Structural,Domestic, and Strategic Interests in the European Union: Negotiation Positions in the Council of Ministers

Preferences are a crucial element for analyzing decision making and negotiations, but knowledge about which factors determine these preferences is sparse. Some quantitative and qualitative studies of European Union (EU) negotiations have assumed that the negotiation conflict dimensions in intergovernmental negotiations reflect market‐versus‐regulation approaches as well as a north–south dimension. In this study, I demonstrate that these findings can be extended to show that the relevant determining factors for negotiation positions are economic structural variables and the degree to which a country benefits from the EU. Furthermore, the domestic interests of EU governments better explain a government's interest in some specific issues, such as consumer protection or fishery policies, than do their partisan preferences. Moreover, I am able to show that in frequent negotiations, such as EU Council of Ministers negotiations, sincere preferences dominate; however, some factors, such as extreme salience, can increase the likelihood that a minister will choose a less sincere strategic position such as an extreme position.     

Stimulating Simulations: Making the European Union a Classroom Reality

This article examines the organization and development of the Mid-Atlantic European Union Simulation Consortium (MEUSC), with special emphasis on linking theory to practice within its simulation program. The MEUSC program, initiated in 1993, brings fifteen colleges and universities to Washington, D.C., each December for an intercollegiate experiential learning exercise on the European Union. During the simulation, students meet with professional diplomats from both the United States and Europe, and they engage in consensus-building activities that mirror the decision-making processes of the EU Commission, Parliament, Council of Ministers, and the European Council. As a result, participants are able to refine and enhance a range of academic and practical skills that are keys for success in today's political and business worlds. The authors of this article make special use of a survey that was undertaken to gauge the impact of the simulation on its participants and, thus, its success as an educational venture.     

Supranational or Intergovernmental?—the Present Situation and Future Prospects for European Integration

Supranationalism and Intergovernmentalism are two methods of decision-making for multi-state institutions, and ever since the founding of the European Economic Community （now the European Union） a debate has raged about which of these paths it should follow. This essay will be divided into two parts： the first is about how the EU is perceived on the international stage - is it seen as an intergovernmental organization or a supranational entity？ The second focuses on the factors influencing the level of European integration, examines the present state of European integration, and predicts the likely development of this integration in the future.     

The Paradox of Weakness in European Trade Policy: Contestation and Resilience in CETA and TTIP Negotiations

Over the last decade, trade negotiations with Canada and the United States met with considerable resistance from non-governmental organisations (NGO). Moreover, the negotiation mandates given to the European Commission were so broad as to include topics falling under so-called mixed competence of the EU and the member states, necessitating not only ratification by the EU Council of Ministers and the European Parliament, but also member states’ parliaments. At some point, these two factors almost seemed to paralyze the EU as a trade negotiator. In the end, however, the EU concluded an agreement with Canada, renegotiated its agreement with Mexico (while also concluding agreements with Singapore and Japan amongst others), while negotiations with the US were suspended. Three factors can account for this puzzling combination of apparent incapacity and blockage and surprising resilience of EU trade policymaking. First, the NGO contestation campaigns did not muster pan‐European but rather only varying degrees of support. Second, in addition to scrutiny by the European Parliament, consensus decision-making in the Council fosters accommodation of the demands of all member states. This leads to a low degree of negotiating autonomy on the part of the European Commission, yet large bargaining power for the European Union, as long as the other side wants agreement. Finally, a recent ruling by the Court of the EU facilitated the decoupling of agreements on portfolio investment and investment arbitration (one of the most difficult hurdles), from all other matters of trade and regulatory cooperation, making it easier to reach agreement.     

Issue linkage across international organizations: Does European countries’ temporary membership in the UN Security Council increase their receipts from the EU budget?

