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Scarica summary of the chapter e più Sintesi del corso in PDF di Politiche dell'Unione Europea solo su Docsity! EU POLITICS AND POLICIES IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD - B026821 VIII. An Overview of EU Policy-Making The EU’s role in this field is largely confined to adopting legislation and setting standards. The actual implementation of the policies is left to member state governments. Although the EU is very active in the field of regulatory policy (promulgating norms and standards), it is much less involved in distributive policies (financing facilities) and redistributive policies (affecting the distribution of income and wealth). EU policies have become an important determinant of the policies that firms and citizens experience ‘on the ground’. At the same time, the EU does not fully determine the scope for policy-making within its member states. Despite the process of European integration and the development of a vast body of EU policies, member states still have considerable scope for making their own policy choices. As a result, in many policy areas the EU has evolved into a veritable ‘multi-level’ policy-making system, with the EU itself, its member states and (in some areas and some member states) regional governments involved in a continuous process of formulating, adopting and implementing policies. Understanding the activities and dynamics between these levels is key to understanding how policy processes unfold in the EU. I. WHAT DOES THE EU DO? - Only a few areas are fully dealt with at the EU level. This is the case for the ‘classic’ EU policies of external trade (that is, trade with countries outside of the EU), competition policy, agriculture and fisheries. In these areas, comprehensive EU policies have been developed and all major decisions are taken at the EU level. Since the introduction of the Euro, deci- sions on monetary policy (for instance, setting interest rates) are also taken at the EU level, but only for those member states that have adopted the Euro. - There are policy areas in which the EU plays no or hardly any role. These include some of the typical ‘local’ issues, such as housing, and crime that takes place ‘on the streets’ such as burglary, theft, domestic violence and disturbances of the public order. In addition, the EU plays a very small role when it comes to policy areas that are closely linked to the ‘national identity’ of the member states, such as primary and secondary education and cultural policy. These areas are almost exclusively dealt with by the member state governments themselves and in some federal member states even by regional governments. - Then there are policy areas in which the EU does play a role but to a greater and lesser extent. The EU plays an important role in areas such as environmental policy and occupational health and safety, where it has built up extensive bodies of legislation covering a wide range of issues and aspects. This is also true of specific issues within wider policy areas in which the EU plays a smaller role. For example, the EU plays an important role in tobacco control policies, although it is much less involved in health policies in general. - The EU plays a smaller, ‘supportive’ role in a range of policy areas that are still predominantly dealt with by member state governments. In some of these areas, the EU focuses specifically on cross-border issues. For example, the way health care is organised and financed is decided exclusively by member state governments. The EU has no say in this. But if you are from one EU member state and fall ill in another member state, EU legislation does specify your right to treatment in that other member state and who will pay the costs for this. Likewise, social insurance and pension policies are determined by (and vary widely between) the member states. Yet, the EU has adopted legislation for situations in which workers move between or are active in different member states. - The EU also plays a smaller role in areas that are close to the ‘core’ of state sovereignty, such as foreign policy and defence policy. Here, member state governments have been extremely reluctant to allow a greater role for the EU, both because foreign and defence policies go to the core of what it means to be a ‘sovereign’ state and because foreign policy priorities and preferences differ widely between the EU member states. Therefore, for all policy areas in the ‘weak involvement’ category the EU is involved in a supportive role, leaving the key policy decisions firmly at the member state level. II. THE LIMITS OF (RE-)DISTRIBUTIVE POLICIES IN THE EU The limited role of (re-)distribution in the EU can be seen by taking a look at the EU budget. European governments typically spend an amount almost half their country’s GDP. Gross domestic product (GDP) is a measure of the size of an economy, which equals the total value of goods and services produced in a country in a given year. In Sweden, the EU member state where government spending relative to the entire economy is highest, government expenditures account for some 53% of GDP. In Slovakia, the member state with the lowest government spending, it is a bit less than 35%. Still, the differences between member states are small compared to the difference with the EU. Whereas each member state government spends more than 30% of its country’s GDP, the EU only spends a little under 1% of European GDP. The difference becomes clear if you think of some of the things that member state governments spend money on, such as dispensing unemployment benefits, building hospitals, subsidising housing or paying policemen. These are all things that the EU does not do. As we saw above, the EU is not responsible for social benefits, only for coordinating cross-border use of those bene- fits. Also, the EU does not finance health systems, it does not have an army, nor does it hire and pay policemen, firemen, doctors or nurses. 