Coordinated European governance: Self organising or centrally steered?

A key question troubling the managers of the European Union (EU) is how can Europe be kept manageable? De-regulation, decentralisation and enlargement are increasing the heterogeneity of the EU and putting the present governance model under pressure. In its 2001 White Paper, the Commission showed that it interprets governance to mean less central control and more network-led steering. Drawing upon an empirical study of environmental policy integration (EPI) in the EU, this article shows that this vision may not adequately fit the multi-actor, multi-level characteristics of some EU problems. By studying the administrative capacities that the European Commission and three member states (Germany, the Netherlands and the UK) have created to discharge this responsibility, this article shows significant administrative weaknesses at actor and at network level. Effective European networks - and hence governance - require considerably more central steering than the White Paper suggests

Coordinating European Union environmental policy: Shifting from passive to active coordination

Environmental policy provides one of the oldest and most puzzling cases of policy coordination in the European Union (EU). The integration (or mainstreaming) of environmental objectives into non environmental policies such as agriculture, energy and transport, has a long history and commands high level political support among heads of state. However, the implementation of environmental policy integration (EPI) has not yet matched these ambitions. One of the main problems is that EPI has been seen as a macro problem of drafting sweeping statements and writing long term integration strategies. The need to embed EPI in micro policy processes i.e. the bottom-up formulation and implementation of EU policies in administrative settings has, however, mostly been ignored. This paper analyses the administrative coordination mechanisms at the micro-level within the Commission, the Netherlands and UK governments to gauge how fit they are to deliver on the EUs broader EPI objective. Using different theories of coordination, this paper concludes that all three have relied too heavily on setting long term coordination targets, without putting in place the administrative coordination (i.e. delivery) mechanisms. This paper concludes that the EUs macro approach (dubbed the Cardiff process) cannot perform effectively without the support of implementing actions at the micro level. At the same time, activities at the micro level need the political commitment expressed at the macro level. Moreover, environmental information needs to be transferred within and between the actors in a much more active manner so that environmental impacts can be designed out of policy proposals early on in the policy process. The conclusion of this study is that, in the face of greater interdependence between policies and the concomitant demand for greater policy coordination, passive coordination has had its day. But for many different reasons, the actors have not yet come to grips with what is required to implement active coordination

From Subsidiarity to Better EU Governance: A Practical Reform Agenda for the EU. CEPS Essay No. 10, 8 April 2014

On 23 January 2014, a group of 73 member states’ officials and representatives from the European institutions and academia gathered at Clingendael Park in The Hague for a day-long seminar co-organised by the Netherlands Institute of International Relations and CEPS for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. The seminar’s aim was to discuss whether subsidiarity can offer a way forward that reconciles the need for better EU governance with concerns about legitimacy. This paper is based on subsidiarity literature, on preparatory talks with officials from member states and EU institutions and on the discussions in the seminar in The Hague. In particular, the paper explores the political and practical relevance of some of the ideas currently being considered to solidify the principle of subsidiarity in day-to-day decision-making. It maps the current political contours of subsidiarity as they appear in speeches and policy papers and presents some of the main ideas in the current debate on deepening subsidiarity

The 2017 elections across Europe: facts, expectations and consequences. European democracy: baptism by vote or by fire? EPC Discussion Paper, 14 March 2017

In the upcoming weeks and months national elections will be held in four founding member states of the EU: the Netherlands, France, Germany and Italy. With radical, anti-establishment forces on the (far) left or (far) right side of the political spectrum riding the gusty populist headwinds across Europe (and beyond), many fear that the results will mirror earlier electoral upheavals such as Brexit and the election of Trump, raising the stakes of the votes for each national context, as well as for the EU as a whole. This Discussion Paper takes a closer look at the upcoming elections in all four countries, presenting the domestic political dynamics at play, assessing various possible governing coalitions in the aftermath of the vote and considering the potential implications of the different likely outcomes for national policymaking and European affairs. Although populists have a public mood of discontent on their side, mainstream politicians might be able to buy themselves some time, not least because Europeans seem currently hesitant about voting anti-establishment parties into office and risk adding to the geo-political and economic uncertainties prompted by the new US administration and the UK’s decision to leave the Union. However, without foresight and a persuasive narrative on why European integration continues to be a ‘win-win’ exercise for the member states and their citizens, mainstream politicians are also recklessly flirting with potential disaster looming in the future

