Understand Politics
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The Salonika Summit (2003)
In 2002 the Convention on the Future of Europe was held in Brussels to consider proposals for a new EU constitutional treaty which would define the powers of the EU when its membership was expanded in 2004. A draft of this document was subsequently drawn up by the former president of France, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, and presented to the Salonika Summit.
Giscard d’Estaing’s proposals entailed creating a new office of president to replace the present system whereby this office rotates among member states every six months. The draft proposed that the president would be elected by EU leaders, serve a maximum of two-and-a-half year terms of office and would head the Council of Ministers. The European Commission would be reduced in number, and the European Parliament would acquire added status by obtaining 34 more areas where it had the power of ‘co-decision’ to approve laws. A new post of EU foreign minister would be set up, and the draft constitution also suggested a common defence policy and an EU mutual defence guarantee as currently exists within NATO. The constitution proposed to establish a European public prosecutor to tackle serious cross-border crimes and a common EU asylum policy would be instituted, entailing common definitions of who should qualify for refugee status and agreements to provide similar standards of accommodation and welfare. Enhanced tax harmonization by the abolition of the veto of national governments in taxation areas such as excise duties and corporation tax was also suggested, because of their implications for fundamental matters such as national sovereignty.
The Brussels Summit (2004)
The EU constitution was finally agreed at the Brussels Summit in June 2004, which incorporated changes drawn up at earlier discussions that had taken place at Nice and Salonika. A simplified system of qualified majority voting in the Council of Ministers was proposed, whereby a measure would pass if it had the support of 55 per cent of the member states, representing at least 65 per cent of the EU’s total population. It was also intended that further reducing the size of the European Commission (which would entail countries being represented on a rota basis) would not take place until 2014.
The Constitutional Treaty was designed to provide the EU with a written constitution and the 25 member states were required to ratify it within two years. Some countries did this by holding referenda. In May 2005, French voters rejected the constitution with a ‘no’ vote of 55.6 per cent, and the following month Dutch voters also rejected it. As all 25 countries were required to approve it, the negative results obtained from these two referenda effectively made the constitution a ‘dead duck’. In the UK the referendum planned for 2006 was shelved.
The Lisbon Treaty (2009)
The negative views of a number of member states towards an EU constitution resulted in it being substituted for a treaty. This, the Treaty of Lisbon, came into force at the end of 2009. Unlike the constitution that would have replaced all earlier treaties, the Lisbon Treaty merely amended the earlier Treaties of Rome and Maastricht. However, the 2009 treaty incorporated many of the provisions that had been put forward in the aborted constitution.
Its main provisions provided for the following arrangements:
a president of the European Council who would serve for 2.5 years;
a High Representative who would give the EU more influence on the world stage;
the EU Commission would consist of 27 members (one for each member state);
between 2014 and 2017 a re-distribution of voting weights between member states would be introduced: qualified majority voting would entail a ‘double majority’ based upon support from 55 per cent of the member states, which represented 65 per cent of the total population of the EU;
new powers would be given to the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice affecting justice and home affairs;
the European Parliament would be placed on an equal footing with the Council in connection with most legislation, which included the EU budget and agriculture: this was termed ‘co-decision’;
national vetoes were removed in a number of areas, which included fighting climate change, energy policy, security and emergency aid. Unanimous support remained required for policies affecting taxation, foreign policy, defence and social security.
Although the treaty was designed to make the EU more democratic, efficient and transparent, critics argued that it sought to advance a federalist agenda that would undermine national sovereignty.
THE MAIN INSTITUTIONS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
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Insight
The main decision-making bodies within the EU are the Commission, the Council of Ministers, the European Council and the European Parliament.
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The Commission
The Commission is based in Brussels and currently consists of 25 members appointed by the governments of each member state. Each commissioner serves a four-year term which may be renewable. On appointment, commissioners take an oath not to promote national interests and in this sense the Commision provides the EU with its most obvious supranational dimension.
The commissioners appoint a president who has a five-year term of office. The commissioners are allocated specific responsibilities (termed ‘portfolios’) by the EU president. They are served by a civil service organized into what are termed Directorates General. The Commission performs a number of key tasks connected with its operations. These include:
initiation of policy – This task is performed through the preparation of proposals for the consideration of the Council of Ministers.
implementation of EU policies – Laws passed by the Council of Ministers are passed to the Commission for implementation, which thus serves as the EU’s executive arm. This role often includes enacting delegated or secondary legislation. Much policy is not directly administered through the Commission’s civil service but is discharged by the member states.
financial – The Commission is responsible for preparing draft budget proposals. In 1998 it published the Agenda 2000 proposals which were designed to set the framework of the EU budget for the millennium and beyond.
supervisory functions – This body also serves as a watchdog and may draw the attention of the Court of Justice when EU law is not being implemented.
representing the EU on an international stage – The Commission may present a unified EU-wide voice on key issues in forums such as the World Trade Organization.
