The European Union and Global Governance

Mario Telò

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9781134039029
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book explores and analyses the multidimensional influence the European Union exerts in the world, focusing on its contribution to regional and global governance.

Presenting a multidisciplinary approach with contributions by a panel of outstanding scholars from political science, economics, legal studies, philosophy and history, the book examines the EU as global player and international power in the making. The book is divided into three parts:

• Part I examines the influence of the EU as such on global governance, considering the Euro, the common market, the modernization policies for a knowledge society and its global role as both a multinational and regional democratic political system
• Part 2 focuses on the EU's external policies, including trade; humanitarian aid; the environment; climate change, migration, terrorism, crime and EU foreign policy
• Part 3 explores the EU as a global actor in the making and looks at issues including enlargement and the EU's neighbourhood policy; inter-regionalism; it critically addresses the weight of the historical legacies of Europe in the world and its cosmopolitan perspectives as well

The European Union and Global Governance will be of vital interest to students and scholars of European Politics, International Relations, and European Studies.

1 Introduction

The EU as a model, a global actor and an unprecedented power

Mario Telò

Summary

This introduction first presents the volume’s contents and the questions addressed by each chapter. Second, it shows that the EU’s influence on global governance is based simultaneously on its long-term achievements as a model of regional cooperation, a multiple actor and policy-maker, as well as on its incipient and unprecedented kind of power. By assessing the EU’s current and future external impact, two kinds of variables are taken into account. On the one hand, external ones, linked to the evolving international post-cold war system, between unipolar, anarchical, multipolar and multilateral tendencies, where the EU action, interests and values look as underpinning a new multilateral order, albeit in a controversial and oscillating way. On the other hand, internal variables matter as well since the emerging EU co-leadership is concerned – that is, the material, strategic and institutional capacities of a two-level polity, including the states and the European common dimension.

The volume’s distinctive approach to EU and global governance

This collective volume addresses the multiple influences, impacts and policies of the EU on its external environment, analyzed from multisciplinary approaches sharing a distinctive inside/outside perspective. This means that the book does not rest upon a narrow understanding of EU foreign policy, nor on mere external relations, but aims at a comprehensive presentation of the multidimensional influence the EU exerts on the surrounding world, focusing on a broader understanding of its diverse contribution to global governance and international relations.

Furthermore, this book’s approach stresses an encompassing longue durée (long-term) presentation of the EU’s contribution to regional and global governance. This means that more than a half-century after the Schuman Declaration of 1950, and twenty years after the end of cold war, the EU’s international influence can be assessed by a certain distance towards the still relevant questions raised by any given single event, such as a conjunctural crisis or a controversial Treaty revision. The contributors share the conviction that the EU’s weight in the world is rooted in its very existence, as a mature form of multilateral governance of national and local diversities towards increasing regional convergence at the European level. What matters is the consolidation at quasi-continental level of a highly sophisticated set of common institutions and intergovernmental/supranational regimes among the fifteen, twenty-five or twenty-seven (even more, if the long waiting list of applicants or pre-applicants is taken into consideration) member states, sharing several common interests, objectives, values and policies. That is why the most relevant external influence stems from the economic, social and political sides of the EU as an international reference, or, in a Weberian understanding (i.e., free of any value implications), as an “ideal-type” or a “model.” This will then be combined with the analysis of various dimensions of the Union’s explicit roles as a global and regional actor, its external relations and foreign policies.

This volume is a critical book. It is not only far from falling to any temptation of Eurocentric euphoria, but was conceived and implemented as a textbook rather than as a collection of essays. The panel of contributing authors is pluralist and rich in variation as to each author’s national, theoretical and academic competence. Each chapter thereby investigates both successes and failures, the positive and negative influence of the EU, and how this influence is manifested, including some problematic, conflictual and unintended consequences.

The fifteen chapters provide a large array of information and empirical analyses on the EU’s external influence. It is only on such a broad basis that a new conceptualization of the evolving nature of the EU as the second relevant global player is possible. The book’s ambition includes showing the present state of the art regarding the controversial debate on the nature of the EU as an international actor, while underlining the unprecedented nature of both the EU’s regional governance and its interconnections with the overall global governance systems. Taking stock of the diverging and common findings as well as the currently ongoing process of European construction, several chapters address a common question: what are the theoretical implications of the nature of the EU as both a regional, multi-level and multi-actor entity, as well as a global power-in-the-making?

The book consists of three parts. Part I focuses on the external impact of the EU’s achievements and its sheer presence within the world; it examines how the EU’s main external influence is shaped by its internal achievements and dynamics, including the famous acquis communautaire¹. In Part II, the book deals with a large array of EU external policies and policy-making, and their legal framework. It approaches these issues from the most integrated to the most decentralized, from objectives to instruments, from rhetoric to action. Part III of the book addresses relevant horizontal and perspective issues: on the one hand, the EU’s near and far abroad agendas; on the other, the challenges that the external dimension of the European construction poses to historical and theoretical research. This introductory chapter aims both to stress some guidelines behind the common inquiries underlying all chapters, and to set out the conceptual framework and the book’s distinctive approach.

