
  reforms. As much as a concept, Europeanisation is
  a discourse that can be used and abused.
• What is the unit of analysis? Is it a country?
  There are always coalitions, cleavages, partisan
  and issue-based rivalries
• The effects of Europeanisation are contingent on
  underlying events and closely related to the
  history of the European Union itself. The role of
  the EU in the mid-1980s, e.g., before the
  implementation of the SEA, was vastly different
  from that in the mid-2000s. The number of
  countries has doubled across the period.

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Europe and some national traditions

• Some traditions have always been difficult to
  reconcile with the European ideal
• Britain as the awkward partner is a case in
  point.
• Others - such as the Federal Republic of Germany
  for long appeared tailor-made to accompany the
  acceleration of European unity. Europe was
  Germany writ large monetary policy was to be
  based on the German model extending EU
  competencies was intellectually easy to conceive,
  because the EU seemed just to be another level in
  the federal system.
• But, even in countries such as Germany, the
  European construction is not static! The
  development of EI has been, to some measure,
  contested by German länder, who complain of
  losing functions to the German Federal government
  and to the EU.

13
France

• The domestic goodness of fit can vary
  considerably. In the case of France, the Europe
  of the Six was much easier to control than the
  Europe of the 25.
• Europeanisation is also closely related to
  leadership, to perceptions of the role a specific
  country has within the Union. In the traditional
  French model, .e.g., Europeanisation was greatly
  valued, as the EU was a means for disseminating
  French influence across and beyond Europe.
• But as the EU has enlarged, and as the policy
  direction it has taken has shifted,
  Europeanisation is less likely to be framed in
  such positive terms.
• Though this is especially pertinent in the case
  of France, other nation traditions can have
  equally complex relationship with the theme of EU
  and Europeansiation

14
Italy and Spain

• Italy instinctively pro-European and a founder
  member. But the Euro is causing serious
  adjustment problems. Italy can no longer use the
  tool of currency devaluation to ease pressure in
  its economy. The Euro seriously contested by
  parts of the Italian political class
• Spain instinctively pro-European.. great
  beneficiary of structural funds from late 1980s
  onwards. EU as a safeguard for Spanish democracy.
  Massive Yes vote for the constitution in 2005
  (72). But also demonstrated itself to be a
  powerful defenders of its own national interest
  in the debates over the Convention and fiercely
  resist any weakening of its QMV.

15
Ireland and the Netherlands

• Ireland another country whose renaissance has
  been linked to EU largesse. Spectacular economic
  growth one of the powerhouses of the euro-zone.
  Positive image of Europe inculcated by objective
  one monies. Yet, even in Ireland, the Nice Treaty
  was, at first, rejected by popular referendum.
• Netherlands another key pro-European country,
  where the Monnet model of elite-driven
  integration was supposed to have large tacit
  support. But the spectacular rejection of the
  Constitution in June 2005 demonstrated the
  weakening popular legitimacy and the ability of
  Europeanisation to shift from being part of the
  national project to a perceived external and
  unwelcome force.

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New CEE states

• Poland one of the key eurosceptical countries in
  the CEE. Europeanisation experienced as an
  assault on the key Catholic, clerical traditions
  the entry of the Extreme Right (Sambroona) into
  the previous government a sign of the malaise of
  the Polish experience. The anti-EU discourse of
  the twins.. Now given way to a new wave of
  pro-European enthusiasm. But is this skin deep?
• Slovenia/Lithuania Bulgarian/Romania

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Europeanisation as the imperfect art of
uploading French preferences

• The European level has been valued as a site for
  the export of French ideas, policies and
  personnel.
• France has been at least as successful in
  uploading its preferences (and personnel) to the
  EU level as any other member-state.
• The basic architecture of the European
  bureaucracy (based around directions générales
  and competitive examinations) is drawn from the
  experience of the French civil service.
• Core common policies, such as CAP, were designed
  with the satisfaction of French domestic
  interests in mind.
• Through the logic of the acquis communautaire,
  the forces of path dependency within the EU are
  strong (Pierson, 1996). These forces have been
  consistent with the pursuit of French national
  interests.
• French leaders have been influential in steering
  key institutional reforms, such as the creation
  of the European Council in 1974, the draft
  Constitutional Treaty in 2004/simplified treaty
  2007 and in launching major policy developments,
  such as the Single European Act, Economic and
  Monetary Union and the Common Foreign and
  Security Policy.

