Negotiating under cross-pressure? Framing and conflicting policy frames in the EU multi-level system.

Negotiating under cross-pressure? Framing and conflicting policy frames in the EU multi-level system. Frida Boräng, University of Gothenburg Daniel Naurin, University of Gothenburg A classic question in European integration research concerns the role of national vs. supranational factors for forming member states preferences and positions. This paper approaches this question in a new way; namely by looking at how member state representatives are affected by cross-pressure from different supranational and national policy frames. The permanent representatives (PermReps) in Brussels constitute the core of the EU:s negotiation machine. In addition, they are national actors embedded in the supranational context, and therefore exposed to both national and supranational policy frames. According to theory about socialization, the PermReps could be expected to become more and more EU-oriented in their view on policies, following social interactions at the EU level. Policy frames for twenty salient policy issues, and for the EU level as well as the national level in five member states, were derived from interviews with officials from the Commission, and through qualitative text analysis. Next, phone interviews with PermReps were conducted in which the respondents were asked to evaluate the frames found at different levels, in order to assess to what extent the PermReps are captured by the Brussels environment to adopt frames that are different from those at the domestic level. The results show that the extent to which respondents prefer EU level frames to national frames differ between the five member states. Contrary to the strong socialization hypothesis, there is however no evidence that PermReps become increasingly EUoriented as their experience with working at the EU level increases. Paper prepared for the 7th ECPR General Conference, September 4 7, 2013, Bordeaux Draft please do not quote 1

Introduction A classic question in European integration research concerns the role of national vs. supranational factors for forming member states preferences and positions. The permanent representatives (PermReps) in Brussels constitute the core of the EU:s negotiation machine. In addition, they are national actors embedded in the supranational context, and therefore expected to be exposed to cross-pressure through both national and supranational influences. This paper approaches this classic question in a new way, by studying a specific kind of crosspressure; namely the exposure of permanent representatives to conflicting policy frames. The purpose is to analyse the effect of varying national and supranational frames and framing activities on these key decision makers. Is it so that not only specific opinions, but the larger issue of what is at stake in a particular proposal differ between the national and supranational levels? And if so, which frames that is, frames on which level tend to guide the permanent representatives? Does it differ between member states? Is the choice of frames dependent on the degree of social interaction at the European level, in line with the socialization hypothesis? Through interviews and document studies, we first investigate which frames are present at the EU level and the national level respectively, for twenty policy issues and five member states Germany, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden and the United Kingdom. This information is contrasted to interviews with the government representatives in Brussels who were responsible for negotiating the 20 proposals in the Council of the EU, from the five selected member states. In the next section, previous research on socialization theory and the suggested cross-pressure on permanent representatives is presented. After that follows a discussion of framing theory and on how it could inform research on socialization and cross-pressure. Thereafter follows a discussion on the method used. The empirical analysis takes issue with the socialization hypothesis, attempting to capture the extent to which the officials from the permanent representations agree with frames at the national level or the EU level respectively and how this can be explained. 2

Socialization within the permanent representation The permanent representatives (PermReps) in Brussels constitute the core of the EU:s negotiation machine. Formally, these civil servants shall represent the positions of their member states governments in the Council of the EU, the main decision-making institution in the EU system. Negotiations take place in higher (including the ambassadors committee Coreper) and lower level committees and working groups within the Council, preparing the minsters meetings on which the formal decisions are taken. About 90 percent of the issues are in practice decided by the PermReps, only the most politically contentious are left for the ministers (Hagemann 2008). The PermReps have for long been of particular interest to scholars studying socialization and its impact on policy making in the European Union. Socialization in this context is a constructivist idea that refers to the process in which social interactions affect actors behavioral practices, norms, perceptions of reality, and preferences about outcomes (Beyers 2005; Lewis 1998; 2005). It is therefore not surprising that officials in the permanent representations national bureaucrats that are active in the Council working groups (CWG) and thus constantly exposed to the Brussels environment while still being representatives for their countries are of particular interest to socialization scholars. Lewis (1998) has suggested that the Coreper exists in an interface between the national and the Community level in which the permanent representatives constantly have to manage the tension between the Community and national levels, and later he argues that Coreper constitutes a key laboratory to test whether and how national officials become socialized into a Brussels-based collective culture and what difference this makes for EU negotiations (Lewis 2005: 937). Although a starting point for many studies is that socialization occurs, it can be questioned to what extent, under which conditions, and through which mechanisms this occur (Checkel 2005). For example; Checkel (2005) suggests that there is a striking variation in socialization outcomes across Europe, highlighting the need to engage in comparative research. Furthermore, Beyers (2005) suggests that in contrast to the socialization hypothesis, extensive exposure to the European level does is not necessarily what leads to supranational role playing; national factors can be equally or more important. 3

