The European Union after Lisbon

Polity, Politics, Policy

Søren Dosenrode

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781409438212
• eBook ISBN: 9781317033127
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: European Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

A few years have passed since the Lisbon Treaty came into force but the question still remains of what the Lisbon Treaty has actually brought about. Was it just 'relatively insignificant' as some scholars have claimed, or was it 'something' more? This book sets out to look at this question and it does so by applying a classical division: polity, politics and policy. One of the book's conclusions is that the Lisbon Treaty might have been 'plan b' compared to the aborted Constitutional Treaty, but it is certainly a substantial step forward on the European path of integration. The Lisbon Treaty strengthened the EU both as a polity (its stateness), and in its politics (the rules and procedures) and in spite of the fact that the treaty was not really a 'policy treaty', it has extended the Union's field by federalizing most of the policies within the area of Justice and Home Affairs. This anthology brings together scholars from four European countries each of them a specialist within the fields they are analyzing. Each scholar adds insights from their area of competence to the book, leaving it an important contribution to the study of today's European Union.

Chapter 1
Exploring the Lisbon Treaty

Søren Dosenrode

The European Union (EU) is the world’s greatest trading power. It provides the majority of the day-to-day legislation of its more than 500 million citizens, and is by some described as the world’s second superpower (Andrew Moravcsik, 2010).1 This power is developing, although not smoothly and systematically, but rather in a mix of staccato leaps forward and ‘quiet incrementalism’. The latest major development is the Lisbon Treaty. It was ratified after a bumpy journey in December 2009, under the names ‘Treaty on European Union’ and ‘The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union’ (in short: the Lisbon Treaty). The treaty revision process had lasted longer than any previous revision process. It began in Laeken in December 2001 and its aim was a Constitutional Treaty. However, the Constitutional Treaty was turned down by the citizens of France and the Netherlands in 2005, and later the treaty revision was delayed by the ‘close to veto’ of first the Polish and later the Czech president (in 2007 and 2009 respectively), just to mention a few obstacles. But in the meantime the EU continued growing due to the Eastern enlargements.

The Lisbon Treaty’s preamble states:

DESIRING to complete the process started by the Treaty of Amsterdam and by the Treaty of Nice with a view to enhancing the efficiency and democratic legitimacy of the Union and to improving the coherence of its action, […].

This statement raises a number of questions; among others: Is the process begun in Amsterdam really completed with the Lisbon Treaty? Was efficiency enhanced by the new treaty? And how about democracy, was it really upgraded?

This book tries to answer these questions. To do so, we analyse the treaty from the classical three angles of political science, namely that of

a. polity, i.e. in a broad sense a political system and the institutions (cf. Windhoff-Héritier 1987: 17), and in a narrow sense a state or a state-like entity. The latter, narrow understanding is primarily used in this volume.

b. politics, i.e. the ‘art of government’ or the processes and rules used to govern a political entity like a state, and lastly

c. policy, i.e. ‘[…] an attempt to define and structure a rational basis for action or inaction’, as Wayne Parsons (1995: 14) defines it, or simply the policy ‘contents’ as Windhoff-Héritier phrases it (1987: 17).

By choosing these three angles we will try to identify what is new and analyse it. By doing so we are aware that no 100 per cent agreement on the definitions just mentioned exists, and that the concepts often overlap. It is, for example, hard to make an analysis of the Common Agricultural Policy without looking at the rules (politics) within the area, and if one looks at ‘the art of government’ (politics), it is hard to leave out the political system itself, the state (the polity). But the three perspectives should provide us with a systematic approach when looking at the Lisbon Treaty.

Before going into polity, politics and policy questions, Søren Dosenrode, in Chapter 2, sets up the frame of the book, mapping the Road to Lisbon. This chapter analyses the development of the European Union from the beginnings in the 1950s until today. As such, it provides the background for the rest of the chapters in this book. The analysis is divided into two main parts: the developments from the Schuman Declaration to the Single European Act and the years after (1950–1991), and the developments from Maastricht to post-Lisbon (1992–2012). The chapter is rounded off by a few considerations on how regional integration happens, and argues for taking a closer look at the insights of the classical theories of regional integration.

In Chapters 3 to 5, the main analysis of the treaty’s polity aspects is undertaken. To operationalize the concepts of polity we emphasize the nature of the whole system, when analysing the development of the EU.

In Chapter 3 Søren Dosenrode, assesses the European Union’s statehood after the Lisbon Treaty. His starting-point is that until now academia has not yet produced a satisfactory label for the EU. The least satisfactory expression is sui generis, implying that the EU is completely unique and has to be treated as such, thus excluding or ignoring other regional integration projects like the federations. This prevents generalizations and eventual theory building. The second popular and only marginally better name used for the Union is ‘a political system’. This name was coined by Simon Hix. In this chapter, Dosenrode sets up a model of what a state is (based on mainstream political science), and applies it to the EU. The conclusion is that the EU in fact is a (weak) state.

