European Union

							European Union
 Politics and policy
The Department of Political Science
           Presents

    Parties, Policy Styles and the
     Politics of Climate Change:
 Does the number of parties matter?

             Dr. Steven Wolinetz
      Department of Political Science, MUN

            Friday March 28, 2008
                    SN2033
                    3:30pm
              Key institutions:
   European Commission
    • College of Commissioners
    • Bureaucracy
   Council of Ministers (intergovernmental)
    • With its own staff & bureaucracy
   European Parliament
   European Court of Justice
   European Council (Intergovernmental)
            Policy processes
Multiple modes:
 „Normal‟
    • Commission proposes
    • Council of Ministers & European
      Parliament approve through cooperation
      or co-decision procedure
   Intergovernmental
    • Initiatives from European Council or
      Council of Ministers
                Policy areas
   Trade
   Competition policy & industrial policy
   Managing the EURO
   Foreign policy
   Environment
   Justice and Home Affairs
   Others…
    • Where common action desirable & deem
      acceptable
                   Policy-making
   Segmented and differentiated
    • Different policy areas handled in Councils of
      Ministers with different composition – e.g.
      finance ministers, economics ministers,
      agriculture ministers
    • Some policy areas sometimes operate under
      distinct rules, sometimes with different
      complements of countries involved
          Foreign and Security Policy
          EURO
          Schengen – common border
     Foreign and security policy
   Designation of high representative:
    • Overlaps with Commission
   Unanimity important –
    intergovernmental
   Effectively multi-speed
                 Euro-zone
   Not everyone is in:
    • Britain, Denmark and Sweden are not
   Stability and Growth Pact imposes
    Maastricht debt and deficit rules on
    Eurozone countries
   Governed through European Central Bank
    (Bundesbank writ large?)
   New member-states required to join when
    ready
   Crimps member-states freedom of action
                 Schengen
   Pact on common borders
    • Britain and Ireland out
    • Norway included
   Enforces need for joint action in
    Justice and Home Affairs – raises
    questions about who is controlling
    what border
            Changes over time
   Less Community Method or Monnet
    method:
    • Commission retains right of initiative but has
      lost prestige : Now tries to “do less better”
   Rivaled and upstaged by
    • European Council: plays both agenda-setting
      and problem-resolving role
    • Council of Ministers with rival bureaucracy
   Emergence of new ways of doing things:
    • Open method of coordination, benchmarking
       The Constitutional Treaty:
   Process launched in 2001
   Constitutional Convention chaired by Giscard
    D‟Estaing (former French President)
   Draft Constitution
    • Restructures Commission,
    • rebalancing qualified majority voting
    • Builds in role for national parliaments, including
      subsidiarity mechanisms
    • Rationalizes treaties
   But..
    • Ratified by 18 of 25 member-states
    • Stalls in 2005 when France & Netherlands reject in
      referenda
     Consequences: what next?
   The Treaty
    • Debacle?   Classic case of overreach?
   Regrouping at Berlin European
    Council (2007)
    • Lisbon Treaty builds in institutional
      reforms & guarantees for skeptics
    • But reluctance to submit it to referenda
      in Britain, France, Netherlands