As mentioned, the socialization hypothesis states that social interactions affect a wide range of factors: actors behavioral practices, norms, perceptions of reality, as well as their preferences about outcomes. Consequently, there are several ways to measure whether socialization is taking place, depending on the specific research interest. Some scholars take the sustained compliance with the norms favored by the larger community as an indicator of socialization (Schimmelfennig 2005). Scholars focusing on cognitive role playing instead point at the adoption of new roles, roles that are consistent with the norms in the groups in which the individual acts (Beyers 2005). Finally, some scholars study what could be considered a deeper form of socialization, namely the adoption of new values and interests that are consistent with those of the larger group (Lewis 2005; Checkel 2005). One aspect of socialization that has not been studied before concerns that of individuals adopting new policy frames as consequence of social interactions. That is, does social interaction lead individuals to see policy issues in a new way, with new frames guiding their perception of the policy issue? The socialization argument states that among other things, exposure to a certain environment will affect not only behavioural practices and norms about appropriateness, but also perceptions of reality. For that aspect of socialization, policy framing should be of outmost importance, since it defines what aspects of reality are highlighted, at the expense of other aspects of reality. It has been argued that framing will be of particular importance within the context of policy making in the European Union, since vertical and horizontal fragmentation offer many access points for agenda-setters (Daviter 2007). According to Falk Daviter, Issues are regularly taken up and processed simultaneously but independently on various levels of EU decisionmaking. Different policy styles between the Union s constituent member states and between the Commission s administrative units further guarantee that multiple definitions of policy issues are in circulation (Daviter 2007: 655). PermReps national actors embedded in the supranational context will be exposed to these multiple definitions of policy issues, which is a strong argument for introducing framing theory in socialization studies. Framing Framing theory suggests that since every policy issue has multiple potential dimensions, framing selecting and emphasising particular aspects of an issue is an important tool for 4

policy actors (Daviter 2009; Baumgartner & Mahoney 2008; Entman 1993). For the individual, frames can be thought of as schemata of interpretation which help people organize what they perceive (Goffman 1974). According to Entman (1993) frames highlight some bits of information about an item that is the subject of communication, thereby elevating them in salience (Entman 1993: 53) and they commonly define problems - determine what a causal agent is doing with what costs and benefits, usually measured in terms of common cultural values; diagnose causes - identify the forces creating the problem; make moral judgments - evaluate causal agents and their effects; and suggest remedies (Entman 1993: 52). To frame is consequently to select some aspects of reality and make them more salient at the expense of other aspects. According to Daviter, frames are about what is at stake: What actors perceive to be at stake in an issue thus depends on what facet or dimension dominates the actor s perception at a given time (Daviter 2009: 1118), and policy frames identify what is at stake in an issue (Daviter 2012: 1). What is perceived to be at stake is likely to matter greatly for the scope of a political conflict and the scope of a conflict will have a large impact on its outcome (Schattschneider 1960). Frames can thus be used to try to manipulate the scope of a conflict, to the benefit of an actor s position. In the literature, distinctions are made between several types of frames. For example, de Vreese has highlighted the difference between generic and issue-specific frames. Whereas issue-specific frames are tied to the political issue at hand, generic frames can be applied across policy issues (de Vreese 2005). Semetko and Valkenburg identified five common news frames applied across different policy issues: a conflict frame emphasizing conflict; a human interest frame that brings forward an individual s story or an emotional angle; an attribution of responsibility frame that seeks to attribute responsibility (for causing or solving) to some actor; a morality frame which interprets an issue in the context of moral prescriptions; and an economic consequences frame which presents a policy issue in terms of economic consequences for individuals as well as for groups, institutions, a region or the country (Semetko & Valkenburg 2000). There are reasons to expect that frames and framing will not look the same in all circumstances, or among all types of actors. Baumgartner and Mahoney (2008) discuss what they call the two faces of framing. The first face concerns the efforts of individual actors, such as lobbyists, to frame their arguments in order to gain support for their policy positions. Since the framing of an issue can have a substantial effect on the policy output, policy advocates will try to focus attention to their preferred aspects of a policy issue. However, 5