The Council of Ministers
The Council is also based in Brussels and is composed of ministers of the member states. It is the EU’s supreme law-making (legislative) body.
When approved by the Council, legislation becomes part of the national law of member states and it is in this sense that membership of the EU results in a loss of sovereignty. Initially, sovereignty was safeguarded by the practice of unanimity, whereby all members of the Council were required to approve a proposal in order for it to be adopted. This effectively gave individual governments the power to veto proposals and thereby preserve national interests. Since the mid-1980s, however, there has been a movement towards taking decisions on the basis of qualified majority voting, which erodes the single-nation veto. The Single European Act, the Maastricht Treaty and the Nice Summit extended the areas which could be determined in this manner and the Treaty of Lisbon provided for a new procedure governing this process.
The European Council
This body has no permanent venue although it is effectively the most senior level of political authority in the EU. It is composed of the heads of government and foreign ministers of the member countries and the president and one vice president of the Commission. Its existence was formally recognized in the Single European Act. Its main purpose is to discuss political issues of overall importance to the EU and in this capacity it has performed a prominent role in the area of foreign affairs. It is not, however, a law-making body, and its decisions would have to be ratified by the Council of Ministers to acquire legal status.
The European Parliament
The
European Parliament meets in Brussels and Strasbourg and consists of representatives who (since 1979) have been directly elected by the citizens of each member country, the number of representatives being determined by population. MEPs serve for a term of five years. For much of its existence the European Parliament was regarded as an advisory body, a ‘talking shop’ which considered proposals put forward by the Commission but which exercised little power over decisions. However, the Single European Act and particularly the Maastricht Treaty sought to provide it with a more vigorous role. Its new responsibilities included the right to reject the EU budget, and to be consulted on the appointment of commissioners and the ability to play a more significant role in the law-making process. In 1998, it rejected the EU budget in protest against accusations of fraud and mismanagement by the Commission, and in 1999 proposed that individual commissioners alleged to be responsible for this situation should resign. The dispute between the EU Parliament and Commission resulted in the collective resignation of the latter in March 1999.
The EU Parliament makes wide use of committees whose role includes considering the content of proposed EU laws. A key deficiency in the parliament’s powers concerns its lack of control over the Council of Ministers, which the co-decision provisions in the 2009 Lisbon Treaty sought to address.
The European Court of Justice
The Court of Justice (not to be confused with the European Court of Human Rights), which sits in Luxembourg, is staffed by judges and advocates drawn from member countries. They serve for six years. The main purpose of the court is to ensure that EU law is adhered to within member countries. Disputes between member states, between the European Union and member states, between individuals and the European Union or between the institutions of the EU are referred to this court. It has the power to declare unlawful any national law which contravenes European law and also has the power to fine companies found to be in breach of such legislation. A number of national courts (including those of France and the United Kingdom) have upheld the view that European law has precedence over national law.
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Question
Select one of the following:
the European Commission
the Council of Ministers
the European Parliament
the European Court of Justice.
Carry out your own research into this EU institution.
You should include issues such as membership, the role it performs, the power it wields and contemporary developments affecting its evolution.
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KEY POLICIES OF THE EU
The EU is responsible for a number of common policies. In this section we will briefly discuss some of the main ones.
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)
This was introduced in 1960 as a key element in the newly formed Common Market in order to preserve the rural environment. It consists of agricultural subsidies paid from the EU budget which are designed to guarantee a minimum price to farmers and also to subsidize the production of specific crops (although current developments seek to transfer these latter subsidies to ones based upon the area of land under cultivation). Minimum prices are ensured by a mechanism whereby if the internal market price of an agricultural product falls below a price that has been set in advance, the EU will buy it, which has the effect of causing its price to rise.
The CAP has been criticized for a number of reasons. These include arguments that subsidies amount to unfair competition, which is especially prejudicial to developing nations, and that it causes food prices throughout the EU to be artificially high. The system is also to the benefit of countries with large agricultural sectors such as France, Spain and Portugal. Enlargement has made the CAP in its present form hard to sustain (Poland, for example, has a very large agricultural sector) and the UK insists that reform of the CAP must accompany any interference with its EU budget rebate that was secured in 1984.