The influence of the EU on its external environment

Aside from its foreign policy, the EU in itself, as a coordinating institutionalized framework among national entities, exerts a bottom-up influence on its near and far external environment. This volume’s Part I focuses on the relevant external implication of the EU’s internal achievements and policies: ranging from its complex democratic polity to the competition policy, the euro and its modernization policies. The part’s opening chapter, Chapter 2 by Paul Magnette and Kalypso Nicolaïdis, deals with two essential and distinctive dimensions of the EU’s contribution to global governance: the EU internal/external influence as a value-free model of national and supranational democracy and its impact on international democratization. Since its creation in the 1950s, the European Community (EC) has played a key role in underpinning a framework for the democratic consolidation of some founding as well as certain non-founding member states, which had recently gone through their own specific experiences of fascist dictatorships (Mediterranean enlargements). These supranational and transnational pressures became more explicit after 1989, and helped set the tone behind the Central and Eastern enlargements to post-communist countries. Furthermore, the EU as a regional democratic political system-in-the-making is a reference for its near and far international environment.

When taking into consideration the EU’s explicit policies, including enlargement and various external relations, the question arises to what extent the EU can, in comparative terms, be considered an effective international “democratizer” (at national, regional and global levels). Within that context, how for example does the internal conditionality (Articles 6–7 of the TEU and the Copenhagen Criteria) inter play with the EU’s external policies and, beyond that, the EU’s political democratic identity in the world? Finally, Magnette and Nicolaïdis underline that the EU is not only an intergovernmental association of democratic states but also a new kind of non-state supranational political system at the macro-regional level. Its emerging regional democratic polity as such is already offering a twofold international reference for near and far abroad:² for democracy within the state and for democracy between states.

The next two chapters address two further achievements of the EU which are non-controversial within international literature and entail salient international effects: the common currency, the euro; and the single market. In Chapter 3, Jean-Victor Louis investigates the euro’s international dimension, and the maturing of the Eurozone’s monetary policy. He evaluates the impact of monetary integration and the common currency on the global financial system; namely the influence it has had on, and interaction with, the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The euro is evaluated as an international anchor currency, a unit of account, a medium for exchange, and a store of value. Although the euro is the only case in modern history of a currency without a state, the drive towards a European currency has, since the early failed Werner Plan (1970–71) and the successful Delors committee (1988–89), endeavoured to enhance European international autonomy within an unstable financial system. Furthermore, given the limited role of the EU within the Bretton Woods institutions (where Europe is only represented through its member states), the role of the European Central Bank (ECB) and the euro are the only way for the EU as such to exert an albeit indirect role within global financial governance.

This third chapter illustrates how the euro’s international role has suffered both from internal asymmetries between the monetary and economic dimensions of the European Monetary Union (EMU), as well as from divergences between policies and/or among member states. However, given the increasing international influence already wielded by this centralized and successful EU policy, it has helped to address or revalue the twin challenge of consolidating regional monetary stability and addressing the controversial leading role played by the relatively overrepresented European states within the IMF. The chapter is crucial when considering the evolving responsibility of the EU with regard to the perspective of a new global financial architecture preventing and managing the financial crises – a particular challenge given the radically changing international economic environment (in comparison with the first decades of the IMF’s exitence). The current post-hegemonic world is characterized by both declining US financial leadership within the G7, and waning G7 leadership, within a critical and less legitimate global financial system. The chapter concludes by presenting four alternative scenarios for the future global multilateral monetary system and the place occupied by the regional Eurozone therein.

Chapter 4, by Mathias Dewatripont and Patrick Legros, deals with the external impact of the EU’s competition policy, which is central to the world’s largest market: the European single market. As one of the most efficient internal policies – legally based on the “Community method”³ – the competition policy has a sizeable external impact. It influences not only internal, but also international private and public actors. Accordingly, this regulatory power engenders for the EU a sizeable external influence, and a distinct identity as a major global rule-setting actor. This rule-setting function is often exerted in competition/cooperation with the USA. The chapter examines how this regulatory approach is being developed within the wider global arena, notably with regard to other international economic actors, states and multinational companies. Moreover, a comparative analysis with the USA offers valuable insights. Two questions are especially pertinent to this analysis. To what extent has the “European competition and antitrust model” succeeded in setting global standards and suggesting rules abroad? And, under what conditions will EU policy continue to shape global policy further in the future?

The final chapter of the first part, Chapter 5 by Maria João Rodrigues, focuses on the socio-economic model (again, in a value-free sense) within the globalized economy. More precisely, the issue to be tackled is the external implications of the national socio-economic models and their European convergence, namely through coordination and supranational regulation. First, the chapter introduces readers to the objective international relevance of the European economies – among them, four members of the G7 – and the very appealing and rich common market, while not negating the problems it faces in adapting to global competition. Second, the chapter analyzes the achievements and the shortcomings of the so-called Lisbon Strategy. This modernization agenda, launched in 2000, aims at enhancing internal convergences within the EU towards a “European model of a knowledge economy” by combining international technological competitiveness and social cohesion.