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Unsuccessful uploading

• Attempts to upload French models not always
  successful
• The Jospin left-wing government of 1997-2002
  repeatedly insisted upon the need to develop and
  defend the European social model, but failed to
  upload constraining targets and penalties (Cole,
  JCMS, 2001)
• Sarkozy, like other French leaders previously,
  has made little headway in terms of the ECB and
  Economic Government
• Selck and Kaeding (French Politics, 2004)
  calculate that France is less successful than the
  UK, Germany or even Italy in transforming its
  original policy preferences into EU legislative
  acts.

19
Adapting and Adjusting to Europe

• Adapting to the requirements of European
  integration is the strongest form of
  Europeanisation. The line of causality is clear.
  Domestic institutions and actors adapt their
  internal functioning to the logic of European
  integration.
• Adjusting to Europe implies a rather less
  clear-cut causal dynamic whereby the requirements
  of European integration are accommodated within
  existing institutions.

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Strategic Adaptation

• The Council of State long resisted the doctrine
  of the primacy of EU law, affirmed by the
  European Court of Justice as early as 1964. It
  finally admitted the principle of EU legal
  primacy in its Nicolo ruling of 1989.
• Transforming constraint into opportunity, the
  Council of State subsequently acted as a
  political entrepreneur, seizing the window of
  opportunity provoked by legal uncertainty and the
  legitimacy vested by the European treaties to
  redefine its role within the French polity.
• As the highest body of administrative law in the
  land, the Council of State has insisted upon its
  role as the guardian of the EU treaties and their
  implementation in France
• Europeanisation strengthens legal actors over
  political ones.
• Administrative tribunals have insisted on the
  legality of EU directives even when they have not
  been transposed into domestic law by the French
  government
• Some examples where the ECJ has been asked to
  arbitrate have been genetically modified foods
  (1998), the remuneration of banking depositions
  (2002) and over working time (2003).

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Reluctant AdjustmentThe core executive and EU
policy-making

• European has created serious challenges of
  coordination and cultural adaptation for the
  French administration and core executive
• In comparative terms, French decision-making on
  European issues is in theory a model of tight
  coordination and core executive control.
  European policy is officially managed by the
  General Secretariat for European Affairs (SGAE),
  an inter-ministerial mission formally attached to
  the Prime Ministers office
• Officials in the SGAE consider the French model
  to be the best in Europe. The SGAE not only
  coordinates French positions before and during EU
  negotiations, but arbitrates between rival
  ministerial claims and attempts to police the
  implementation of decisions taken.
• Officials contrasted the French model favorably
  with that of Germany in particular, where
  multi-level institutional inputs and a lack of
  chancellor coordination were deemed to produce
  sub-optimal outcomes.
• But in its 2007 report, the Council of State
  recommended the creation of a strategic European
  cell in the Elysée, argued for a stronger
  presidential political steering of European
  issues and implied shortcomings with existing
  arrangements.

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Adjusting (with difficulty) to Europe the French
civil service machine

• There is underlying unease across the French
  governmental machine about the role of EU actors
  usurping traditional prerogatives.
• There remains a weak EU culture within French
  ministries. Central divisions within individual
  ministries are imbued with the culture of the
  decree and are reluctant to engage in impact
  assessment exercises.
• As directives are highly technical, delays are
  commonplace. In terms of directives, the numbers
  have been increasing, from 70 in 1995 to 130 in
  2003 and 111 in 2004. Ministries complain that
  they lack the expertise to transpose EU
  directives into national law.
• In a string of reports, the European Commission
  has criticized France for its poor record in
  transcribing directives
• France has regularly been found guilty by the
  ECJ, most recently (at the time of writing in
  December 2006) in relation to its failure to
  implement correctly the 2001 directive on
  genetically modified foods.

