The Ambiguity Of Integration

"European Integration has been an altogether more ambiguous process with more uncertain outcomes than those predicted by the classical paradigms. Discuss.

I will shortly examine the main features of the classical paradigms, i.e. their prescription for the integration process and their predictions for the final outcome. These should be compared with the actual process, the current state of the European Union and opportunities for the future development.

What are the classical paradigms? There exist numerous theories which can be named as classical and to simplify I will examine the main categories federalism, functionalism (in its neo-functionalist variant for European Integration) and Intergovernmentalism.

1. The classical approaches and their descriptions for the process of European integration

1.1 The Federalist approach

Federalism is a way of forming a political union from formerly separate states. Within this union power is shared between central and regional authorities. Main examples for federations are the USA and Switzerland. In terms of political theory, federalism is concerned with the process of achieving a political union.

For the federalists, the nation state is no longer effective and desirable as a political organisation in the 20 th century, as the world wars demonstrated. But the federal Europe as demanded by several kinds of federalists after 1945 never came to happen, neither the one Spinelli wanted nor that one Churchill suggested. Nation states were re-established all over Europe. Also a second attempt, the European Defence Community, failed support and was not implemented.

The main reason was the lack of vital need for a political European union in the 1950s. The creation of federalist bodies happened in most cases in history as formation of an alliance against a common enemy (as it was the Hapsburg dynasty for the communities in the middle Alps or the British government for the 13 colonies). Since the NATO guaranteed Western Europe's security the federalist way to integration was not a realistic alternative in real politics.

The development to the European Union of today was completely different from what classical federalists imagined. They ignored two main powers: Firstly, the strength of the nation state and the resistance of the national idea and secondly, the huge power of economic interests and their importance for politics.

1.2 The Functionalist approach

The second weakness of Federalism was the starting point for the functionalist approach to European integration, or rather its neo-functionalist variant. In its beginning it seemed to be a reasonable approach. The process of European integration started in a small area of common economic interest (coal and steel) and there was also a kind of spillover to new fields for pooled sovereignty (nuclear energy, common market).

But afterwards, the next gradual spillover to new areas of common activity was not to be seen for a long period and - the more important contradiction to the theory - the process was never lead by European interest groups and elites. It was surely supported by them, but the initiation to move to more integration came in most cases from national politicians. The national governments had always the biggest influence on the integration process and after the Luxembourg compromise it was clearly to be seen that they remained as the strongest actors, even stronger than the supranational body of the Commission. Neo-Functionalists overestimated the role of elites and technocrats and, like federalists, underestimated national interests.

1.3 The Intergovernmentalist approach

The complementary approach to the supranational theories of federalism and fuctionalism, which both believe in a federal supranational organisation of Europe as the final stage of integration, was the intergovernmentalist theory.

Integration was seen as co-operation in a variety of purposes but without an abolishment or heavy weakening of the power of nation states. It was developed because of the experiences with de Gaulle's strongly nationalist behaviour in European affairs and the impacts, mainly the Luxembourg agreement, which introduced a right to veto for national governments to secure their "vital national interests". This agreement was interpreted as an evidence for the dominance of national interests over common interests and the European community as only an international organisation to support their member's interests.

The approach was quite satisfactory in the 1970s and early 1980s, but the newer developments cannot be described as intergovernmental without question marks, e.g. the theory can not explain, why national governments have reason to create an European citizenship (and allow foreign people to vote in local elections on this basis) or why do they accept a supreme court setting rules in large and important areas of jurisdiction. The integration process affects national sovereignty in such a large variety of political areas, that the European Union cannot be described as a simple intergovernmental agreement to co- operate.

Finally, we can say like Scharpf¹:

"In short, the history of the EC has not confirmed the hopes of `Europeanist' politicians and `neo-fuctionalist' theorists alike ... culminating in the creation of a full-fledged federal state; but the European enterprise has proven much more resilient than the `realist' school of international relations and the political and scholarly promoters of an `Europe des patries' would have predicted."

2. Current state and future outcome of the integration process

2.1 The European Union today - supranational body or intergovernmental organisation?

Can the European Union in 1998 described by one of the classical approaches? Is it now, after Maastricht and Amsterdam, a federation?

It has central institutions, which are essential for a federal state, e.g. the directly elected parliament or the common supreme court. It has also a kind of constitution (the framework of treaties). There is a common citizenship, free movement of people. The pooled sovereignty has reached a high level, reflected by the national constitutions, which accept the supremacy of the European institutions (German basic law Art. 23, Italian constitution Art. 11). This whole framework of institutions, treaties and acts could be seen like a political union which could be named federation, but in reality there are a lot of constraints to such a hypothesis.

Firstly, the main decisions of European policy are not made by the Commission or the European Parliament or maybe as joint-decisions with regional parliaments and authorities (like in a real federal state) but only by the national governments (mainly by the Council of ministers). They negotiate the essential topics and make the main decisions for the future development.

