No and after: options for Europe

The French and Dutch ‘no’ votes in referendums on the European Union Constitutional Treaty have thrown the EU into turmoil. The messages from both referendums are that public dissatisfaction with European integration is widespread and there is a disjuncture between the views of citizens and those of elites. The original purpose of the process that produced the Constitutional Treaty was to bring the EU closer to its citizens. However, the text that was negotiated was an unwieldy document intended to satisfy diverse requirements but difficult to explain concisely. After the completion of negotiations some governments, for reasons of political expediency, took decisions to hold referendums on the treaty, but the future of The Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe that took three years to complete is now uncertain. Furthermore, member states are divided about whether to press ahead with ratification after the two recent ‘no’ votes. What is the range of alternatives to member states if they wish to salvage the treaty or component parts? Finding a way through this current situation is the task the British government faces as it takes on the EU presidency from 1 July 2005.     

Enhanced European Union–Australia security cooperation through crisis management

ABSTRACT

Since January 2003, the European Union (EU) has launched over 30 civilian and military crisis management missions under the Common Security and Defence Policy. These missions have involved the participation of both EU member states and third states. In order to help facilitate the participation of third states in these missions, the EU established the Framework Partnership Agreements on crisis management, setting out the legal framework for third-state participation. In April 2015, Australia became the seventeenth country to sign such an agreement with the EU. This agreement reflects both the common interest and values shared by Australia and the EU and the extent to which EU–Australia relations have evolved and deepened over the years. In addition, the increased engagement and socialisation of Australian military and civilian personnel with individual EU member states through their participation in such operations as the International Security Assistance Force operation in Afghanistan, led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the Combined Maritime Force have further facilitated opportunities for security cooperation at the EU level. Shared concerns and interests on counterterrorism, counter-piracy, instability and capacity-building have also opened up opportunities for increased cooperation between the EU and Australia. This article assesses the significance of the Framework Partnership Agreements on crisis management for EU–Australia relations within the area of security cooperation, and examines future prospects for cooperation.     

Differentiation as a double‐edged sword: member states’ practices and Brexit

The reform of the eurozone and the concerns surrounding a potential ‘Brexit’ has given rise to a new debate about differentiation but also disintegration in the European Union. This article provides a theoretical and analytical approach to understanding how differentiation is related to the debate on distribution of competences across various levels government. It finds that differentiation has played an important role in the EU integration process since the 1950s, even though the risk of fragmentation has always existed. Facing the benefits and costs of differentiation, the member states have developed their own practices. Three ideosyncratic groups of member states can be identified in this regard: first, a group of Anglo‐Scandinavian member states which refuse centralization of the EU; a Franco‐German group which considers the integration through the promotion of a ‘core Europe’; and, third, a group of central and east European member states who fear that differentiation would set their interests aside and relegate them to second‐class status within the EU. Finally, Brexit is not only about the status of the UK in the EU, but casts deeper questions on how to clarify the nature of relations between the eurozone and the EU as a whole.     

‘Designer’ Europeanization: Lessons from Jean Monnet

The European Council called for a period of reflection in each of the member states of the European Union (EU) after the people of France and the Netherlands rejected the Constitutional Treaty in referendums in 2005. The present article offers a contribution to this process by reflecting on the prospects for institutional design and redesign in the EU, a topic that became even more relevant after the Irish “no” to the Lisbon Treaty in June 2008. The discussions are based on a historical perspective, and the article discusses what lessons can be drawn from Jean Monnet, viewed as an institutional designer on the European stage. The article argues that the successful establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was a product of a robust deontological design in a constitutional moment for Europe, and that prospective designers in the EU can learn important lessons from how Monnet identified and exploited available spaces for institutional design.     

