The Importance of Being Nice: An Institutionalist Analysis of French Preferences on the Future of Europe

This article offers an institutionalist explanation of French preferences on the future of Europe from the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 through the Constitutional Treaty of 2004. It argues that the autonomous institutional logic of the constitution-drafting exercise increasingly shaped the evolution of French preferences. More specifically, the French Government’s preferences reflected its acceptance of the European Union’s new method of debate at the Convention, the contingency of a revived alliance with Germany in that debate, and the legacy of a half century of European integration. Beneath the surface, this autonomous institutionalist logic offset French leaders’ aspirations to maximize national power interests, to improve decision-making efficiency, and to achieve their ideal visions of Europe. Domestic politics also played a relatively unimportant role because the French constitution enabled the president to discount domestic coalition-building considerations. Altogether, this argument suggests that state preferences cannot be understood in isolation from the international and domestic institutional environment in which they are formed.France; European Convention; Constitution for Europe; institutionalism

La France face à la Constitution européenne : un héritage mal assumé

Lors de son allocution du 14 juillet 2004, le président Jacques Chirac avait annoncé la tenue d’un référendum sur une constitution européenne qualifiée par lui de « conforme aux intérêts de la France » et « conforme aux intérêts de l’Europe » 1. Le 3 mai 2005, il précisait également que la Constitution était « fille de 1789 » et que la France n’avait « fait aucune concession sur ce qui lui paraissait essentiel » 2. Le président de la République n’était pas seul à établir ce diagnostic. Lors de la campagne de mai 2005, les partisans du « oui » au référendum n’ont cessé de mettre en avant le rôle important joué par les acteurs français dans le processus constitutionnel, notamment au sein de la Convention présidée par Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. Ainsi la Constitution a-t-elle été souvent présentée comme reflétant une réorientation de l’Union dans le sens souhaité par la France, davantage « politique » et moins exclusivement « économique ». Il reste maintenant à se demander pourquoi ce message simple et percutant n’a pas convaincu les 55 % d’électeurs qui ont rejeté la constitution (...).This article sheds light on the institutional factors weighing in how French preferences were determined as regards the future of Europe. The French government was obliged to take into account the reformulation of the debate at the Convention and the European Institutional legacy. This institutional rationale took precedence over the French leaders’ ambitions for national power, considerations with regard to the effectiveness of the decisionmaking process and there vision of Europe. It later crippled the debate over the referendum, for responsibility for it was never assumed in positive terms

Comment la France définit ses intérêts dans l'Union européenne

Cet article avance une lecture institutionnaliste des positions françaises dans le débat sur l’avenir de l’Europe depuis le traité de Maastricht de 1992 jusqu’au traité constitutionnel de 2004. Selon cette lecture, le déterminant le plus important des préférences exprimées par la France a été la logique interne de l’exercice constitutionnel. En particulier, l’article met en lumière des phénomènes typiquement institutionnels de formatage du débat et de dépendance au sentier. Cette logique institutionnelle a été prépondérante par rapport aux ambitions de puissance nationale, aux considérations sur l’efficacité du processus de décision et à la vision de l’Europe des dirigeants français. De même, les considérations de politique intérieure ont joué un rôle relativement secondaire puisque la Constitution française autorisait le président à s’en affranchir.This article offers an institutionalist explanation of French positions on the future of Europe from the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 through the Constitutional Treaty of 2004. It argues that the single most important determinant of French preferences was the unfolding institutional logic of the constitution-drafting exercise itself. More specifically, it highlights certain typically institutional phenomena, like the formatting of debates and the occurrence of path dependency. The resulting institutional logic of French preference formation prevailed over ambitions of national power, considerations of decision-making efficiency, and political leaders’ visions of Europe. Domestic politics also played a relatively minor role because the French constitution freed the president from the necessity of domestic coalition-building

The EMU Stability and Growth Pact: Is it dead? If so, does it matter?

IN DECEMBER 2004, the new Barroso Commission brought the saga of the French and German infringements of the Stability and Growth Pact to a close by lifting the "excessive deficit" procedure launched in 2003. That same month, the Commission launched infringement proceedings against Greece that has been providing inaccurate public deficit statistics since the creation of the Pact in 1997. The new head of the Commission also declared that there would be no major overhaul of the Pact. In the November 2003 crisis, when the Council suspended the implementation of the Pact at a time France and Germany overshot its deficit ceiling, most observers called the Pact dead and many rejoiced since the Stability and Growth Pact had come under heavy criticism for some time. A year after, we asked four leading scholars that have studied monetary integration: have news of the death of the Stability and Growth pact been grossly exaggerated? Should it be resuscitated? Why or why not? Amy Verdun and Nicolas Jabko argue that the Pact will survive for lack of an alternative able to gather the support of a large bipartisan cross-national coalition. Henrik Enderlein then argues that the pact should not be fixed but broken. Finally, Andrew Martin explains why the real problem does not so much lie with the Pact per se, but instead with the philosophy behind the EMU policy mix (restrictive fiscal and monetary policies). It creates vicious circles: By keeping economic growth too low the European central bank retarded the expansion of public revenue, making it more difficult to meet the Pact requirements