Common Commercial Policy (CCP)
The main aim of the CCP was to establish a common trade policy throughout the EU, effectively creating a customs union between the member states. The CCP covers areas that include the adoption of a common external tariff (which applies to goods entering the EU from non-member countries), the conclusion of trade and tariff agreements with non-member states, and the formation of uniform policies in measures concerned with trade liberalization, export policy and the protection of trade (for example, to combat dumping). The community’s trade policy is determined by the Article 133 committee, which is composed of representatives from each member state.
Economic and monetary union (EMU)
The objective of securing economic and monetary union was put initially forward by France and Germany in 1969. In 1977 a scheme known as the EMS was initiated that sought to produce currency stability in the EU by the introduction of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) and a quasi-currrency known as the ECU (European Currency Unit). The ERM was initiated in 1979.
The Maastricht Treaty included a commitment to establish economic and monetary union by 1999. A three-stage process to harmonize the economic policies of EU member states was adopted to achieve this. Stage 1 entailed the abolition of exchange controls and the entry of all currencies into the ERM. Although the UK had negotiated an opt-out of this policy, the UK entered the ERM in 1990 but left (against the background of currency speculation) in 1992 along with Italy. Other member states continued with stages 2 and 3 in the creation of the EMU by adopting policies that included replacing national currencies with the euro in 2002 and enabling the European Central Bank to set interest rates. The Labour government that was elected in 1997 had a less antagonistic stance towards EMU and stated in its election campaign that it would join provided that this course of action was supported by the cabinet, parliament and in a referendum. The chancellor of the exchequer outlined five economic tests as conditions of Britain’s membership of the EMU. These were the need for sustainable convergence between the UK and the economies of a single currency, the requirement of sufficient flexibility to cope with economic changes, the effect on investment, the impact on UK financial services and the consideration as to whether this move would be good for employment. However, by the time of the 2010 general election the UK remained outside the EMU.
EU–USA relationships
A key issue affecting international relations in the twenty-first century concerns the relationship between America and the EU.
The Cold War ensured that Europe would exert a considerable influence on American foreign policy decisions since it acted as a buffer against communism. This situation meant that Europe could rely on American involvement to deal with problems that arose there. However, the end of the Cold War has meant that Europe is less strategically important to America. New centres of conflict (in particular in the Middle East) have made it important to develop and consolidate alternative alliances (especially with Israel) and it is unlikely that America can be relied upon to respond to European conflicts in the manner in which it did so in the past. Disputes have also surfaced between the EU and the USA on matters such as trade, climate change and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
It has been alleged that Europe and America have increasingly developed alternative views of the world – an opinion summarized by Robert Kagan’s assertion that ‘Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus’. Although this may overstate the dissimilarities existing in the foreign policy stances of the EU and America (for example, the Spanish government offered America the use of military bases on Spanish soil in order to mount retaliation following terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 and a number of EU countries supported the Bush administration’s stance over Iraq in 2003), it does suggest that the EU will not be able to rely so consistently on American aid to respond to problems that occur in Europe as has been the case since 1945.
One acknowledgement of this situation by the EU was the proposal by EU defence ministers in 2000 to create a rapid reaction force of some 60,000 troops. This development is c
ompatible with the view that America will increasingly wish to step aside from policing Europe, but it does pose problems within the EU where it might be regarded as part and parcel of an attempt to create a European superstate. There may also be problems in getting consensus from 25 member nations as to how and when such a force would be deployed.
THE USA–UK ‘SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP’
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Insight
The UK and USA have traditionally enjoyed a close relationship which has been maintained in recent years, especially in connection with the war against terrorism.
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An important underpinning to post-war global foreign policy has been the relationship struck between America and the UK. The desire to sustain this relationship may result in UK leaders endorsing actions undertaken by America which are opposed by many of its European neighbours.
The origins of the term ‘friendly relationship’ date from a speech given by Winston Churchill in Fulton, Missouri, in 1946 in which (in the context of the rise of communism and the descent of the ‘iron curtain’) he referred to the ‘traditional association of the English-speaking people’. The term ‘special relationship’ was used on that occasion to refer to the friendship that existed between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the USA, in particular in the area of military co-operation. It has subsequently been used in connection with the cordial relationships that exist between the USA and UK in a number of areas – political, diplomatic, military, intelligence sharing, cultural and economic – and has been underpinned by the good relationships that have existed between some USA and UK leaders (most notably between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and also between George W. Bush and Tony Blair).