Wolfgang Zank turns to the central questions of geographical spill-overs, structural power and growing ‘agency’ post Lisbon in Chapter 4. Zank uses the concepts of ‘structural power’ and ‘agency’ for analysis of the external impact of the EU in a historical perspective. According to Zank, a single theory can’t explain the development because at different points in time different theories are strong. As it turned out, already in the 1950s the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), and later the European Economic Communities (EEC) had a power of attraction and strong impact on the United Kingdom and other neighbours, a process termed ‘geographical spill-over’ by Ernst B. Haas. In the 1970s and 1980s the EEC could use its power of attraction in order to stabilize democracy in Greece, Spain and Portugal. And in the 1990s the EU gained an unprecedented power for shaping other societies in the process of the eastern enlargement, through the application of strict conditionality prior to membership. The EU used enlargement as a conscious policy in order to export democratic stability and prosperity to the eastern countries. The EU can again be seen as a rational self-interested actor. Also in the European Neighbourhood Policy, the EU can exercise influence, though to a lesser degree than during enlargement.

During the last decades the EU has also increasingly built up agency, and the Lisbon Treaty has added to this. ‘Structural power’ and ‘agency’ can go together, in particular if an actor follows ‘milieu goals’, as the EU does. This is a characteristic of the EU polity in the world.

In the following Chapter 5, Per Jansson analyses the security of the European polity in the Lisbon order. In this conceptually oriented chapter Jansson addresses the prospects and meanings of European security, using the Lisbon Treaty as a point of departure. Jansson is using the security perspective to approach essential questions about European identity, and in particular the coherence and authority of Europe as a political community. For European security to make sense there must be a European polity that not only has the resources and institutional clout to provide effective external actions, but commands legitimacy, a capital of trust. Even though questions pertaining to security are prominent in the reform process, dramatic consequences in terms of how policy is conducted in this field are not to be expected. In the long run, however, the symbolic effects may be considerable.

The next chapters (6 to 8) analyse the politics aspects of the Lisbon Treaty. The Lisbon Treaty could i.a. be considered a ‘politics treaty’ adding, and changing, procedures, institutions and actors.

Chapter 6, by Cristina Blasi Casagran, is a good example of concrete overlapping of the concepts, as the reinforcement of human rights in the form of the Charter of Fundamental Rights also has strong polity-building aspects. Thus, the chapter could arguably be placed under the headline ‘polity’, too.

Since the Lisbon Treaty quite a number of amendments concerning human rights have been incorporated into the aquis. The new nature of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which gets the same legal value as the Treaties, as well as the accession of the EU to the European Convention of Human Rights, seem to be the main amendments. But also other larger changes regarding the better protection of human rights are analysed. In particular, changes in the legal basis regarding data protection, external action or the non-discrimination policy will be studied, as well as the new provisions with regard to the guarantee and control schemes.

In Chapter 7 Nico Groenendijk analyses ‘enhanced cooperation’, which is regarded as being a way out of EU decision-making deadlock and as a major possibility of proceeding with European integration in selected areas. Nico Groenendijk starts out by placing enhanced cooperation within the frame of ‘flexible integration’ in which he discusses two dimensions (does it take place within or outside the EU-decision making framework? and does it lay within or outside the EU policy domain as outlined by the EU treaty?). Groenendijk proceeds to discuss the dangers and the advantages of enhanced cooperation comparing it to two other possibilities: unitary integration and alternative integration.

Although the mechanism has been in place since the Treaty of Amsterdam, enhanced cooperation has only recently become a reality, in two policy fields: divorce law and the single EU patent. Using these two cases, Groenendijk analyses the pros and cons of enhanced cooperation (as compared to unitary integration and alternative integration). The chapter concludes by pointing out some possible weaknesses of the enhanced cooperation, i.e. the danger that unanimous decision-making can be circumvented, that the policy result may not be progressive, and that the majority in the Council and the Commission do not seem overcautious, when it comes to the application of the requirements on non-distortion of the internal market. The chapter also highlights the obvious advantage, namely the possibility for a large number of states to bypass another group of states when unitary integration does not work (for the smaller group this is, of course, a disadvantage).

The last of the politics chapters is Andreas Warntjen’s on Designing Democratic Institutions: Accountability, Responsiveness and the Reform of the Council of the European Union after Lisbon (Chapter 8).

According to Warntjen the widely perceived lack of legitimacy of EU decision-making has prompted a major debate about institutional reform. Improving democratic practice in the Council has been one of the key topics in the debates leading up to the Lisbon Treaty. In general, we can distinguish between two models of democracy. The majoritarian model of democracy builds on the open competition of political camps that enjoy wide-ranging powers to implement their policy agenda once in office. In contrast, the consociational model of democracy relies on inclusiveness, compromises and power-sharing. Warntjen discusses the most prominent topics of the recent debate on institutional reform in the Council (voting threshold, Council Presidency, transparency) in light of these two models of democracy. The current practice of decision-making in the Council resembles the consensual model. Andreas Warntjen concludes that the changes in the Lisbon Treaty are unlikely to make any significant difference in this regard

In the following part (Chapters 9 and 10) policy implications of the Lisbon Treaty are looked into.