1. Types of policy in the EU: Governments pursue three different types of public policy: - Distributive policies: which serve a specific group in society. Examples are government investment in a road or a subsidy to a theatre company. - Most of the budgetary battles have focused on the contributions that member states pay to and the revenues they receive from the EU. The balance between contributions and receipts is known as the ‘operating budgetary balance’ of a member state. - The operating budgetary balance of a member state is determined by two things: the size of its contributions to the EU and the amount of money it receives, in particular from the EU’s agricultural and cohesion policies. It is no surprise, then, that the list of net contributors (relative to GDP) is led by Sweden, an affluent member state with a relatively small agricultural sector. - The net receipts of member states benefiting from the EU tend to be higher relative to their economy than the net contributions of the EU’s ‘paymasters’. The reason for this is that the level of economic development varies greatly across the EU. Not only do the twelve net contributors include all large member states, but these member states are also among the most affluent in the EU. - Budgetary politics has been particularly important for a number of member states. Some net contributors with relatively high contributions and small agricultural sectors have demanded, and obtained, reductions on their EU contributions. Without these reductions, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK would pay more to the EU. - EU receipts have been important sources of revenue for some of the poorer member states in Southern and, since their accession, Eastern European member states. These member states have often fought hard to maintain their share of the EU funds and have made their support for the EU budget, treaty changes or other proposals contingent on the financial contributions they receive. - Member states with large agricultural sectors, which benefit from the CAP, have often blocked attempts by other member states to scale down the size of the EU’s agricultural expenditures. III. REGULATORY POLICIES IN THE EU: THE INTERNAL MARKET AND BEYOND There are three types of regulatory policies the EU is engaged in: 1. Regulation aimed at market integration: In the 1950s, the EU started out as a market integration scheme. The aim of its member states was to form a common market (nowadays normally called ‘internal market’) to facilitate intra-European trade. In doing so, they adopted a dual strategy which has become known as ‘negative integration’ and ‘positive integration’. Negative integration: It is the abolition of trade barriers that are imposed by member states. It is called ‘negative’ because it stipulates what member state governments cannot do. A good example is the prohibition on levying customs duties on imports from other member states. In the EU, this is prohibited because customs duties are a barrier to trade. Likewise, member states are prohibited from setting quotas, which specify the maximum amount of a product that can be imported (or exported) in a given period. Yet, negative integration goes beyond such obvious things as customs duties. If a member state government adopts a law or a policy that (directly or indirectly) benefits domestic producers to the detriment of producers from other member states, this too constitutes a barrier to trade and is forbidden under EU law. Example: ‘Buy Irish’ campaign organised in the early 1980s by the Irish government, which was meant to encourage Irish consumers to buy Irish (rather than imported) products. This campaign sought to prevent consumers from buying products from other ms, thus it violated EU rules on free trade. Therefore, the central issue (often, dilemma) in negative integration is to distinguish member state measures that are meant to protect domestic producers by discouraging trade with other member states from member state measures that restrict trade but serve a legitimate purpose, such as protecting consumers, public health or the environment. The former are prohibited, the latter are allowed. The Court of Justice has developed an extensive and subtle case law to make this distinction. A key ruling in this regard has been the 1979 Cassis de Dijon case. Firms, member state governments or the European Commission need to go to the Court of Justice each time they believe that a member state imposes unjustified barriers to trade. Positive integration: For some issues simply eliminating national laws may threaten other values, such as environmental or consumer protection. In those cases, an alternative to negative integration is to adopt EU legislation in order to create one set of norms and standards for the entire EU - This is called positive integration because new (EU) laws substitute for existing member state laws: rather than saying what laws member states can- not adopt, they are told what laws they have to adopt. Therefore, positive integration (also known as harmonisation or the approximation of laws) is the adoption of EU laws to reduce the differences between member state laws in a given area. For instance, EU legislation on the approval of new medicines is meant to prevent trade barriers between member states that would result from different national norms and standards, while at the same time guaranteeing a sound assessment of the quality of medicines. The same logic applied to much of the EU’s earlier environmental legislation. Hence, positive integration is an instrument to facilitate market integration but in so doing it automatically leads to the consideration of other issues that may affect markets (such as the quality of medicines and the environment). 