What explains the outcome of interstate negotiations in international organizations (IOs)? While existing research highlights member states’ power, preference intensity, and the IO’s institutional design, this paper introduces an additional source of bargaining power in IOs: Through issue linkage members of an IO leverage privileged positions in other IOs to obtain more favorable bargaining outcomes. Specifically, European Union members are more successful in bargaining over the EU budget while they hold a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Inside the UNSC EU members can promote security interests of other European countries, and they can use their influence to secure side-payments from the EU budget. The study tests this argument by investigating new EU budget data, and it shows that EU members obtain 1.7 billion Euro in additional net receipts during a two-year UNSC term, on average. Thus, bargaining processes in the EU and the UN are intricately linked.     

Assessing the High Representative’s Role in Egypt during the Arab Spring

The 2009 Lisbon Treaty institutionalised an intergovernmental constitution for managing policies traditionally a matter of national sovereignty, such as foreign and defence policies. However, important innovations were introduced in the foreign policymaking structure to limit its intergovernmental logic, in particular, with regard to the role of the High Representative (HR). It was generally assumed that those innovations would have made development of a coherent EU foreign policy possible. Yet, in one of the most significant tests for the EU’s foreign and defence policies in the post-Lisbon era, namely the Egyptian crisis (2011-14), those reforms did not work as expected. Notwithstanding the innovations, the HR’s role was diminished by the European Council’s strict control over foreign policy toward Egypt. The lack of clear policy guidelines towards the issue of democratisation in the Arab world in the 2003 European Security Strategy, although partially mitigated by the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Barcelona Process/Union for the Mediterranean, made it even more difficult for the HR to bring a European perspective into the largely intergovernmental setting.     

Civil security in the EU: national persistence versus EU ambitions?

Noting that European Union (EU) institutions are increasingly engaged in civil protection in the member states, security governance is used as an analytical framework to assess the depth of EU engagement in delivering civil security. It is shown that a state-centric approach is no longer adequate to understand the provision of civil security across Europe. To varying degrees, the EU has acquired responsibilities to facilitate, coordinate, manage, and regulate civil security, whether before or after a civil crisis occurs. The analysis demonstrates that, whilst intergovernmental practices and inter-state cooperation remain salient features of civil security, the responsibilities undertaken by the EU institutions across the entire policy spectrum are more substantial than a strictly intergovernmental perspective would suggest.     

Public commitment strategies in intergovernmental negotiations on the EU Constitutional Treaty

We analyze the impact of public commitment strategies as bargaining tools in the negotiations on the EU Constitutional Treaty using a sequential-bargaining model with incomplete information. The analysis suggests selection bias in observable public commitments with respect to the kind of issues that are publicly challenged as well as the kind of governments that will ‘go public’. Public commitments are more likely under high uncertainty over audience costs. Further, the effect of public commitments on the duration and outcome of negotiation is conditional as well. In our empirical analysis, where we analyze the intergovernmental stage of the negotiations on the European Constitutional Treaty, we find strong empirical support for each of our theoretical predictions. Governments were most likely to commit publicly if they represented a domestic constituency that was negative about the EU Constitution and, at the same time, contained many undecided respondents. Moreover, these public commitments were generally quickly accommodated. In contrast, public commitments were less likely to lead to any changes if they were made by governments representing a domestic constituency that was relatively positive about the draft Constitution or negative and decided. In the latter case, however, public statements made bargaining deadlock more likely.

Small states in multilateral negotiations. What have we learned?

There are many small states in the international system, which have considerably fewer capacities than their bigger counterpart. The study of multilateral negotiations in the European Union (EU), conferences taking place under the umbrella of the United Nations (UN), negotiations on the set up of an International Criminal Court (ICC), as well as the compliance bargaining in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) reveals that small states can sometimes be very influential—despite their size. Small states tend to be most likely to punch above their weight if the negotiations take place in an institutionalised arena with majority-based decision-making rules in which each state has one vote or in contexts in which decisions are made unanimously, if they are selective in negotiations and concentrate their capacities on the most important issues, engage in capacity-building activities to maximise their ideational resources, if they make use of institutional opportunity structures such as chairing meetings and engaging in agenda-setting, and if they individually or collectively apply persuasion strategies from early on.     