The Euro: Faith Hope and Parity

The inauguration of the euro as the currency of the European Union is the most far‐reaching step so far taken in the long‐term movement for regional political and economic integration. The new money demonstrates that the initial customs union established by the Treaty of Rome has grown to such an extent that member states are willing to surrender control over their national central banks and currencies. Only three members of the EU have refused to join—Britain, Denmark and Sweden. Despite widespread scepticism, the euro so far has been a success. The new currency, while a dramatic innovation, is also congruent with financial dimensions that can be traced through the history of the European Community. The experience of inflation in the 1960s and 1970s was a powerful incentive to establish strong European central banking institutions. The euro is both derivative from and competitor with the US dollar, and American historical experience over the long term as well as foreign policies since the Second World War are germane to analysis. For Britain, remaining outside the euro zone so far has not brought negative consequences and may have been beneficial to the economy. For most member governments of the EU, the opportunity to pool resources through a regional currency understandably has been a persuasive incentive, especially given the enormous growth of private capital markets. The creation of the euro has been facilitated by the shifting nature of money. Currencies have changed from distinctive national components of the highly structured Bretton Woods system to relatively freely traded commodities, and the traditional distinctive characteristics of money have been blurred with the evolution of credit markets, financial instruments and technology. The fundamental test of the euro will occur when member states face differentiated political pressures to inflate economies in order to combat unemployment. To date, the European currency has been the latest confirmation of the insight of Jean Monnet and others to employ economic integration to reduce the likelihood of a resurgence of militarism and war.     

Poland, Germany and the EU

The eastward enlargement of the European Union may well be the biggest challenge in the history of European integration. It is, however, accompanied by profound internal and external crises highlighted by the EU's difficulties in coping with the effects of economic globalization, of which the most obvious are high unemployment and a growing scepticism with regard to integration. This article argues that the solutions to both these challenges are deeply interconnected: while enlargement is a strategic necessity in its own right, it is also the only factor galvanizing EU member states into action for the reforms which are inevitable if the integration project is to be kept afloat.
As the new democracies of central and eastern Europe prepare for EU membership and the EU prepares for enlargement, Poland and Germany can reflect on the past eight years of a historically unprecedented improvement in their relationship. Bringing Poland into the EU (as well as into NATO) has become a key item in the Polish-German 'community of interest'.     

Internationalizing the Spatial Identity of Cross-Border Cooperation

The adoption of Schengen Agreement and acceleration of cross-border region building among European Union (EU) member states have considerably diversified the character of identity policies in European border areas. One important outcome is the formation of different spatial identities for improving the policies of cross-border cooperation. Using the formation of internationalized spatial identity of North European twin cities Haparanda (Sweden) and Tornio (Finland) as study example, this article argues that the promoters of cross-border cooperation still pay little attention to the strategic planning and coordination of identity policies. As a result, the promotion of an international spatial identity of cross-border cooperation remains unbalanced failing adequately to support the aims of cooperation policies. The ineffective integration between cooperation policies and international identity of cooperation complicates the building of competitive and dynamic cross-border regions in the EU peripheral areas as well as responding to challenges of EU's territorial cohesion.     

European Spatial Planning Between Competitiveness and Territorial Cohesion: Shadows of Neo-liberalism

This paper analyses the use of the concept of territorial cohesion in policy documents produced by the European Union. It is an idea celebrated in community documents, such as cohesion reports, the Territorial Agenda of the European Union and the Green Paper on Territorial Cohesion; after more than a decade of political debate, the concept is about to gain a legitimate institutional role, after being included in the Lisbon Treaty, and is among the competences that the EU shares with other member states. At first, territorial cohesion seems to oppose the logics of neo-liberalism by reinscribing welfare problems and policies in spatial terms. However, using the analytical framework of cultural critics, and intending cohesion to be a discourse carried on by a community of European scholars and policymakers, the research will discuss the conceptual relationship between competitiveness and territorial cohesion in European policies and narratives.     

The European Union as an Ethical Community and What This Means for Spatial Planning

The European Union has adopted in its official publications a number of ethical values which can be identified and made explicit: they are values which concern the material content of policies and values of human rights. Although the relationship between those values and practice is not always direct, it can legitimately be expected that the values influence the content of the EU's spatial policy. With the extension of the EU policy to include territorial cohesion, the core values have been given an explicitly spatial dimension. Nor can the member states ignore those values, because formal legislation of the EU works through into the practice of those states: that increases the significance of EU values for the spatial planning of the member states. For those reasons, planners should know what those values are and how they can influence spatial planning.     

Post–Socialist Borderland: Promoting or Challenging the Enlarged European Union?