individual policy advocates always are always constrained by other policy actors in their choices of their preferred dimension of a policy issue. Moreover, it has been shown that reframing of a policy issue once a policy frame has gained prevalence over others is a difficult task, and consequently successful attempts at reframing are rare (Berry et al. 2007). These complications point to how collective issue definition or the second face of framing is something different than individual actors attempts to influence the policy debate. This second face is more about the overall mix of frames used in a policy issue debate, or the dominating aspects of an issue (Baumgartner & Mahoney 2008; see also Baumgartner et al. 2008). For the purpose of this paper, framing as collective issue definition is crucial. It could be expected that compared to other policy actors such as interest groups officials from the Commission and the permanent representations function as targets of framing rather than being directly active in framing and reframing policy issues themselves. We assume that at the EU level as well as at the national level, different framing games are constantly being played. These games will look different in different settings; the frames that dominate in Brussels may not be the same as those dominating, say, in London. The result is that the collective issue definition of a particular policy proposal is likely to differ between the EU level and the national level and members of the permanent representations are likely to be exposed to both sets of policy frames. Consequently, one aspect of socialization should be the extent to which members of the permanent representations adopt the policy frames that dominate at the EU level rather than those that dominate at the national level. The question of socializations in terms of the adoption of EU level frames is investigated using data over twenty different policy proposals presented by the Commission between 2008 and 2010. We study the policy frames for these proposals at the EU level as well as in five member states Germany, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden and United Kingdom offering variation in terms of country size and old/new member states. First, we ask whether it is possible to detect a general EU preference so that PermReps tend to embrace EU level frames rather than national level frames. Second, we also ask whether the degree of EU preference differ between member states. Third, previous research has highlighted the importance of intensity as well as duration of social interactions to socialization (Checkel 2005; Lewis 2005). Moreover, Checkel (2005) 6

argues that individuals with extensive professional experiences in regional or international policy making settings are more likely to adopt supranational role conceptions. In this study we therefore ask whether long professional experience with EU working groups impact on the degree to which EU level frames are adopted. However, there is the possibility that representatives, even those who have worked for many years in working groups, still do not see themselves as belonging to the EU environment. This could be the case if they are based in their home country, and merely parachuted into negotiations when needed. We therefore also want to know if working time in Brussels (hours per week) has an impact on which frames are preferred. If prolonged or intense exposure to the EU level impact on which frames are adopted by the PermReps, this would indicate that it is in fact social interaction that leads to a new understanding of policy issues. Data and methods As mentioned, the project uses quantitative and qualitative document analysis and interviews with representatives for the Commission and national level officials for twenty legislative proposals (see list of proposals in Figure 1), and for five member countries Germany, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. This information is contrasted to interviews with the government representatives in Brussels who were responsible for negotiating the twenty proposals in the Council of the EU, from the five selected member states. As of now, we still lack data from national level officials, which will be used to validate the frame coding (see below). Within the EU, the Commission, with its agenda-setting capabilities, is likely to be crucial for the process of framing (Daviter 2009; 2011). Furthermore, the Commission is the EU institution with the clearest mandate to consider the European perspective. Thus, in order to capture EU-level frames, face to face interviews were conducted with the Commission officials responsible for working with the proposal at hand. 1 According to Daviter, policy frames identify what is at stake in a particular policy issue (Daviter 2009; 2012). We thus begun by simply asking the respondents what they thought was 1 The interviews were conducted within the project A systematic comparative research project on interest group politics in Europe (INTEREURO), see www.intereuro.eu. Interviews with Commission officials were conducted by David Marshall, Daniel Rasch and Patrycja Rozbicka, and interviews with PermReps officials were conducted by Joel Carlsten Rosberg, Erika Edquist and Dimitar Popovski. David Marshall provided much appreciated input in the planning stage of the interviews. 7

