This chapter summarizes the volume's major findings and revisits the three perspectives on the European Union: as a system of international relations, as a participant in wider international processes, and as a power in the world. It also considers the usefulness of the three main theoretical approaches in international relations as applied to the EU's external relations: realism, liberalism, and constructivism. Furthermore, it emphasizes three things which it is clear the EU is not, in terms of its international role: it is not a straightforward ‘pole’ in a multipolar system; it is not merely a subordinate subsystem of Western capitalism, and/or a province of an American world empire, as claimed by both the anti-globalization movement and the jihadists; it is not a channel by which political agency is surrendering to the forces of functionalism and globalization. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the EU's positive contributions to international politics.
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This chapter examines the European Union’s (EU’s) policy on agriculture. The importance that the EU has given to the agricultural sector can be attributed in large part to food shortages at the end of the Second World War. Governments agreed that it was important to ensure adequate supplies of food at reasonable prices. To achieve this, it was necessary to provide an adequate income to farmers, while taking measures to increase their productivity. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was the first redistributive policy of the European Community, and for many years the only one. The chapter reviews the history of the CAP and explains the main drivers for reform, which include costs, EU enlargement, environmental pressures, and the growing powers of the European Parliament. Another key driver for change has stemmed from external pressure from world trade talks. The chapter concludes by reviewing the prospects for the next iteration of the CAP from 2021–27.
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Emek M. Uçarer
This chapter examines a European policy, Justice and Home Affairs (JHA), and its transformation into the Area of Freedom, Security, and Justice (AFSJ). The AFSJ, one of the newest additions to the European Union mandate, seeks to engage the EU in the areas of immigration and asylum policy as well as police and judicial cooperation. Cooperation in the AFSJ has evolved into a fully fledged and vibrant EU policy. The chapter first considers the early years of cooperation in the AFSJ and the Schengen Agreement before discussing the procedural steps taken by the Maastricht Treaty (1993), Amsterdam Treaty (1999), and Lisbon Treaty. It then turns to policy output, taking into account the Tampere European Council meeting, the Hague Programme, and the Stockholm Programme. It concludes with an overview of various challenges specific to AFSJ cooperation, with a particular focus on the EU’s post-2014 migration crisis. cooperation
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Michelle Cini and Nieves Pérez-Solórzano Borragán
This chapter examines the so-called ‘Brexit’ phenomenon, the first time an existing EU member state has voted in a referendum to leave the Union. The chapter examines the historical context that shaped the UK’s decision to join the EEC and its subsequent relationship with the EU. It charts the events leading to the EU referendum, including the campaign and explains the reasons for the narrow ‘Leave’ vote in the referendum. The Brexit negotiations under Article 50 are discussed by focusing on process, actors, and outcomes, specifically the content of the March 2018 Draft Withdrawal Agreement. The penultimate section of the chapter explains Brexit by drawing on the extant European integration literature with a focus on the concepts of disintegration, differentiated integration, Europeanization, and politicization, while surveying the likely scenarios for a future EU–UK relationship. The chapter ends discussing the impact and implications of Brexit for the EU.
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Daniel Kenealy, John Peterson, and Richard Corbett
This chapter considers the impact of the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) decision to leave the EU. In June 2016, the UK held a referendum on continuing its EU membership. The UK voted to leave the EU by a narrow margin, but one large enough for its new Prime Minister (after David Cameron, who called the referendum, resigned), Theresa May, to call ‘Brexit’ (the process of Britain exiting the EU) ‘the settled will of the British people’. The result sent shock waves across Europe. This chapter seeks to explain how and why the Brexit vote occurred and what might happen—both to the UK and to the EU—as a result. Possible outcomes of the negotiations on Brexit are considered with a view to assessing their impact on the UK, the EU, and the future of European integration.
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9. The Budget
Who Gets What, When, and How?
Brigid Laffan and Johannes Lindner
This chapter examines the European Union’s budgetary procedures with an eye towards elucidating the characteristics of budgetary politics and policy-making. Where EU money comes from, how it is spent, and the processes by which it is distributed are the subjects of intense political bargaining. Budgets matter politically, because money represents the commitment of resources to the provision of public goods and involves political choices across sectors and regions. The chapter first provides a thumbnail sketch of the EU budget before looking at the major players involved in the budgetary process. It then considers budgetary politics over time, focusing on two phases, one dominated by budgetary battles and other by ordered budgetary decision-making. It also discusses the relevant provisions of the Treaty of Lisbon with respect to budgetary procedures and concludes with an assessment of the budget review and how the EU manages a larger budget.
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9. The Budget
Who Gets What, When, and How?