2. Regulation aimed at mitigating the negative impacts of economic activity: Regulation aimed at mitigating the negative impacts of economic activity implies quite a significant broadening of the scope of the EU’s remit and policies when compared to regulation that is aimed purely at market integration. Yet, it is still linked to economic activity in the sense that it seeks to mitigate the negative impacts of economic activity. In the beginning years of environmental policy, some environmental issues have become independent concerns for the EU. This was formalised when the 1986 Single European Act introduced a separate legal basis for EU environmental legislation. This means that the EU can (and does) also adopt environmental measures simply for the sake of protecting the environment. The same is true of a number of other policy areas for which the EU has obtained an independent competence, such as the equal treatment of men and women and occupational health and safety. Environmental pollution is the result of producing and consuming goods and services, while occupational health and safety is directly linked to the production of goods and services. This is different for the final type of EU regulatory policy. 3. Regulation not (directly) related to economic activities: Since the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, the EU is also involved in issues that are not (directly) linked to economic activity, most notably foreign policy and justice and home affairs. This was an important step in the EU’s development because it now firmly moved from being an ‘economic’ community to a ‘political’ one. Foreign policy and justice and home affairs have links with economic issues, but the direct aims of these policies relate to other objectives: strengthening the role of the EU and its member states in global politics and preventing crime. As in most other policy areas, the EU’s role in these areas is predominantly regulatory in nature. The EU does not have its own army or police but it has adopted an increasing number of regulatory measures aimed at coordinating the policies and activities of member states. In particular since the early 2000s and the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the area of justice and home affairs has become a veritable growth market in EU policy-making. Over time, then, the EU has moved from a project aimed at market integration to a much broader union covering non-economic issues as well. In that regard, the EU has firmly moved ‘beyond the internal market’. Still, the internal market and market integration remain key issue areas for the EU and make up much of its policy-making activities. IV. THE REGULATORY OUTPUT OF THE EUROPEAN UNION Regulatory output: the numbers and types of Directives, Regulations and Decisions taken. Regulations make up by far the largest proportion of EU regulatory output: more than two-thirds over the entire period 1975–2008. In comparison, Directives make up only a tiny proportion of the EU regulatory output: less than 4% over the same period. Still, in a qualitative sense, Directives are often seen as the most important type of EU legislation. Hence, although the number of Regulations (and also of Decisions) is much higher than the number of Directives adopted in the EU, the use of these instruments also differs a lot, with Regulations and Decisions being used pre- dominantly for the further specification of more general rules laid down else- where or for specific cases. This is why Directives are often seen as the main legislative instrument in the EU, even though their numbers are quite mod- est. Conversely, it is also important to bear in mind that in terms of what the EU does and what EU institutions are occupied with, Directives are only the tip of the iceberg. Like any modern government, the EU spends much of its policy. In other words, Europeanisation is not a ‘zero sum game’, in which one actor’s gain is another actor’s loss. Most EU policies set a number of common standards which subsequently need to be filled in at the member state (and often also the local) level In general, however, we can say that EU policies place limits on the types of policy that member states can adopt but within those limits member state and local governments normally have a fair amount of room to choose one policy option rather than another. The resulting policies as they affect firms and citizens are combinations of the EU frameworks and the national and local policy choices made. Hence, EU policy-making is not either EU or member states but in most cases both EU and member states. 2. European integration and domestic policy choices: European integration has led to changing domestic opportunity structures that make it increasingly difficult for governments to adopt certain policies. Domestic policies are never fully determined by EU-level developments. Even when European integration changes the context within which governments make policy, they still have considerable scope for choosing between different policy options. Because domestic priorities and preferences differ widely across Europe, this had led to persistent differences in the policies that member states pursue. Empirical evidence: Role of governments in the economy: because there are still vast differences between MS, they still have a lot of room to choose their own policies and European integration does not force all MS to adopt one welfare state arrangement. There have been some changes over time though - Sweden still leads the pack when it comes to government spending, the percentage of government expenditures as a part of GDP decreased from 63% in 1996 to 53% in 2008. Decreases like this can be seen in many member states. At the same time, several member states saw a stabilisation of or increase in relative government spending over the same period. Between 2000 and 2008, the EU average itself rose from 45.2% to 46.8%. Furthermore, since the 1980s, governments across Western Europe have been engaged in attempts to cut back on government spending and welfare state arrangements because it was believed they hampered economic growth. These considerations have been important quite apart from the process of European integration. For the (newer) EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe the situation is even more complex. They have had to cope with the transition from planned economies, in which governments played central roles, to market economies. This process has been even more fundamental than that of welfare state reform in Western Europe. Therefore, even if increased market integration within the EU has stimulated reforms of welfare states and government spending, it is not the only and probably not the most important explanation for them. Proponents of the so-called race to the bottom thesis argue that competition for economic activity will lead governments to lower their standards in order to attract firms or, at the very least, prevent them from moving abroad. (A race to the bottom (also known as social dumping) occurs when states lower their regulatory standards in fields such as environmental, social and consumer protection in order to attract firms or prevent them from moving abroad). Overall, these are only minor considerations in the choice of a firm to change location. Also, member state regulatory standards have not tended to be lowered over time, and diversity has persisted. Regulatory policies in environmental policy and labour standards do not show systematic decreases in regulatory standards. VI. TOWARDS A EUROPE OF MULTIPLE SPEEDS? 