at stake in the proposal at a more general level. 2 They could give multiple answers, in which case they were asked to rank them. Thus, we aimed at capturing what frames were active in the minds of these central policy actors. The fact that we asked about what is perceived to be at stake, and thus aimed to capture the frames that are active in the minds of respondents, should make the data collection set for finding the overall dominant aspects of policy issues (the second face of framing) rather than active attempts to frame or reframe policy issues (the first face of framing). It is likely that what policy actors come to think of when asked about a policy issue, is one of the dominant aspects of a debate. In the next step the frames found in the interviews with commission officials were used to derive frames that could be used as in closed questions to the permanent representatives. This process usually implied rephrasing the frame at a somewhat more general level, in order for it to make sense in a survey question. Policy frames for the national level were instead obtained through qualitative document analysis, studying official documents relating to the policy issue, such as government reports to the parliament. Of course, it is not ideal that different ways of getting at these frames are used since it could bias the results. Eventually, this part of the analysis will be complemented with interviews with officials and interest group representatives, as well as quantitative document analysis. This way, we will be able to validate the frames found so far. What kind of frames did we find? The following are examples of frames that reoccur a lot both across policy issues, and from different policy actors within the same policy issue: First, there is what we call an economic welfare frame, including competitiveness, employment, growth, prospects for European industry, etc. Note here the strong resemblance with the generic frame economic consequences suggested by Semetko & Valkenburg that was discussed above and which presents a policy issue in terms of economic consequences for individuals as well as for groups, institutions, a region or the country (Semetko & Valkenburg 2000). The economic welfare frame is commonly used both as a pro and a con argument, depending on the policy issue. 2 We have discussed different issues that have raised conflict in the proposal and different actors that have been involved. Now, I would like to ask you what you think was at stake in this proposal at a more general level or, in other words, what was the essence of this proposal at a more general level? 8

Another common frame however clearly tied to the EU context and thus not generic is that of the functioning of the internal market. This is used primarily as a pro-argument; that a proposal will enhance the functioning of the internal market is a universal argument for the proposal. Similarly, policy actors use the frame harmonisation of rules/procedures in this way; harmonisation (again, a frame clearly tied to the EU context) is viewed as essentially a good thing, and if a policy issue can be framed in terms of harmonisation, this is an argument for the policy. The opposite seems to be true for the frame administrative burden which is almost exclusively used as a con argument (the only exception is a proposal which stated goal is to reduce the administrative burden). By using this frame, as it seems, policy actors want to focus the attention to the increased administrative burden that, it is argued, will follow if the proposed policy is implemented. Similarly, the costs frame a focus on increasing costs, the need for cost efficiency, and/or how the burden of costs should be shared tend to function as a con argument, focusing on negative consequences of policy. Reoccurring often at the national level, but never in the interviews at the EU-level, is the subsidiarity frame. When this frame is used, it is about the proposed policy violating the principle of subsidiarity, and thus a con argument. Frames that reoccur across several policy issues in the sample, but that are nevertheless dependent on the type of policy issue are frames focusing on certain cherished values or goals, such as human rights or legal rights for individuals, public health and safety, consumer interests, and environmental protection. After having derived frames for the EU-level from the Commission interviews, and for the national level from government documents, telephone interviews were conducted with the government representatives in Brussels from the five selected member states, who were responsible for negotiating the twenty issues in the Council of the EU. We chose to interview those persons in the permanent representations who were in the working group or committee which dealt most extensively with the issue at hand. This means we have chosen to not, normally, interview the chief (Coreper II) ambassadors who are generalists dealing with issues that are left unsolved by the working groups. The respondents were asked to evaluate the pre-defined frames by giving them points on a 0-10 scale, without knowing which frames were considered EU level and which ones were considered national. Our dependent variable was then calculated as the difference between the average points given to EU level frames and the average points given to national frames. 9

We call this variable EU preference positive values indicate that respondents tended to prefer the EU level frames, and negative values indicate that the national level frames are preferred. As of now, we have been able to calculate the EU preference for 48 respondents, and a few more will be added. If a frame was found at both levels, it was included in the calculation of both the national level and the EU level means. Thus, if all frames had been identical on both levels for a certain issue and member state (a situation which did not occur) the EU preference score would be zero. Results As mentioned above, we assume that partly different framing games are going on in different political environments, at different levels, and that this leads to cross-pressure in the sense that members of the permanent representations will be exposed to different kinds of policy frames. Does this seem to be true? According to our preliminary definition of EU level and national level frames (which will be complemented with national level interviews) there does seem to be at least partly different framing games going on. It has already been mentioned that some frames such as the subsidiarity frame is found only at the national level. More generally, for several policy issues no common frames for the EU level and the various national levels are found which is noteworthy given the general character of many of the frames. Moreover, there is no proposal that have an identical set of frames at both levels (there are always at least some frames that can only be found at one level). It thus seems fruitful to move to the question of how framing games at the national and supranational level influences the understanding of the issues of key intermediary actors in the EU multilevel system. As mentioned, we have for each respondent calculated the mean difference between points given to EU and national frames respectively and we call this measure EU preference. Positive values indicate that EU frames are preferred, whereas negative values indicate that national frames have been given higher points. In Table 1 below EU preference is summarized. The positive value indicate a small general tendency among members of the permanent representation to prefer EU level frames, but it is only a weakly positive mean and as mentioned the national part of the measure will have to be validated. Moreover, as is shown in Figure 1 below, the degree of EU preference varies between policy issues, so that 10