In Chapter 9 Blanca Vilà analyses and evaluates the policy-outcome of the Spanish Presidency, which was the first ‘trio’ under the Lisbon Treaty . The Spanish presidency offers a unique opportunity to analyse both (1) some updated institutional features under the new rules of the Treaty, and (2) the dialectics between the new conditions under which EU presidencies will have to function in the future.

After an introduction to the new ‘acquis’ and the increasing institutionalization, this chapter discusses, from a critical perspective, the hard conditions for the policy performance of the Spanish presidency priorities, presenting this experience as a European ‘living laboratory’ on how to implement the Lisbon Treaty.

Lars Niklasson, in Chapter 10, analyses contradictions in the European market-building. The European Union has embarked on a new strategy for economic growth, known as the EU 2020-strategy. It looks like a well-designed machinery for growth, but in fact it reveals fundamental problems with the EU as a growth-enhancing organization. It is at once very complex and yet too simple to capture all relevant activities by the EU to stimulate economic growth. It is generally limited to policies where the EU already has a mandate, while some policies, such as cohesion policy, are missing.

The strategy is analysed in the light of a long debate on contradictions in EU policy, where the EU is seen as supporting conflicting goals and producing unintended side-effects. Under the surface are very different conceptions of markets and market failure as well as of the role of existing firms and the role of entrepreneurship to support new firms. The strategy reveals that the Commission lacks a mandate for change and that a case is building up for an elected Commission of the EU.

In Chapter 11 Søren Dosenrode sums up the findings in the previous chapters, structured around the elements of polity, politics, policy. One of his conclusions is that the Lisbon Treaty was more of a ‘polity and politics treaty’ than a ‘policy treaty’ aiming at deepening more than widening the EU.

References

Moravcsik, A. 2010. Europe, the Second Super Power. Current History, 109(725), 91–8.

Parsons, W. 1995. Public Policy – An introduction to the Theory and Practice of Policy Analysis. Aldershot: Edward Elgar.

Toje, A. 2010. The European Union as a Small Power. Journal of Common Market Studies, 49(1), 43–60.

Windhoff-Heritier, A. 1987. Policy-Analyse – Eine Einführung. Frankfurt and New York: Campus Verlag.

1 Toje (2011) on the contrary considers the EU a small power.

Chapter 2
The Road to Lisbon

Søren Dosenrode

Introduction

On 9 May 1950 the French foreign minister Robert Schuman declared:

Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity. The coming together of the nations of Europe requires the elimination of the age old opposition of France and Germany. Any action taken must in the first place concern these two countries. With this aim in view, the French Government proposes that action be taken immediately on one limited but decisive point. […] By pooling basic production and by instituting a new High Authority, whose decisions will bind France, Germany and other member countries, this proposal will lead to the realization of the first concrete foundation of a European federation indispensable to the preservation of peace.

Since the Schuman Declaration from 1950 regional integration has moved onwards; sometimes fast and at other times hardly at all, but only once backwards (Luxemburg compromise 1966). The purpose of this chapter, is to give a brief outline of European Union’s history from Paris (1950) to Lisbon (2007), as background for the following chapters. The chapter will also show an ongoing regional integration process driven by internal and external pressures, sometimes in the form of crisis. The chapter falls into three parts. The first tells the story of the early history until the beginning of the 1990s. The second part begins with the ‘quantum leap’ of the Maastricht Treaty and takes us up to the period after the Lisbon Treaty.1 The chapter ends with a few considerations on what made regional integration happen in Europe and what made it develop.

From the Schuman Declaration to the Single European Act and the years after (1950–1992)

The situation in Europe at the end of the 1940s was not one of idle joy; yes, Nazi-Germany had been defeated, but the costs had been terrifying in the number of lives killed or ruined, in the sheer devastation of material goods (housing and industries damaged), and in the creation of Stalinist dictatorships in Eastern Europe. Moreover, Europe’s role as the central continent in world politics had been changed from being...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Notes on Contributors
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Exploring the Lisbon Treaty
• 2 The Road to Lisbon
• 3 Assessing the European Union’s Statehood’
• 4 Geographical Spillovers, Structural Power and Growing ‘Agency’ Post Lisbon
• 5 European Security in the Lisbon Order
• 6 The Reinforcement of Fundamental Rights in the Lisbon Treaty
• 7 Enhanced Cooperation under the Lisbon Treaty
• 8 Designing Democratic Institutions: Legitimacy and the Reform of the Council of the European Union in the Lisbon Treaty
• 9 The Spanish Presidency - the First Presidency under Lisbon Treaty Trio (relevant institutional ‘acquis’ and balance)
• 10 Contradictions in the Market-creating State in Europe
• 11 The Lisbon Treaty - A Treaty of Polity and Politics
• Index