China’s direct investment in the European Union: a new regulatory challenge?

While China is fast becoming an important outward direct investor, its companies are showing an increasing interest to locate in Europe and the European Union (EU). It has been suggested that this can partly be explained by the more lenient attitude of the European countries compared to the US, where some acquisitions were abandoned when they ran into political opposition based on security concerns. Yet, also in Europe, the media follow rather closely each new Chinese entry, and certain politicians have started to criticise the take-over of technology-oriented companies, especially by Chinese state-owned firms. Against the background of a very open foreign direct investment (FDI) policy as measured by OECD FDI Restrictiveness Index for the EU and the individual countries, an overview is given of the pre- and post-establishment obstacles to direct foreign investment. Also, the EU policy measures that directly or indirectly deal with incoming direct investment are discussed. Within the context of the EU competition policy and the merger regulation, the EU Commission has cleared five cases of take-over by Chinese state-owned enterprises. Although the Lisbon Treaty authorises the EU Commission to take charge of investment policy as part of the EU commercial policy, it will take time to realise this. If the announced negotiations about an investment treaty between China and the EU could work out the necessary balance, it would be an important step in achieving more reciprocity between their respective investment regimes.     

The Rotating Council Presidency and the New Intergovernmentalism

The Lisbon Treaty fundamentally changed the presidency regime of the European Union at the expense of one of the oldest and most central institutions of European integration: the rotating presidency. The chair positions of the European Council, the Foreign Affairs Council and the Eurogroup have been decoupled from the rotating presidency. Understanding the reduced role of the rotating presidency requires attention for the changing dynamics of EU policymaking, especially for the new intergovernmentalism which implies decision-making outside the classic community method and for the rise of the European Council to the status of a lead institution.     

Flexible modes of governance: Making CFSP and ESDP work

The European Union and the United States are on the verge of agreeing to a transatlantic free trade agreement. The proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is aimed at boosting EU and US economic growth, but the negotiating partners have not excluded the defence sector from negotiations. Europe is at a tipping point regarding the rationale for its defence-industrial integration efforts. Any TTIP extending to the defence sector will raise questions about the nature of the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base, and, crucially, how it impacts the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the Common Security and Defence Policy.     

Being European by Joining Europe: Accession and identity politics in Lithuania

Desire to belong to 'Europe', expressed primarily through the integration into the European Union, has been the dominant theme in the Lithuanian political discourse after the end of the Cold War. Remarkably, despite the perceived threat to sovereignty and further exposure to Western culture, Lithuanians have remained largely positive about the project. This article aims to explore the national identity constructions vis-a ¤ -vis Europe in this newly independent country where European integration has been largely perceived to anchor the processes of transformation. First, I analyse how European integration has been accommodated into the dominant version of national identity. Secondly, I look at the emerging conceptualisations of the EU and its future in the Lithuanian debate. Finally, I consider the debates about costs the integration process, particularly in relation to Ignalina nuclear plant and Kaliningrad oblast. This article concludes with a look at the future of the debate.     

EU Counterterrorism and the European Neighbourhood Policy: An Appraisal of the Southern Dimension

Terrorists trained on European soil, but originating from the Middle East, attacked the world's only superpower on September 11, 2001. Countering this terrorist threat has become an increasingly significant part of European Foreign Policy. At the same time, the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) has become an increasingly important dimension of European Foreign Policy. This article examines the extent to which counterterrorism has occupied a prominent place in the ENP, with a particular focus on the Southern Mediterranean ENP partners. The findings of this article suggest that, despite the commonly held view in the literature that security issues, in particular terrorism, have dominated the ENP agenda, counterterrorism cooperation between the European Union (EU) and its Southern Mediterranean ENP partners has not advanced as much as might have been expected.     