The formerly socialist East European countries have undergone extensive political and territorial changes since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. This transformation has largely been associated with two simultaneous developments in the post–socialist states: nationalisation and European integration. The concept of post–socialist borderland underlines the scope and effect of post–socialist identity politics in the countries applying for EU membership, and also points at the dramatically changing political map of Europe.
In discussions about the ongoing European integration, stability is expected to emerge through inclusive arrangements. It has generally been thought that political accommodation is not at issue at the future internal or external borders of the EU. However, the European enlargement project faces severe problems as nationalization and European integration represent contradictory tendencies in post–socialist democratisation and European stabilisation.
This article discusses the role that borderlands play in balancing between national and European goals. The evolving European integration is examined from the vantage point of the states applying for membership. Particular attention is paid to the contextual basis of political argumentation, the structural politics of the European Union, and the nationally sensitive elements of the nation–state. The example of the Estonian/Russian borderlands represents a 'post–socialist' condition, within which old loyalties of the past meet contemporary socio–economic and political realities, threats and future expectations. These issues seem to influence considerably the formation of 'common European goals' in the enlarged European Union.     

Beyond the EU/NATO dichotomy: the beginnings of a European strategic culture

The European Union and its member states have moved with considerable speed towards the creation of a European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). Whether what has been achieved so far adds up to a revolution remains a moot point. The Common Foreign and Security Policy of the Maastricht Treaty has not always been noted for its binding character, and too often the debate over security and defence has degenerated into an artificial, zero-sum-type game between Atlanticists and Europeanists. What is required for the success of the ESDP is not simply continued commitment to achieving the Headline Goals set out at Helsinki in 1999, but also the development of what the authors call a 'strategic culture', i.e. an institutional confidence and processes to manage and deploy military force as part of the effective range of legitimate policy instruments of the Union. The authors argue that political commitment at the highest levels has been underpinned by the institutionalization, within the Council Secretariat, of the 'military option' in the form of the Military Committee and a Directorate General for the EU's Military Staff (DGEUMS). Even more importantly, there are already signs, especially through such concepts as 'security sector reform' and 'structural stability', that the EU, through its development and humanitarian programmes, has already recognized the necessity of military solutions.     

Rhetoric from Brussels and reality on the ground: the EU and security in Africa

This article overviews the development of African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) to date and examines EU involvement in this. The European Union is the major financial partner in both military and non‐military assistance to the African Union (AU). Europe has shifted from being a major UN troop contributor towards the funding of African‐led peace operations, as well as the emergence of time‐limited, high‐impact, missions. With the exception of Somalia, these ESDP operations have provided little direct security benefit to Europe and their success has been limited. They have provided experimentation opportunities of ESDP capabilities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad and Guinea Bissau. Events in the eastern Congo in late 2008 demonstrate that the EU needs to consider carefully when it intervenes militarily in Africa: non‐intervention and coordinated bilateral diplomatic efforts by EU member states can be more effective.     

Territorial Impact Assessment of European Draft Directives—The Emergence of a New Policy Assessment Instrument

European Union directives, along with their transposing arrangements in EU member states, can have unanticipated and sometimes undesirable impacts on certain regions and places. These include impacts on the use of space (e.g. new infrastructure or sprawl), governance, and on wider social, economic or environmental dimensions. Although ex-ante assessment of the potential impacts of EU initiatives has been carried out since 2002 through the European Commission's Impact Assessment procedure and also through national equivalents in some member states, important impacts are still overlooked, frequently because of their territorially heterogeneous nature within and between EU member states. This paper presents the results of the ESPON EATIA research project, in which a new territorial impact assessment methodology was developed for national and regional administrations in EU member states in order to inform their national positions during the negotiation of European draft directives and potentially other policy proposals.     

Problem areas in Poland in terms of the objectives of the European Union's regional policy

The present study focuses on problem areas in EU member states and Poland that are identified on the basis of criteria laid down in the assumptions of the EU regional policy. The analysis makes it possible to compare the spatial distributions of the problem areas and to assess the relevance of the statistical criteria employed to delineate them. Also presented is the new model of regional policy to be implemented in Poland in the period of its integration with the European Union.     

The birth of a united Europe: on why the EU has generated a ‘non‐emotional’ identity

ABSTRACT. In several respects, the European Union (EU) represents both a novel system of quasi‐supranational governance and a novel form of political community or polity. But it is also a relatively fragile construction: it remains a community still in the making with an incipient sense of identity, within which powerful forces are at work. This article has three main aims. Firstly, to analyse the reasons and key ideas that prompted a selected elite to construct a set of institutions and treaties destined to unite European nations in such a way that the mere idea of a ‘civil war’ among them would become impossible. Secondly, to examine the specific top‐down processes that led to the emergence of a united Europe and the subsequent emergence of the EU, thus emphasising the constant distance between the elites and the masses in the development of the European project. Finally, to explain why the EU has generated what I call a ‘non‐emotional’ identity, radically different from the emotionally charged and still prevailing national identities present in its member states.     

