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Part I
Analysing the informal dimensions of European integration
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1 Introduction
Mechthild Roos and Lennaert van Heumen
Introduction
Treaties and laws constitute the formal fundaments of European integration. Yet, informal activities on the European intergovernmental, supranational and transnational stage have often been a necessary precondition for concerted action leading to binding agreements and political change. National delegations met not only at official fora when drafting new Community treaties or negotiating legal texts, but made decisive bargains in informal settings. Members of supranational institutions, such as the European Court of Justice, the European Parliament (EP) and, more recently, the European Central Bank, went far beyond the framework of tasks and responsibilities initially provided for them, and thus shaped their own role as well as European politics and policies decisively. Interest groups aimed to exert influence on decision makers by way of informal strategies ranging from argumentative persuasion to political pressure. In the European sphere beyond EC/EU institutions, integration was equally framed and influenced in informal arenas and through informal action, both by actors who had an official political or administrative role, and by actors who were not formally expected to get involved in the creation of policies, networks or projects bringing European states closer together. Among them, groups of intellectuals discussed future scenarios of a united Europe.1 Media, railroad companies and cultural organisations, amongst others, sought cross-border cooperation.2 Churches aimed for a stronger coordinated involvement in European politics, and encouraged exchange, acts of solidarity and support among European countries.3
In the course of European integration, very different reasons induced actors to establish informal contacts or procedures. Not only soaring ambitions of governments, institutions or individuals caused the deviation from officially outlined paths and procedures: in the construction of a united Europe, events such as crises, catastrophes and conflicts opened up or pointed out voids in the evolving trans- and supranational structures. Hence, those concerned with finding European-level solutions had at times little choice but to seek new, effective, though not (yet) provided ways to answer needs for action. In many cases, these new ways served those pursuing them to strengthen their own institution in the long term, although regularly leading to conflicts with other actors and vested interests.
Informal dimensions within European integration have as yet received limited academic attention despite their historical and contemporary importance. The historiography on European integration was for a long time characterised by a focus on national interests, national actors and their official archives, as well as the analysis of European institutions merely with regard to what the Treaties provided. That has resulted in the informal dimensions of European integration remaining, to a significant extent, understudied and ill-understood. Despite the rising interest in âinformal governanceâ in the EU from a political science perspective and recent new approaches in the historical research on European integration, such as network analysis and Europeanisation, informality has thus far rarely been a central topic of historical research on European integration. This edited volume intends to show how informality has impacted European integration history and the functioning of the EC/EU as well as other European organisations in a variety of ways. It contains case studies that discuss both successful and failed examples of informal action. A focus on informality not only allows scholars to better understand the functioning and development of the European institutions and bodies. Informality can also be used as a way to study the many interactions between actors on the European, national and regional level, civil society and the wide variety of forms and fora of international cooperation by putting the research on European integration in a stronger global historical context.
This introductory chapter sets out to offer a conceptualising frame for the analysis of informality in European integration. It begins with a brief overview of existing literature on the issue and critically discusses various concepts that scholars have used to study informal processes and dimensions in European integration. This chapter then develops its own definition of informality in the European context, and offers a range of criteria that can serve as a guide for the study of informality in European integration history. The concept of informality presented here incorporates existing concepts but goes beyond, not least in that it calls for an interdisciplinary and methodologically diverse approach, which can â and should indeed â nevertheless build upon a common understanding of informality in European integration. Following the conceptualising part, this chapter discusses one of the main challenges scholars face when studying informal processes and dimensions, namely the acquisition and analysis of a sufficient source basis. The chapter closes with an overview of the contributions to this edited volume.
