Constructing Europe: the Role of Symbolic Policies

Sonia Lucarelli

Constructing Europe: the Role of Symbolic Policies

1997, Politics

Abstract

What are the reasons for cooperation among member states in the European Un-ion (EU)? In what way can such cooperation be achieved in the post-Cold War European environment? Which theoretical approaches best contribute to explain-ing these processes? These are some ...

There has been considerable debate surrounding the nature of the European Union's international capacity. Early conceptions of the Union as a civilian or non-military actordominated early thinking, characterising the Union as a new kind of international actor. 1. Others 2 , meanwhile argued that this simply sought to make a virtue of weakness and that if the Union were ever to be taken seriously, then it would have to develop a full-spectrum military capacity. That debate, in a somewhat different form, continues today. The 'civilian power' thesis 3 has evolved to one in which the Union continues to be posited as a new kind of international actor, but now as one which is somehow uniquely capable or uniquely configured as effective exporter of norms and values in the international system 4. Others insist that only as the Union develops its nascent military capacity can it begin to shoulder real international responsibilities. 5 Within this second debate exist more polemical positions on the adverse, or other, consequences of the 'militarization' of the Union's international profile and transatlantic arguments surrounding a division of labour between the US and EU in delivering 'hard' and 'soft' security capacity. This paper will outline and critically engage these debates. It will conclude that while the Union remains a distinctive international actor, the trajectory of its development may suggest the pursuit of an 'enlightened power' model. 2 Community made no mention of foreign or security policy. Nonetheless, the Communities were international actors by virtue of their very existence: their international treaty base and their interaction with other global actors and institutions. Furthermore, there was an underlying political assumption that the process of European integration was one that was inherently political and which aspired to the creation of a truly political European community of states. Thus, it was to be expected that shared interests would gradually and increasingly be assigned to a supranational authority which, over time, would further extend its policy reach. 6 Moreover, within this neo-functionalist perspective, it was presumed that such a process would not be limited to domestic welfare issues of trade and production, but that it would also spillover from this area of "low politics" into the "high politics" of international relations and foreign policy. For these theorists, the move from a Common Commercial Policy to a Common Defence Policy was both desirable and inevitable. Throughout the early period of the EC"s development, there was an implicit acceptance that the Community was already engaged in international politics. Certainly, trade could not be divorced from politics. This was illustrated by the association of former French overseas territories to the emerging European market, to the negotiation of bilateral trade agreements and to the EC"s participation in multilateral trade talks. Gradually, the EC Member States were drawnas a groupfurther into explicitly political issues with attention being given to EC relations with South Africa 7 and the Middle East 8 , with the EC"s reaction to the 1982 Falklands/Malvinas crisis 9 and to the EC"s contribution to the Helsinki process. 10 In each case the use of trade and other economic tools were linkedand sometimes explicitlywith political goals such as the end of Apartheid, a peaceful resolution of the Middle East conflict, or support for Détente.