Monnaie et politique en Europe

Cet article analyse les raisons de la difficile réforme du Pacte de stabilité et de croissance lors du sommet européen de mars 2005. Le débat sur le Pacte a fait renaître une tension latente entre deux ensembles de motivations opposées qui ont conduit à la création de l’euro au cours des années 1980 et 1990. De ce point de vue, la réforme de 2005 est une solution dilatoire, qui laisse le jeu politique assez largement ouvert.This article examines the reasons for the difficult reform of the EU Stability and Growth Pact in March 2005. The debate on the Pact resuscitated a latent tension between two opposite sets of motivations that had led to the creation of the euro in the 1980s and 1990s. From this perspective, the reform of 2005 is a dilatory solution that leaves the political game fairly open

Une Europe politique par le marché et par la monnaie

Les deux grands projets de la construction européenne depuis les années quatre-vingt (marché unique et union monétaire) sont apparus comme exclusivement économiques, et nourris par un événement fondamental de la période : la résurgence du marché comme principe d'organisation de l'économie. D'où le sentiment répandu d'un défaut de politique, d'une Europe "sans âme". En réalité, les promoteurs de l'Europe ont su jouer, pour répondre à des attentes très diverses, de plusieurs logiques du marché (le marché comme réalité substantielle, comme idéal normatif, comme espace de développement et comme horizon politique), dont seule la première est à peu près purement "économique". La construction européenne est décidément un processus politique, et en ce sens une "Europe politique" existe déjà. Toutefois c'est seulement rétrospectivement qu'apparaît une rationalité d'ensemble dans cette trajectoire, et les leçons qu'on peut en tirer pour l'avenir n'ont rien d'automatique.[A political Europe via the currency and the market] The two major projects undertaken in the building of Europe since the nineteen-eighties (the single market and the single currency) would appear to be exclusively economic, drawing sustenance from a fundamental event of that period: the reappearance of the market as organizing principle of the economy. Hence the widespread feeling of a political deficit, or a "soulless" Europe. In fact, to meet a broad range of demands, promoters of Europe have deployed a wide variety of market rationales (the market as substantive reality, as normative ideal, as forum for development and as political horizon), of which only the first is practically purely "economic". European construction is decidedly a political process, and in this sense a "political Europe" already exists. However, the overall consistency of the process can only be seen in retrospect, and the lessons that can be drawn from it for the future are in no way immediately obvious

The politics of IMF–EU cooperation : institutional change from the Maastricht Treaty to the launch of the Euro

How do regional changes affect the process of global governance? This article addresses this question by examining how the International Monetary Fund (IMF) responded to the challenges presented by Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) between the signing of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 and the launch of the euro in 1999. Based on primary research from the IMF archives, the article illustrates how the IMF's efforts to reconfigure its relationship with European institutions evolved gradually through a logic of incremental change, despite initial opposition from member states. The article concludes that bureaucratic actors within international organizations will take advantage of informal avenues for promoting a new agenda when this fits with shared conceptions of an organization's mandate. The exercise of informal influence by advocates for change within an international organization can limit the options available to states in formal decision-making processes, even when these options cut across state preferences

Delivering reform in English healthcare: an ideational perspective

A variety of perspectives has been put forward to understand reform across healthcare systems. Recently, some have called for these perspectives to give greater recognition to the role of ideational processes. The purpose of this article is to present an ideational approach to understanding the delivery of healthcare reform. It draws on a case of English healthcare reform – the Next Stage Review led by Lord Darzi – to show how the delivery of its reform proposals was associated with four ideational frames. These frames built on the idea of “progress” in responding to existing problems; the idea of “prevailing policy” in forming part of a bricolage of ideas within institutional contexts; the idea of “prescription” as top-down structural change at odds with local contexts; and the idea of “professional disputes” in challenging the notion of clinical engagement across professional groups. The article discusses the implications of these ideas in furthering our understanding of policy change, conflict and continuity across healthcare settings

Banking union in historical perspective: the initiative of the European Commission in the 1960s-1970s

This article shows that planning for the organization of EU banking regulation and supervision did not just appear on the agenda in recent years with discussions over the creation of the eurozone banking union. It unveils a hitherto neglected initiative of the European Commission in the 1960s and early 1970s. Drawing on extensive archival work, this article explains that this initiative, however, rested on a number of different assumptions, and emerged in a much different context. It first explains that the Commission's initial project was not crisis-driven; that it articulated the link between monetary integration and banking regulation; and finally that it did not set out to move the supervisory framework to the supranational level, unlike present-day developments