23
Inertia and institutions the case of the French
parliament

• The existence of a democratic deficit is an
  established feature amongst scholars of the EU
  system of governance. In the case of the French
  Fifth Republic, the democratic deficit forms part
  of the 1958 constitution itself, which removes
  large areas of public policy from parliamentary
  scrutiny.
• But European integration has not really empowered
  the French parliament. The National Assembly
  still only gives its opinion and has no binding
  authority. The French executive has used the
  urgency procedure measures to push through EU
  legislation by decree. EU directives have been
  regrouped into packages and presented to
  parliament for block approval
• The weakness of the French parliament owes little
  to the European Union.

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Inertia and the causality of policy change

• In the Europeanisation literature, inertia
  signals the absence of clear causal relationships
  between the policy change and European
  integration.
• The case of economic and monetary union
  demonstrates the limits of Europeanisation
  analysis. EMU is the Europeanised policy domain
  par excellence. But, as I have argued elsewhere,
  EMU was only possible because the fundamental
  economic policy paths in France, Germany and
  elsewhere had narrowed long before the moves to
  monetary union.
• Monetary Union crowned a process of EC economic
  convergence that was already well engaged. From
  the 1970s onwards, German norms in economic
  management were exported across Europe.

25
Resistance public services, state aids,
industrial policy

• In the case of France the toughest challenges
  have been in those areas where the French model
  has been the most distinctive, in public services
  and industrial policy notably.
• In the mainstream French tradition, in contrast,
  competition policy is criticized as a practice
  inspired by US anti-trust policies, designed
  primarily to safeguard the interests of
  non-European (American and Japanese)
  trans-national corporations.
• competition policy threatened cherished French
  beliefs about the role of public service and
  economic policy and forced French governments to
  abandon key elements of their post-war political
  and economic model.

26
Service public

• Traditional French conceptions of public service
  were based on the delivery of essential services
  by public sector monopolies (gas, electricity,
  rail, postal and telecommunication services, air
  transport), which benefited from protection
  against domestic or foreign competition, and
  which were recognized with a public service
  mission in French administrative law
• The liberal frame of opening up monopolies was
  prevalent within the Commission Favoured measures
  included privatisation, the strict regulation of
  state subsidies, the opening up of specific
  industrial sectors to competition and the
  creation of independent competition agencies.

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The 2005 referendum on the draft Constitutional
Treaty

• The rejection of the constitutional treaty in the
  May 2005 referendum sent shockwaves around
  Europe. There was a No vote of 54.7 per cent
  (45.3 per cent for the Yes) on a high turnout
  (69.4 per cent).
• The No vote progressed by almost 5.72 per cent of
  electors by comparison to 1992 (Hainsworth,
  2006). It recruited a majority of electors in all
  social classes except the liberal professions.
• The mainstays of the No camp in the two
  referendums were the left of the left and the
  right of the right, with the No in 1992 and 2005
  supported by the vast bulk of electors
  identifying with the FN, the PCF and the far-left
  (Perrineau, 2005 239).
• This traditional alliance represented
  three-quarters of the No vote in 2005. They were
  joined by a small majority of PS voters,
  signifying a major shift since 1992, with 56 per
  cent of declared PS electors voting No in 2005,
  against only 22 per cent thirteen years earlier.

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Popular fears

• the referendum campaign revealed deep seated
  popular fears about the direction of European
  integration. The campaign abounded with
  uncertainties about the new Europe.
• The proposed Bolkestein services directive
  mobilized trade unions and anti-globalisation
  groups such as ATTAC in fierce opposition to the
  treaty.
• The centre of gravity of the French debate
  revolved around a binary opposition between
  social Europe, presented as consistent with
  national traditions, and an alien liberal Europe.
  
• But Eurobarometer puts the French in the EU
  average.

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Conclusion

• These empirical cases demonstrate examples of
  uploading, adaptation, inertia and resistance to
  change.
• Europeanisation needs to bear in mind these fine
  distinctions and not overplay or stretch the
  concept too much