This paper aims to review the "state of the art" for examining EU-member state relations. It recognises first of all that EU-member state relationships are interactive. Member states are key actors in making EU policy, and their role in this process is central to policy-making studies. However, European integration has an important impact upon the member states: the phenomenon that has come to be termed Europeanization. We review the literatures concerned with these two directions of flow: the analytical issues raised and the theoretical perspectives deployed. We then turn to the empirical literature on EU-member state relationships, and how it operationalises the theoretical literatures (if at all). This empirical literature tends to be organised in two ways: individual or comparative studies of member states' relationships with the EU; or studies of the impact of the EU on types of political actor/institution or on policy areas/sectors. We review both these literatures. On the basis of the identified strengths and weaknesses in the different literatures examined, we suggest a research agenda for future theoretical and empirical work. Résumé Cette étude est une revue critique de la littérature portant sur la relation entre l'Union européenne et ses Etats membres. Elle part du constat que ces relations sont interactives. Les Etats membres restent des acteurs incontournables de l'élaboration des politiques publiques dans l'Union européenne et leur rôle apparaît donc essentiel dans l'analyse du policy-making. Cependant, l'intégration européenne a aussi un important impact sur les Etats membres eux-mêmes : le phénomène est souvent décrit à l'aide du terme "européanisation". L'étude fait une recension détaillée de ces influences mutuelles, des problèmes analytiques qu'elle soulève et des perspectives théoriques qu'elle permet de déployer. Elle examine ensuite la littérature empirique qui s'est intéressée à la relation entre l'Union européenne et les Etats membres, et sur la manière dont cette relation est rendue opérationnelle par la littérature théorique. Cette dernière comprend en effet deux dimensions : des études monographiques et comparatives sur les relations entre les Etats membres et l'Union européenne ; des études sur l'impact de l'Union européenne sur certains acteurs et institutions nationales, ou sur certaines politiques ou secteurs d'activités économiques. Sur la base de cet examen critique, nous suggérons enfin un agenda de recherche permettant de progresser au double plan de l'analyse théorique et empirique. 1 The material included in this paper will be used in the introduction and the conclusion of a forthcoming book: Simon Bulmer and Christian Lequesne (eds), The Member states of the European Union, Oxford, Oxford University Press, European Series. Comments and criticism are welcomed.

CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by Heidelberger Dokumentenserver 4.4 Conclusion: the dialectical dynamic cooperative and competitive 12 relationship of the cell´s whole and parts, basic strategy guiding intracellular and extracellular interactions, functional role: achieving and sustaining vitality 5. General conclusion on the whole and the parts in philosophy, 13 philosophy of economics and natural science/biology: According to the modern functionalist approach the parts do not constitute the whole as an end in itself. The whole and the parts: both subject to achieve common objectives, bound by the rationalism´s principle of effectiveness III. The European Union-complex network of dynamic interactions of the whole and the parts 1. The European Union, Member States and the Treaty establishing a 14 Constitution for Europe 2. The identity issue of the European Union: key-opener to the pending issue of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe and to the constitutional quality essentials 3. The nation-state and the European Union are shaped by basic constituent 18 elements : Constitutional law and sovereignty of the nation-state, as well Founding Treaties on European Union and European Community having constitutional quality 4. Democratic accountability increases legitimacy 5. The repercussions of European integration on national policymaking and the 19 repercussions of national policymaking on European integration 6. The concept of the European Union under the Treaty establishing the European Union: the dynamic process character of implementing common Treaty objectives by the Member States´collectivity of jointly exercising common powers 7. Integration: the mode of cooperation between the Member States to achieve 19 common objectives through implementing explicitly and implicitly attributed powers to create an own autonomous legal order 8. The legal order of the European Community: gradually developed, playing a 19 dynamic functional role of promoting and safeguarding the dynamic political evolutive character of the European Community 4 9. The dynamic political evolutive character of the European Community 20 marked by the founding Treaty on EC having constitutional quality. 10. EC jurisdiction further emanating from a joint national sovereignty 20 consent to the use, within the Council, of implied Treaty powers 11. Developing the dynamic and evolutive European Community, shaping 20 the exercise of national sovereignty through cooperative and competitive European integration and cooperation 12. The dialectic interdependence between national Member State level 21 and the level of jointly exercised sovereignty: the core identity shaping feature of the EC 13. Maintaining the decisiveness and efficiency of decision-making of the EU institutions in the enlarged Union: requiring alternative, flexible forms of cooperation between the Union´s Member States within the Union´s Treaty institutional system without undermining the cohesion of the Union. 14. Unanimity among still sovereign Member States of the European Union in matters of Foreign and Security Policy does not hamper the Union to be a decisive external actor. With special reference made to the case of Poland and the Czech Republik concerning the US offer to install a US led anti-missile shield in both EU Member States 15. The decisiveness of the European Union´s Common Foreign and Security 24 Policy faces the expectation gap between the Union´s legal constitution and living constitution 16. Starting and waging the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq without 24 consulting within the Union´s Council before undertaking action severely affected the Union´s interests to assert its values on the international scene. Prospects of the European Union to contribute to influence the further policy making in international security politics 17. Ensuring the efficient running of the cooperative interconnection relationship of the EU and the Member States : the functional role of the European Union´s concept of a positively joint multi-level exercise of sovereignty-thus marking the core essential of the collective EU identity 18. The national gateway to democratic European Union Governance: the national 27 Constitutions´ clauses allowing the conferring of national legislative powers on the EU 19. The identity and legitimacy issue: Increasing the European Union´s democratic quality should accept the proposal made by the Treaty establishing a Constitution:improving the information of national Parliaments on planned European Community legislation