This fifth chapter fulfils a bridging function between the volume’s first two parts, as it addresses a crucial dimension of the existing model of policy coordination, thus hoping to enhance the EU external structural power. The EU’s socio-economic model and the dynamics of the Lisbon Strategy already entail large external implications affecting both the Union’s near abroad as broader global governance dynamics. Of course, the EU cannot master globalization by acting as a credible leading player without successfully implementing necessary internal reforms, and addressing the open challenges of energy dependency, immigration and sustainable development.⁴ However, compared with the 1990s, the internal impact of a rapidly changing international economic environment and increasing competition are fostering a pro-active evolution of the concept of external relations itself. This evolution leads us to a pressing question: under which conditions would the distinctive European combination of political regulation, social cohesion and market dynamics (between negative and positive integration) bring about the potential for a pro-active role in shaping the process of globalization?

The external policies of a multidimensional actor-in-the-making

The introductory chapter of Part II, Chapter 6 by Marianne Dony, focuses on the complex legal basis of the Union’s external actions within a context where even the domestic aspects of government are “going global.” The legal and institutional provisions – the clearest expressions of the competence distribution decided upon by the states – are gradually changing beyond the baroque “three pillars structure” established by the Maastricht Treaty (1992). This incremental evolution has been ongoing, ranging from the many Treaty revisions, established in Amsterdam (1997), and Nice (2000), to the Reform Treaty – or Lisbon Treaty – of 2007.⁵ This chapter provides the non-specialized reader with a clear presentation of both the general legal framework of the Union’s external policies, and the significant impact of the EU Court of Justice’s jurisdiction in expanding the Union’s implied competences. Furthermore, the Union’s treaty-making power, its international agreements, its participation in international organizations and the issue of its legal personality are also addressed.

Among the evolving dynamics, the potential impact of the Lisbon Treaty’s provisions is underlined, notably regarding the EU’s international objectives, its legal personality, and the reform of its institutions. Notably, the first and foremost among these institutional reforms are the High Representative for Foreign Policy – combining the former Council and Commission roles in external relations – and the European External Action Service. However, given the structural importance of two-level policy-making within the EU (states and Union), the many brakes to Treaty reform, and the legacy of the three pillars structure, questions remain on the overall coherence and consistency of the EU’s external policies as they result from various decision-making procedures and implementation mechanisms. Coherence and consistency remain the main open challenges for the second decade of the century.

In Chapter 7, Paola Conconi presents the EU commercial policy and its impact on regional/global trade regulation. The most centralized and consolidated external policy of the EU is examined from the perspective of both its achievements and its current controversial evolution, as far as global governance is concerned. The EU share of merchandise imports and exports is the largest in the world, and the intra-EU trade record (complementarities among the European economies) is the highest among regional groupings of states. Much data as well as many instruments and external audiences show complementarities between the EU and World Trade Organization (WTO). However, the question remains to what extent the EU could further encourage the WTO to become a stronger regulatory regime – one with teeth – without reforming relevant internal policies. And, to what extent are the specific conflicts between the WTO and the EU (e.g., the issues over bananas, hormone beef, genetically modified organisms, the airline industry) significant examples of an increasing contradiction between the two organizations, despite the EU’s commitment to the “harmonious development of world trade”?⁶

A further relevant question turns on what the EU’s distinctive balance should be between its commitment to global multilateralism and its orientation to foster limited Free Trade Agreements, bilateral, regional and interregional agreements. Is the strategy to multilateralize regionalism a step beyond the classical Bagwati-Summers controversy (regional versus global)?⁷ Beyond the singular reference to Article XXIV of the WTO charter, what are the possible contradictions between regional rule-setting and the still absent global rules? On the one hand, the EU’s internal modes of governance offer possible inspiration for improving the WTO trade regime as well as multilateral rule-making. On the other hand, the EC/EU in itself is a regional project and its internal integration process as such was given a top priority for many decades – a reality which might have resulted in conflicts with global regulation (explicitly, but in no way exclusively, the case of agriculture and the common agriculture policy comes to mind). An expanding EU is a significant part of the globalization process: yet tensions still remain. This point is confirmed by the growing demand for new norm-setting. This has emerged as a challenge to the EU’s commitment to a multiple free-trade agenda (see the Doha Development Round (DDR) and the recent Transatlantic Economic Council arrangement on non-tariff barriers to exchanges and investments) with regard to internal pressing demands of reciprocity, mutual benefit, respect of property rights, the fight against trade dumping, social reg...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• List of illustrations
• List of contributors
• Preface and acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction: the EU as a model, a global actor and an unprecedented power
• PART I The impact of the EU on global governance
• PART II EU external policies
• PART III Europe as a global actor: horizontal issues