EU Social policies: Challenges and opportunities for Italy

The European Council's 2008 ‘Immigration Pact’ has been touted by its main protagonist, the French government, as a turning point in EU migration policymaking. In one respect at least, the French are not exaggerating. The Pact represents a challenge to a key assumption underpinning European integration, namely that communitarised policymaking procedures are the best means of achieving truly common policies: Paris presented the intergovernmental Pact as a means of succeeding where communitarised decision-making has failed – in achieving the goal of a coherent common migration policy. However, analysis shows the French claims to be largely unfounded: although the European Council might theoretically have played a useful role here, in practice its efforts will add little to the achievement of a truly common policy.     

How European integration is perceived in Asia

From modern Asian academicians point of view European integration is multidisciplinary phenomenon. It is considered as such simply because those educators view the phenomenon from various perspectives e.g. trade and business, economics, security, law, politics, social and other relevant issues. Even though focal points of interest among Asian educators are diverse in nature but they can, perhaps, be categorised into following groups: The first group pertains to economics interest, particularly for those who wish to explain and analyze the effect of economic integration within and outside the EU. Equally interested are those who are active in the subject of world economy such as global trade and commerce. They view the EU as world economic major player similar to USA, Japan and newly emerging economy such as China–more or less as competitors between each other. The second group has a political motivation and views the EU as the most successful modern political integration. Particularly those academicians who wish to learn from the process of political integration, e.g. regionalism and enlargement of the EU. Pertaining to this group are international relations people, who, in some cases, shifted their focus to the EU as a result of the initiatives of the institutions of the European Union itself. They are also interested in the true understanding and relations among the EUs member and non-member countries. Other international relations concern such as the extent to which security and defense are becoming issues in the EU falls within this group as well. The last and perhaps the largest group views the EU social order through the method of comparative analysis among civilized societies. Comparative studies of the EU social structure and its development with other societies may bring solutions to various social problems. This group hopes to discover the strengths and weaknesses of the societal aspect of integration and hope that experiences gained through comparative analyses such as comparative law, comparative government and its welfare system, political economy of regional integration, the true effect of the acquis communautaire, etc. would contribute to new knowledge.     

Parliamentary assertion and deep integration: the European parliament in the CETA and TTIP negotiations1

Abstract

Scholars have long viewed parliamentarians as parochial actors having little interest, or incentive to engage, in international diplomacy. Yet, parliaments have recently taken on a very active role in various international negotiations. This article explores the role of the European Parliament (EP) in the European Union (EU)–Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and the EU–United States Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations. Drawing on classic institutionalist insights, it develops the concept of parliamentary assertion and explores its usefulness through a combination of comparative and process-tracing analyses. The conclusions are threefold: (1) the EP has asserted its power in international trade matters beyond the simple power of consent; (2) the EP’s search for legitimacy in the EU polity is driving this phenomenon; and (3) this phenomenon is significant beyond the current CETA and TTIP negotiations.     

Bureaucratic Authority and Mimesis: The Eurasian Economic Union’s Multiple Integration Logics

Regional economic integration in the post-Soviet space stands in a complex relation with the European Union’s integration process. Multiple competing internal logics of integration, as well as the EU model are drivers of Eurasian regionalism. The Eurasian Economic Union illustrates how bureaucracies mobilise their technocratic authority in a process of mimesis that reconciles multiple internal and external integration logics: selective learning from the EU and successful incorporation of internal integration logics produce an organisational design and output that member states support to varying extents.     

Europe under occupation: the European diplomatic community of practice in the Jerusalem area

ABSTRACT

This article shows how the existence of a community of European practitioners in the Jerusalem area gives substance to the European stance on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The often-stated European Union (EU) support for a two-state solution could appear meaningless in the absence of peace negotiations. However, European diplomats (i.e. diplomats of EU member states and EU officials) in the East Jerusalem–Ramallah area are committed to specific practices of political resistance to Israeli occupation and recognition of Palestinian institutions. These practices have led not only to a specific political geography of diplomacy, but also to a community of practice, composed of European diplomats and based on their daily experience of resisting occupation and bestowing recognition. It is this group of officials who represent and actively “do” Europe’s position and under occupation.