1. Examples of ‘multi-speed Europe’: Even though there are policies which have been adopted in the entire EU and apply to all MS, still there are some areas which are adopted to only a subset of all MS. In EU parlance, this is known variously as ‘multi-speed Europe’, ‘variable geometry’, ‘Europe à la carte’ and, the terminology used in the EU treaties, ‘enhanced cooperation’. The conditions and procedures for establishing enhanced cooperation seeks to ensure that agreements between a subset of MS does not pose a threat to the EU as a whole, other MS or the EU’s supranational institutions. Examples: - The Social Charter which enshrined a range of worker rights. The Social Charter was adopted in 1989 by all member states except the UK, which did not want to be bound by the EU in the field of labour law. In 1998, this decision was reversed by the newly elected UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, but until that time the Charter did not apply to the UK. - The Euro was adopted by 12 of the then 15 EU MS when it was introduced. Denmark, Sweden and the UK chose to retain their own currencies. After the enlargements with countries of Central and Eastern Europe, new member states have had to qualify for adoption of the Euro by fulfilling certain macroeconomic requirements. As a result, some EU member states use the Euro but others do not. - In defence policy, cooperation has relied on the willingness of groups of all MS to move forward. A good example is the creation of EU battle groups, 1,500-person strong military groups that can be deployed in military operations across the globe. Although the concept and creation of battle groups was approved by all member states, actual participation in battle groups remains contingent upon the willingness of individual member states to contribute. Similarly, EU operations in the field of the Common Foreign and Security Policy have relied on variable coalitions of member states that were willing (and able) to participate. - In justice and home affairs, some groups of MS have concluded treaties on closer cooperation outside of the EU framework. Examples include the Schengen Treaty on the free movement of persons across borders, and the Treaty of Prüm on the exchange of information between law enforcement authorities in different countries. Since the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam, these types of enhanced cooperation between groups of member states have been officially made possible within the EU. At the same time, the EU treaties specify a number of conditions for and procedures to be followed during the establishment of enhanced cooperation. (Enhanced cooperation is a procedure through which a group of EU member states can adopt legislation (or a decision under the CFSP) that only applies to them and not to the other member states). The procedure was used for the first time in the summer of 2010, when the EP and the Council of Ministers allowed 14 member states to move forward with a Regulation on divorce procedures that involve spouses from different member states. 2. The arguments for and against enhanced cooperation: There corporations also remain a controversial issue within the EU. The conditions and procedures for enhanced cooperation that are now laid down in the EU treaties seek to find a balance between the arguments pro and contra. While facilitating cooperation between small groups of member states, they also ensure a role for the European Commission and the EP and they stress the right of each member state to participate in any initiative to arrive at enhanced cooperation. Yet, whatever one’s perspective, member states still have the option to cooperate outside of the EU, either directly with each other or in the framework of other international organisations. The Schengen and Prüm Treaties, for instance, were concluded outside the EU. Rejecting on principled grounds forms of enhanced cooperation within the EU may lead to a rise of such initiatives outside the EU. Some argue that it is necessary: - In order to prevent European integration from slowing down and to allow a degree of flexibility in the type and extent of cooperation between member states. With European integration increasing, it is becoming more and more difficult as there is a greater diversity of ideas, concerns and interests now. As a result, it is increasingly difficult to reach agreement on policies that cover the entire EU. - Enhanced cooperation may act as a laboratory for new policy initiatives that can subsequently be integrated into the EU framework at large, as has been done with the Schengen and Prüm Treaties. If policies can only be adopted by and for the EU as a whole, these types of policy initiatives may well never materialise. Some warn against the negative consequences of a ‘variable geometry’ of European integration: - Enhanced cooperation undermines the solidarity and uniformity characteristic of the EU. This may lead to a ‘first class’ and a ‘second class’ EU, differentiating member states that are in the ‘elite’ of front-runners and member states that lag behind. - Enhanced cooperation may result in a patchwork of policies from which each member state chooses what it likes while opting out from policies that are inconvenient. Yet, many policies are only effective to the extent that they apply to all member states, including those for whom they are not convenient.