Brigid Laffan and Johannes Lindner
This chapter examines the European Union’s budgetary procedures with an eye towards elucidating the characteristics of budgetary politics and policy-making. Where EU money comes from, how it is spent, and the processes by which it is distributed are the subjects of intense political bargaining. Budgets matter politically, because money represents the commitment of resources to the provision of public goods and involves political choices across sectors and regions. The chapter first provides a thumbnail sketch of the EU budget before looking at the major players involved in the budgetary process. It then considers budgetary politics over time, focusing on two phases, one dominated by budgetary battles and the other by ordered budgetary decision-making, and shedding light on the EU’s large-scale budgetary response to the Covid-19 pandemic which marks an important step within the evolution of the EU budget. Finally, the chapter also provides an assessment of how the EU manages a larger budget.
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Petia Gueorguieva
The chapter analyses the Bulgarian experience of Europeanization: its achievements, weaknesses, and patterns of convergence with EU norms and rules. The chapter is structured in four parts. First, it offers a brief historical overview of Bulgarian accession to the EU. Secondly, the impact of EU membership on public opinion and political parties is evaluated. The third part presents the impact of EU membership on Bulgarian political institutions and governance. Finally, a brief comparison is offered with the Romanian experience of Europeanization. The underlying argument is that the process of Europeanization has been a slow one.
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This chapter examines the European Union's external environmental policy, with particular emphasis on the challenge faced by the EU in exercising leadership in global environmental governance and in the development of the climate change regime. It first considers the international dimension of the EU environmental policy as well as the issue of sustainable development before discussing the EU's efforts to lead the negotiation of an international climate regime up until the 2015 Paris conference. It then explores how the different energy interests of the member states have been accommodated in order to sustain European credibility. It also looks at the question of climate and energy security in the EU and concludes with an assessment of the factors that determine the success or failure of the EU in climate diplomacy, including those that relate to coordination and competence problems peculiar to the EU as a climate negotiator.
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Jeffrey Vanke
This chapter examines how policy towards the European Economic Community (EEC) fitted in with French leader Charles de Gaulle's broader European and international objectives and how the international constraints on his certain vision of France gave rise to his evolving, uncertain idea of Europe. Having denounced the Treaty of Rome before coming to power in 1958, de Gaulle ensured the EEC's survival by undertaking financial reforms in France and warding off Britain's effort to negotiate a wider free trade area. He linked these initiatives to implementation of the common agricultural policy (CAP). The chapter also considers de Gaulle's proposal for an independent and intergovernmental European Union and his role in the so-called Empty Chair Crisis of 1965–6. Finally, it discusses the impact of de Gaulle on the course of European integration.
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Simona Guerra and Hans-Jörg Trenz
This chapter provides an overview of trends in public opinion toward the European Union. The chapter also discusses the key factors thought to explain differences in mass opinion regarding the EU. These include political economy and rationality; that is, opinions stemming from calculations about the costs and benefits of the EU; perceptions of the national government (domestic proxies); the influence of political elites; political psychology, including cognitive mobilization (attentiveness to politics) and concerns about the loss of national identity; and finally, the role of the mass media in driving opinions regarding the EU.
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10. Cohesion Policy
A New Direction for New Times?
Ian Bache
This chapter examines the European Union’s cohesion policy, aimed primarily at reducing the social and economic differences between EU regions. Academic analysis of cohesion policy has generated insights that have framed wider debates about the nature of the EU as a whole, particularly through the concept of multi-level governance. Moreover, while cohesion policy has taken up a growing share of the EU’s budget, its purpose, effectiveness, and durability have been increasingly challenged. Before analysing these issues, the chapter provides an overview of the emergence of cohesion policy, taking into account the Cohesion Fund and policy reform in the 1990s, 2006, and 2013. It then considers the implementation of cohesion policy and discusses five variants of the modes through which the policy handles day-to-day policy-making: the classical Community method, the regulatory policy mode, the distributional policy mode, policy coordination, and intensive transgovernmentalism.
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10. Cohesion Policy
Doing More with Less
John Bachtler and Carlos Mendez
European Union cohesion policy accounts for a major share of the EU budget and aims to reduce economic, social, and territorial disparities through investment programmes and projects aligned with EU strategic objectives and implemented under a unique model of multi-level governance. This chapter reviews the evolution of cohesion policy over successive reform phases, how the policy is implemented, and the evidence for its effectiveness. It also discusses the different policy modes encompassed in the policy, and it reviews recent political developments relating to politicization, Brexit, the sectoralization of EU spending, and the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic. The chapter concludes that the resourcing, priorities, and governance of cohesion policy for 2021–27 represent a new turning point in the prospects for the policy, following the strategic turns of 2006 and 2013 (Bachtler et al. 2013). While the budget for cohesion policy remains substantial, the policy’s importance is diminishing as a result of greater centralization of political decision-making within the Commission, a fragmentation of the political constituencies for cohesion policy, and the dominance of non-spatial EU policy priorities with centralized delivery mechanisms.