From Cohesion to Territorial Policy Integration (TPI): Exploring the Governance Challenges in the European Union

The European Union (EU) is searching for new approaches to manage problems that span different policy sectors. In the regional policy field, incompatibilities between the EU's territorial development objectives and its transport, agricultural, competition and environmental policies, are well known. The need to integrate territorial policy concerns into these sectoral policies (territorial policy integration or “TPI”) has recently emerged as a key policy priority. This article examines the EU's capacity to implement TPI. It does so in relation to two member states (Germany and the Netherlands) and the European Commission. It finds that the administrative implications of implementing TPI are far more demanding than any of these actors are currently able to handle. Moreover, some EU-level networks are potentially relevant to TPI, but these are mostly focused on regional policy matters (i.e. they are relatively inward looking). If these administrative issues are not taken more seriously, “integration” will struggle to make headway in an EU which is notoriously sectorized.     

Rhetoric of unity and cultural diversity in the making of European cultural identity

The fundamental aim of the cultural policy of the European Union (EU) is to emphasize the obvious cultural diversity of Europe, while looking for some underlying common elements which unify the various cultures in Europe. Through these common elements, the EU policy produces ‘an imagined cultural community’ of Europe which is ‘united in diversity’, as one of the slogans of the Union states. This discourse characterizes various documents which are essential to the EU cultural policy, such as the Treaty of Lisbon, the European Agenda for Culture and the EU’s decision on the European Capital of Culture program. In addition, the discourse is applied to the production of cultural events in European Capitals of Culture in practice. On all levels of the EU’s cultural policy, the rhetoric of European cultural identity and its ‘unitedness in diversity’ is related with the ideas and practices of fostering common cultural heritage.     

The Politics of European Union Immigration Policy: Institutions, Salience, and Harmonization

This article examines recent attempts to create a common European Union (EU) immigration policy. This "harmonized" policy has faced political blockages, despite being seen by most observers as necessary if the EU is to meet its goal of free movement of labor. Because of this resistance, immigration harmonization has lagged behind other EU policy areas. To explain national resistance to harmonizing immigration policy, our article develops a theoretical and conceptual model of how immigration policy is potentially harmonized at the EU level, but how this harmonization can be blocked or restricted. We explain these political blockages with a model of intergovernmental bargaining that focuses on political salience, political partisanship, and institutions that protect immigrant rights. We argue that these national-level factors have determined the success and the nature of various harmonization proposals, by determining the positions of member states when negotiating in the European Council. Our primary hypothesis is that when the political salience of a given immigration issue is high, any harmonization that results is more likely to be restrictive toward immigrant rights. We also hypothesize that the impact of institutions that protect immigrant rights, and of political partisanship, is variable depending on the issue area and the national context. We use literature on European integration, immigration politics, agenda-setting, venue-shopping, and two-level games to theorize, operationalize, and test these hypotheses. The article helps to advance scholarly work on immigration politics, but our model could also conceivably be applied to other high-salience policy areas in the EU.     

A missed opportunity? New Labour's European policy 1997–2005

When Tony Blair took office in 1997, he was seen as the most pro-European prime minister since Edward Heath and New Labour was seen as committed to the EU. Yet the record on Europe remains mixed. In its first term the government began to play a more constructive role in European integration than its Conservative predecessors had done. Blair agreed to the Treaty of Amsterdam, made the Franco-British St Malo Declaration with President Chirac of France and launched a 'step change' initiative on the UK's relations within the EU, notably predicated on enhanced bilateral relations with other member states. Blair was also deeply committed to the Atlantic alliance, arguing that the UK could be a bridge between the US and Europe. This suggestion was tested to the utmost during the Iraq war, when Atlanticism seemed to prevail. By 2005, Blair was working with a range of colleagues from across the EU, demonstrating his continued commitment. However, New Labour, fearful of the Eurosceptic press and public in the UK, failed to win the voters over to the European cause: after eight years in office, the government has still not held the long-promised referendum on entry into the Euro.