Organisational learning in the EU’s multilevel governance system

The EU’s governance reform does not match the expectations of its promoters; the ‘new’ instruments seem to under-perform. One explanation, explored here, is that governance has been discussed without much attention for capacities at the operational level. Analyses are needed of how instruments are used and designed within the EU’s multilevel administrative system. To move from governance to capacities, three interrelated levels of learning are distinguished to examine whether changes in governance are supported by developments in organisational capacities: ‘governance learning’, ‘instrument learning’ and ‘organisational learning’. One hypothesis is that these need to develop simultaneously. The second hypothesis is that, in the EU's multilevel administration, learning along these dimensions has to take place in parallel at EU and national levels. This article analyses the capacities which the Commission and the Netherlands have created to support the better regulation agenda. It concludes a match between the three levels of learning in the Commission but a mismatch between learning in the Commission and the Netherlands. This multilevel mismatch may help to explain the lack of success of the EU’s better regulation agenda

The Presidency as Juggler: Managing Conflicting Expectations

[From the Introduction]. Every six months the office of the presidency changes from one member state to another. This means that there are always three or four countries gearing themselves up for this prestigious position. The EU presidency is, however, a nebulous function so that this preparation has to be done carefully and has to be based on a profound understanding of the roles of the presidency....This paper discusses the roles of the presidency and what these roles mean in terms of capacities for managing EU affairs at national level. The arguments expounded here are, first of all, that preparation for presidency requires, in addition to the training seminars which member states already organize, an analysis of the capacities of administrations to combine substantive interests with generalist perspectives (defended by, for instance, Foreign Affairs ministries)....Section 2 sketches the specific position the chair has acquired during the European integration process and discusses the inherent conflict between neutrality, leadership and self-interests. Knowing the tasks of the presidency, the subsequent section can raise questions concerning the elements that determine effectiveness. The conflicting expectations, however, impose a need to look specifically at the management implications (Section 4). This section also makes a few remarks on the discussion about changing the presidency. Section 5 draws some conclusions and elaborates two interrelated lines of research

Euroscepticism finds fertile ground in the Dutch Parliament. EPIN Commentary No. 7, 26 July 2011

Once regarded as a cornerstone of the European project, the Netherlands now figures as one of its severest critics. This commentary by Adriaan Schout argues that one reason for this reversal in position is that the Dutch Parliament has been skirting European problems. He laments that debates about the EU have come too late and been conducted with insufficient depth, leaving the public with feelings of uncertainty, for example about whether their taxes are being wasted on Greece and on an ineffective EU budget. Such uncertainties create a fertile breeding ground for discontent

The Presidency in the EU of 25

Working methods in the Council of the EU are under pressure to change in the context of enlargement. New guidelines concerning the preparation and conduct of meetings have been annexed to the Council Rules of Procedure. The next few Presidencies will be important in determining how these new methods will evolve in practice. This article discusses ongoing developments concerning the way that Council business is managed, incorporating insights gained in the framework of the large-scale programme organised together with the Clingendael Institute in the framework of the Dutch Presidency preparations in the first half of 2004

The Next Phase in the Europeanisation of National Ministries: Preparing EU Dialogues

[Summary]. Now that national officials are generally familiarised with EU policy, the next challenge in the Europeanisation of national administrations is to better align national policy initiatives with EU policy developments. New national policies have to be placed in an EU context to prevent re-fragmentation of the internal market and to share experience in policy innovations at EU level. Raising policy innovations to EU level (‘uploading’) requires engaging in EU dialogues to involve colleagues from other Member States and the Commission in the elaboration of policy and discussions on outcomes. Practice shows, for example in countries preparing for the Presidency, that such dialogues are often insufficiently prepared and that the work and resources involved are easily underestimated. As such, too many and premature ideas are being raised by different countries, and one-off workshops are added to the already overloaded EU policy agenda. Therefore, a better selection of viable innovations and a better preparation of EU dialogues are needed. This paper presents a framework for national officials to come to systematically prepared strategies for initiating discussions at EU level about policy innovations

Views on the Commission’s Draft EU Budget: Excessively ambitious or overly timid? EPIN Working Paper No. 32, January 2012

The Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for the post-2013 period is one of the most sensitive topics presently under discussion in the European Union. Budget negotiations are always complex and divisive for the parties concerned, but an additional factor in the current round is the impact of the euro crisis, which is evident throughout the process. The reactions to the European Commission’s proposal are mixed, with some finding it excessively ambitious and others finding it lacking in reform. This paper analyses the Commission proposal on the MFF and its reception by the member states. It argues that the Commission has put forward a well balanced proposal, which leaves enough room for reform. In the end, however, the outcome of the negotiations will strongly depend on the member states