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This chapter examines the normative question of what kind of organization the College of Commissioners, the European Commission’s most political level, should be: a policy entrepreneur, an honest broker, a manager of decisions taken by others, or an engine of integration. It first traces the origins and history of the College of Commissioners before discussing its structure, focusing on the President, the college itself, and the cabinets. It then considers the Commission’s powers and its influence over most ‘history-making’ decisions about the broad sweep of European integration. The chapter also explores the politics underlying the Presidency by looking at the case of two controversial presidents of the Commission, Jacques Santer and Jean-Claude Juncker. It argues that the Commission and most of what it does have always been highly politicized despite its ambitions to be an honest broker between national interests and an independent guardian of the European Union’s Treaties.
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Liesbet Hooghe and Christian Rauh
This chapter examines the functions and organization of the European Commission services, arguing that they are a bureaucracy with unique agenda-setting powers at the heart of the European Union polity. It begins with an overview of the origins and evolution of the Commission services, focusing on the influence of Jean Monnet, first President of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), and how the services were shaped by national bureaucratic models as well as international organization models. The chapter proceeds by discussing the Commission services’ powers, structure, and functioning and what the officials think about the role of the institution with respect to agenda-setting, nationality, and EU governance. It argues that while the Commission bureaucracy has become more circumspect of bold political initiatives, neither its capacity nor its will to play a strong policy role in Europe have been significantly weakened.
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8. The Common Agricultural Policy
The Fortress Challenged
Christilla Roederer-Rynning
This chapter examines the processes that make up the European Union’s common agricultural policy (CAP), with particular emphasis on how the Community method functions in agriculture and how it upheld for decades the walls of fortress CAP. Today’s CAP bears little resemblance to the system of the 1960s, except for comparatively high tariff protection. The controversial device of price support has largely been replaced by direct payments to producers. The chapter first provides an overview of the origins of CAP before discussing two variants of the Community method in agriculture: hegemonic intergovernmentalism and competitive intergovernmentalism. It argues that the challenge for CAP regulators today is not to prevent a hypothetical comeback to the price-support system or generalized market intervention, but to prevent the fragmentation of the single market through a muddled implementation of greening and the consolidation of uneven regimes of support among member states.
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Ève Fouilleux and Matthieu Ansaloni
This chapter examines one of the first European policies, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). It does so by focusing on the policy’s objectives, instruments, actors, and debates. It looks at the way in which the CAP has evolved since the 1960s, and attempts to explain this evolution by asking and answering a number of important questions: why has the CAP been so problematic for European policy-makers? Why has it proven so resistant to change? And, given the constraints identified, how has reform come about? This chapter also looks at some of the challenges facing agricultural policy, as new debates emerge among citizens on the place and the functions performed by agriculture. The chapter grants particular attention to rural development, and environmental, transparency, and equity issues.
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8. The Common Agricultural Policy
The Fortress Challenged
Christilla Roederer-Rynning
This chapter examines the processes that make up the European Union’s common agricultural policy (CAP), with particular emphasis on how the Community method functions in agriculture and how it upheld for decades the walls of fortress CAP. Today’s CAP bears little resemblance to the system of the 1960s, except for comparatively high tariff protection. The controversial device of price support has largely been replaced by direct payments to producers. The chapter first provides an overview of the origins of CAP before discussing two variants of the Community method in agriculture: hegemonic intergovernmentalism and competitive intergovernmentalism. It argues that the challenge for CAP regulators today is not to prevent a hypothetical comeback to the price-support system or generalized market intervention, but to prevent the fragmentation of the single market through a muddled implementation of greening and the consolidation of uneven regimes of support among member states.
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This chapter examines the European Union’s (EU’s) Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). It tells the story of increasing co-operation between member states on foreign policy matters, first with European Political Co-operation (EPC) and, since the 1990s, with CFSP and a Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). The chapter highlights the internal dynamics and external events that drove the member states towards such co-operation and considers the most recent example of such efforts: the 2017 attempt to create a system of permanent structured co-operation (PESCO). However, it is noted that the EU remains far from having a truly supranational foreign policy and there remains a reluctance from member states to push much further integration, given states’ keen desire to remain sovereign in this area. Finally, the chapter considers the EU’s status as a ‘power’ in international relations, noting that it has diminished in important respects since 2003, but remains an important economic power.
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John Peterson and Niklas Helwig
This chapter examines the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The CFSP seeks to combine the political weight of EU member states in the pursuit of common goals. However, European foreign policy must integrate a wide range of other policies to be effective. Likewise, any assessment of the EU’s role in global affairs must consider CFSP as one policy within a broader external relations toolkit. This chapter highlights the CFSP’s relative youth (compared to other EU policies), mixed record, and uncertain future. It first provides an overview of the origins of CFSP institutions before discussing the evolution of the CFSP structures. It then describes the CFSP’s instruments and powerss, the EU’s foreign policy record, and the institutions in context. It also looks at theoretical accounts of the CFSP, including institutionalism.