These are momentous times in Europe. The Euro has been successfully introduced, the enlargement negotiations are approaching their climax, and the European Convention ("Convention") is moving towards the drafting of a constitution for a new, continent-wide political entity. At the same time, unrest is manifest, particularly in two areas. On the one hand, many of our citizens, and not just the political elites, are dissatisfied with Europe's performance on the world stage and are concerned about the maintenance of peace and security within the Union. In these areas they would like to see a strengthened, more effective entity-"more Europe." On the other hand, their disenchantment with the long reach of European Union ("EU" or "Union") regulation in the first pillar area of economic policy is growing. The feeling of loss of local control over their destiny and a vague feeling of potential loss of identity within an ever more centralized polity is palpable. Here, they want "less Europe." In the outside world, change is also the order of the day. The ice-sheet of bipolarity, which overlaid and hid the complexity of international relations during the Cold War, is breaking up at an ever-increasing speed and revealing a world in which two paradigms are competing to become the underlying ordering principles for the new century. The traditional paradigm of interacting Nation States, each pursuing its own separate interests, with alliances allowing the small to compete with the large, is alive and well, and its proponents like Machiavelli or Churchill continue to be in vogue in the literature of international relations and the rhetoric of world leaders. At the same time, there is a school of thought which points to the growing economic and ecological interdependence of our societies and the necessity for new forms of global governance to complement national action. It is also becoming abundantly clear that the concept of a "Nation State" is often a fiction, positing as it does an identity between the citizens of a State and the members of a culturally homogenous society. For both reasons, the concept of the Nation State as the principal actor on the world stage, is called into question. The experience of the Union with the sharing of State sovereignty is clearly related to the second paradigm and also to the EU's firm support for the development of the United Nations ("U.N.") as well as other elements of multilateral governance. It would hardly be wise to suggest that any foreign policy, and certainly not that of the EU, should be based only on this paradigm. Given the recurrent threats to security, which seem to be part of the human condition expressed by some as the "inevitability of war"-the defense of territorial integrity; action against threats of aggression; and resistance to crimes against humanity such as genocide-the ability to conduct a security policy based much more on the old paradigm of interacting interests will continue to be required. That the EU needs to develop such a capability will be taken here as a given. Such a crisis-management capability will be essential to the Union, but will be distinguished here from the more long-term elements of foreign policy, which can be thought of as being designed to reduce the need for crisis management in the context of a security policy to a minimum. The crisis-management area of policy will not be treated further here. The thesis of this Essay is that the same set of political concepts can serve as a guide to the future internal development of the EU and as the basis of such a long-term foreign policy. Furthermore, it suggests that neither should be seen in terms of the balancing of interests but rather, as the expression of a small list of fundamental values. The list is as follows: (1) the rule of law as the basis for relations between members of society; (2) the interaction between the democratic process and entrenched human rights in political decision-making; (3) the operation of competition within a market economy as the source of increasing prosperity; (4) the anchoring of the principle of solidarity among all members of society alongside that of the liberty of the individual; (5) the adoption of the principle of sustainability of all economic development; and (6) the preservation of separate identities and the maintenance of cultural diversity within society. These values can be seen as the answer to the question posed both, by citizens of the Union and by our fellow citizens of the world: "What does the EU stand for?" In exploring these values we should, however, remember that in the real world there will be occasions on which Realpolitik will intrude and the interest-based paradigm will prevail.

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