Literature overview
The informal dimensions of European integration in general and policy-making in particular were for a long time neglected by historians and political scientists studying European integration. Keith Middlemas (1995) was the first historian to analytically apply the concept of âinformal politicsâ in order to explain the development and functioning of the EC/EU from the 1970s onwards. Notably, he used informality as a methodological tool to take into account âall the significant playersâ within European integration.4 Historians before him had not coherently approached the informal dimensions of European integration. Although they labelled certain practices, networks or procedures informal, such informal dimensions were not conceptualised or used as a starting or focal point to explain the historical development of European integration. As a consequence, no coherent definition or methodological framework was developed by historians to study informality. A partial explanation of the lack of scholarly attention up to the 1990s may be the difficulty scientists had in defining and grasping âinformalityâ. As Middlemas noted, social scientists âoften reduce it to formal abstractionsâ, while âhistorians tend to avoid it altogether for a lack of proper documentationâ.5
Around the same time as Middlemasâ first work on informal European politics, EU scholars in political science began to include informal dimensions of politics and governance in their research. Crucial for the rising interest in informal political practices were the âgovernment turnâ,6 the âpractice turnâ and the emergence of the new institutionalisms in the 1990s.7 Scholars from political science have developed a number of definitions of informal governance/informal institutions8 and have designed a range of typologies and systems of categorisation. The most influential ones are discussed in more detail in Chapter 2 by Roos and Neuhold. Beyond their respective underlying theoretical approaches, they differ notably with regard to the emphasis on certain characteristics, tasks and consequences of informality. Those scholars who have so far attempted to conceptualise informal governance or informal institutions, rules and procedures, have focused on the non-binding nature of informality, the issue of (restricted) membership, possibilities to enforce resulting agreements and to sanction non-compliance amongst others. Perceptions of informality in EU decision-making vary from negative, seen as lacking legitimacy, transparency, accountability and reliability, to neutral and even positive, with regard to broader participation and increased efficiency.9
When it comes to the study of European integration beyond the 2000s and beyond EU institutions, however, the existing models and definitions of informality used in political science reveal significant limitations. First and foremost, most of them focus solely on the EU context, and within that almost exclusively on legislative and decision-making procedures. Accordingly, the actors that have been the focus of analysis are notably the European Council, the Commission and the European Parliament, as well as lobbyists and the member states/governments. Little attention has been dedicated to smaller bodies and agencies, and practically none to societal actors who are neither interest representatives nor affiliated to one of the above-mentioned institutions.
A second significant weakness of existing political science studies on informality in the EU context is their limited temporal horizon. The claims that are made with regard to informal practices may be helpful to categorise and explain contemporary practices, yet many models do not stand the test of time. If applied to historical cases from European integration, several of the generalising assumptions cannot be upheld. A notable example is the criterion that a lack of transparency supposedly defines informal practices10 â which does, for example, not apply to the almost entirely informal strategies of the European Parliament to get involved in policy-making prior to the Single European Act (SEA). In order to increase their institutionâs parliamentary powers and their position amongst the other Community institutions, Members of the EP (MEPs) aimed explicitly for a high level of outreach and visibility when adopting resolutions and reports, and when asking parliamentary questions. Despite looking like the formal behaviour of a parliament, the EPâs actions were indeed informal, given the very limited tasks and rights that the Treaties had provided for the European Parliament.11 Another example is the active involvement of the European Court of Auditors (ECA) in international committees and organisations in which the ECA âhelps write and promote international audit norms, even establishing itself in areas such as performance audit in the vanguard of international audit practiceâ.12 With this self-initiative and very visible engagement, the ECA goes considerably beyond its main formal task: to audit EU budgetary spending.
Third, while much political science literature identifies an increase of informality in EU governance in recent years,13 it largely bypasses the fact that earlier stages of European integration were in need of far-reaching informal practices of their own. A number of crises and unforeseen developments such as several mine accidents in the 1950s killing hundreds of migrant workers, the 1970s economic and financial crisis or the accelerating process of technological development from the late 1960s onwards demanded swift action for which no Treaty or agreement provided clear formal solutions. In addition, the early Treaties left much space for individual activism by supranational, national and regional actors eager to define their own role and establish a powerful position in European-level decision-making. Such activism often took place in informal arenas, and consisted of uncodified and self-initiated behaviour. It can be traced within and beyond EU institutions over the entire timespan of European integration.14 Moreover, the negotiation and implementation of Community and EU Treaties were greatly facilitated by informal networks and off-the-record talks of leading politicians, diplomats and experts. Such informal networks were often crucial for creating a solid foundation for formal integration processes, through âthe creation of shared perceptions and aspirations, trust-building, and elite socializationâ.15 Informal networks furthermore functioned as âalternative spaces for policymaking and policy planningâ.16
Even though the political science literature on informality in the EU is far from comprehensive, it is ...
