Comparative Politics 1 POL1010

1
Comparative Politics 1POL1010

• Lecture 5
• 4th November 2004, 3-4pm
• The European Union I The Supranational System
  and Its Institutions

2
POL1010 Admin

• Formative Essay Tuesday 16th
• November 2004
• Next lecture 18th November, next
• week is reading week

3
Lecture Plan

• Introduction to the EU
• European Integration A Brief History
• What does the EU Look Like? EU Institutions
• European Commission
• Council of Ministers
• European Parliament
• European Court of Justice

4
Introduction to the EU

• Historical primacy of the state
• Post-1945 push for peace and the rise of
  international organisations
• EU unique post-war international org (formerly,
  EEC and EC)
• EU not a conventional international org

5
European Integration A Brief History

• Forces for integration
• Post WW2 physical destruction and
• nationalism discredited
• Churchill United States of Europe
• Need to bridge French / German Hostility
• Cold War and American Support

6
Milestones in European Integration

• 1951 European Coal and Steel Community
• 1957 Treaty of Rome EEC and Euratom
• 1973 1st enlargement (UK, Ireland, Denmark)
• 1979 direct elections to the European
  Parliament
• 1981 2nd Enlargement (Greece)
• 1986 Single European Act
• 1986 3rd enlargement (Spain, Portugal)
• 1992 Treaty of EU (Maastricht)
• 1995 4th enlargement (Austria, Finland and
  Sweden)

7
What does the EU look like?

• International Organisations
• within these multiple national groups,
  corporations and governments cooperate on matters
  of mutual interest
• the EU is an international organisation in the
  sense that its members are nation-states
• orthodoxy of these international organisations
  intergovernmental decision-making i.e.
  countries make bargains and set compromises
  between one another
• This can be contrasted with supranationalism

8
EU Institutions

• Four main institutions
• European Commission
• Council of Ministers (CofM)
• European Parliament (EP)
• European Court of Justice (ECJ)
• to understand a governmental system we
• need to note that they are engaged in activity
• in which there are a substantial number of
• elements which are interconnected (Easton,
• 1953 96-100).

9
European Commission

• Its main tasks involve
• 1.power to initiate policy
• 2.policy implementation
• 3.supervision and management
• 4.guardian of the treaties and European law
• 5.negotiates for the EU on the world stage on
  economics
• European Commission DUAL FUNCTIONS
• provider of both stability and dynamism within
  the
• Community

10
European Commission Basic Facts

• College of Commissioners
• 1 President (President designate is Jose Manual
  Barroso)
• 24 Commissioners 1 from each member state
• Need approval from the European Parliament (2/3
  vote to get rid of the Commission team)
• Importance of the President previous Presidents
  Hallstein and Jacques Delors
• 24 000 eurocrats
• Civil service made up of Directorates-General

11
European Commission Analytical View

• The Commission can be understood as being the
  both the bureaucracy (secretariat) and the
  political Executive of the EU
• The Commission is supranational in character
  i.e. sits above and, to a certain extent,
  autonomous of the member states. This contrasts
  it with intergovernmental decision-making like
  the C of Ministers.
• Commission was a purpose built institution

12
The Council of Ministers I

• Power and central institution
• Represents the interests of the member states
• Primary decision-making body
• The Commission proposed and the Council
  disposed (Edwards, 1996 127)
• ultimate decision-making power rested with the
  Council over most policy areas

13
The Council of Ministers II

• Council composition and features
• Council is usually composed of a single Minister
  from each Member State e.g. Agriculture
  Ministers negotiate at the 'Agriculture Council'
• Chairmanship of the Council rotates every 6
  months key for national agenda setting
• Voting Patterns Intergovernmental and Lowest
  Common Denominator

14
European Parliament

• Only directly elected EU institution (1979)
• Expensive talking shop?
• Weak in comparison to the member state
  Parliaments and the Council of Ministers
• Treaties have increased its power co-decision
  in the Treaty on European Union (1992)
• 732 members (MEPs)

15
European Parliament Phoenix from the Ashes I

• Since the co-decision procedure increase in the
  Parliaments power
• unlike national parliaments it the European
  Parliament is not in decline . The European
  parliament is arguably one of the most vital EC
  institutions (Lodge, 1993 21).

16
European Parliament Phoenix from the Ashes II

• co-decision is fundamentally different from
  co-operation. Formally Parliament is now an equal
  partner in the legislative process, with acts
  adopted under the procedure jointly signed by the
  presidents of Council and Parliament (Earnshaw
  and Judge, 1996 110).
• Bicameral decision-making with the Council of
  Ministers in some policy areas

17
The European Court of Justice (ECJ)

• ECJ rulings have pushed the integration process
  forward since the 1960s
• Two particular rulings have been significant
  direct effect (1963) and supremacy (1965)
• 1 Judge per member state
• Some assert that the cumulative decisions of the
  ECJ and the treaties have created a constitution
  for Europe
• NB ECJ is not the European Court of Human
  Rights (ECHR)

18
European Court of Justice More than a Neutral
Body?

• Some assert that the ECJ has
• represented the principal motor
• for the integration of Europe (Mancini in
• Volcansek, 1992 109).

19
Bibliography

• Edwards, G. (1996) The Council of Ministers and
  Enlargement A Search for Efficiency,
• Effectiveness and Accountability in Redmond and
  Rosenthal European Union and
• Enlargement Past, Present and Future
• Keohane, R. and Hoffman, S. (1991) The New
  European Community Decision-Making
• and Institutional Change Boulder, CO Westview
  Press.
• Lijphart, A. (1979) Consociation and Federation
  Conceptual and Empirical Links in
• Canadian Journal of Political Science 22 3,
  499-515.
• Mitrany, D. (1930) Pan Europa A Hope or a
  Danger? in Political Quarterly 1 4.
• Taylor, P. (1990) Consociationalism and
  Federalism as Approaches to International
• Integration in Groom, A.J.R. and Taylor, P.
  (eds) Frameworks for International
• Cooperation New York, NY St. Martins Press.
• The Commission's homepage is at
  http//europa.eu.int/comm/index_en.htm
• The Council of Ministers homepage is at
  http//ue.eu.int/en/summ.htm
• The Court of Justice homepage is at
  http//europa.eu.int/cj/en/index.htm
• The European Parliament's homepage is at
• http//www.europarl.eu.int/home/default_en.htm
• Urwin, D. (1995) The Community of Europe 2nd edn
  London Longman.