You might see the co-decision process of the Council of ministers and the EP (since Maastricht) as a joint-decision making in the European legislation by a central body (as the normally more important one in federations) and regional bodies, but the use is restricted to some areas and the national ministers have the final decision. Furthermore there is less importance to absolute majority ruling, a small minority of national governments can still rule out the majority. So is it rather intergovernmental co-operation on a very high level? As already mentioned, it is surely more than that. There are some common institutions with a stronger power than ever expected by intergovernmentalist theories, especially the European Court of Justice has reached such a power, that it might be right to talk about a supranational jurisdiction.

2.2. Direction of the process

The classical approaches were quite sure about the final outcome of the integration process. On the one hand, the federalist and functionalist theory saw the federal state (or the "United States of Europe") as the final stage and they predicted a straightforward movement to that aim. On the other hand the intergovernmentalists reflected no direction towards a federal state but only to more co-operating nation states, whose powers were not deteriorated. As we examine the real situation, there is no clear direction of the process towards a federation (or backwards to separate nation states), often there exist different directions in the development of European institutions in the same time. For instance, like Scharpf notes, "jurisdiction has expanded but the price has been an ever closer national control ... in the decision", or, in the same time European jurisdiction moved towards a strong federal one with supremacy for the European court, the decision making process was ever stronger influenced by national governments.

But surely, the process has reached a stage where the European project is more than just intergovernmental co-operation. All members of the EU are strongly linked by e.g. economical interdependence, free movement of people, European jurisdiction and soon by a common currency.

Another development can be described with term subsidiarity. It has risen from dissatisfaction with European politics and has increased with the larger amount of decisions on the European level. So it is not unlikely, that there will be in some political areas a movement opposite to a strongly centralised federation. Because it seems to be not reasonable to decide everything on the European level, the politics have to decide which amount of power should be given to any level: the European, the national, the regional and the local.

As it can be seen, many outcomes of the European integration are possible and the speed and the directions of the development are ambiguous in the different areas of politics. There have been existed movements towards federation (especially in jurisdiction), inter-governmental decision, centralising (e.g. in competition policy) and decentralising tendencies (like the strengthening of regions in the UK or in Spain) at the same time and sometimes the development changes the direction (like the weakening of the Commission by the Luxembourg agreement).

Conclusion

Neither a federalist or a functionalist, nor an intergovernmentalist description is the right one for the whole body of the European Union. It may be described like Williams did, as "a strange hybrid, its decision making intergovernmental, its normative law supranational"², i.e. with a mainly intergovernmental legislative (after Maastricht with little more influence for the EP), a supranational jurisdiction.

As the process of integration and the current constitution of the European Union could not be described by only one classical approach on its own, also the final (or could there ever be a final?) stage of the European project is not clear. Even the most important protagonists, the political leaders, could not specify the unclear prospect. The objective of the Treaties of Rome in 1957 ("lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe"³ ), was never more clarified and nearly the same term occurs again in the Maastricht Treaty ("continue the process of creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe"⁴ ) in 1992. So the final desired state has not became clearer over 35 years. It remained unclear what kind of organisation the EU will become, how close the union among the peoples of Europe shall be, even if we remember the uneven way of European integration and the strong national reservations which are often claimed in some countries of the EU. The uncertainty will surely not decrease with the enlargement of the union by the former communist states with many new problems (e.g. low wealth compared to the current members, relations to Russia) and strong nationalism. In the history of European integration there were always new events (sometimes unexpected) that changed the speed and the direction, like de Gaulle's policy which led to the veto right and rejected neo-functionalism, or the decline of the EMS which led to the new attempt of EMU with a higher interdependence of national economies and an uncertain success. There were also long but steadily transitions like the increased power of European jurisdiction. Even the further impacts of the strengthened powers of the European Parliament are unknown. Maybe it will get a higher influence on European policy or maybe these new rights have no real affect.

The outcomes are still unknown even the best theoretical approach on European integration can fail due to new developments.

Bibliography

M O'Neill "The Politics of European Integration" (1995)

S Williams "Sovereignty and accountability in the EC" in "Political Quarterly", July - September 1990

F Scharpf "The joint decision trap: lessons from German federalism and European Integration" in "Public Administration", Vol. 66 (1988)

S Bulmer "Domestics Politics and EC policy making" in "Journal of Common Market Studies" (JCMS), Vol.21, 1983

S Bulmer "The European Council's first decade: between interdependence and domestic politics" in JCMS, Vol.24, 1985

I Barnes, R Barnes "The enlarged European Union" (1995)

C Webb "Theoretical perspectives and problems" in H Wallace et al, "Policy Making in the EC" (1997)

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¹ F. Scharpf "The joint decision trap: lessons from German federalism and European Integration" in Public Administration, Vol. 66 (1988)

² S. Williams "Sovereignty and accountability in the EC" in Political Quarterly, July - September 1990

³ Treaty establishing the European Community, Preamble (1957)

⁴ Treaty on European Union, Preamble (1992)