for some proposals there is instead a tendency that the respondents prefer the national level frames. The variable Level in Table 1 can be thought of as an alternative measure of a supranational inclination. It measures whether the respondent think that the policy area that the proposal deals with should be decided at the national or regional level or the European level. It ranges between 0 (exclusively at national of regional level) and 10 (exclusively at European level) and our respondents embrace the full range on this scale. The mean value of 5,9 is perhaps surprisingly low given that all policy areas discussed are in fact dealt with at the European level. The variable National level perspective is used as a sort of validity check of our framing questions. After having rated various frames from the EU and the national levels (obviously without knowing that some were coded as European and some coded as national ), the respondents were asked the following question: To what extent would you say that you had the same perspective on what was at stake in this proposal compared to the dominant view at the national level in your country?. As shown in Table 1, the respondents answers are found all across the scale between 0 (not at all the same) and 10 (very much the same). Years shows how many years respondents have represented their country in EU working groups and committees, and Hours shows how much working time per week that is spent in Brussels. Table 1. Descriptive statistics Variable Mean St. Dev Min Max N EU preference 1,1 2,2-6,5 5,25 48 Level 5,9 2,2 0 10 51 National level perspective 7,4 2,4 0 10 45 Years 6,1 3,9 0 20 51 Hours 35,1 21,6 0 80 47 11

Figure 1. Mean points given to EU frames and national frames, by policy issue Alternative investments Animal Protection Ann Accts Micro Entities Asylum seekers Carbon storage Criminal Proceedings Deposit Guarantee Scheme Recast ETS Ð Greenhouse gas emission Electrical waste Energy performance Human Trafficking Intelligent transport Investor Compensation Schemes Patient rights Radioactive waste Renewable energy Sexual Abuse of Children Ship Pollution Tobacco Exicise Duty Toy safety 0 2 4 6 8 10 Mean value of frame eu national The first task is to see if our way of measuring preference for EU level frames seems to capture what it is intended to capture, namely the extent to which members of the permanent representations come to see policy issues in the way that dominate at the European level rather than the at the national level potentially as the result of a socialization process. As mentioned, we asked the respondents what they themselves thought about their view on the policy as compared to the dominant view in their own country. In a way, they are thus asked to gauge their own national preference on this specific issue. What happens when we contrast this to our measure of EU preference, which is based on the points given to frames that we have derived from EU level and national level sources? (Naturally, respondents were not informed about the level that frames were found on, or even that frames were regarded as belonging to different levels.) 12

As expected, these two measures are negatively correlated, and significantly so. The correlation coefficient is 0,32 and the p-value 0,04. This means that the respondents who perceive that their own view on what is at stake in a policy issue corresponds well to the dominant view in their own country, also shows less EU preference when evaluating national level and EU level frames. It thus seems that our measure of EU preference regarding policy frames does show something of interest. From the descriptive statistics above we also know that there is a slight tendency for our respondents to prefer EU level frames. In the next step, we will see if the degree of EU preference differs between member states. Comparing the responses from the different member states we find that Sweden and the Netherlands display the strongest EU preference, while in particular the UK respondents have more of a national perspective (see Table 2 below). The mean values for Germany and Slovenia are close to zero, indicating that there is no strong preference for either level. In Table 3, where Sweden is used as the reference category, we can see that respondents from the United Kingdom, Germany and Slovenia have a significantly more national perspective on what is at stake in the policy proposals studied. Although we should not draw far-reaching conclusions on the basis of these national differences due to the relatively low number of respondents from each member state the position of the UK visavi the others certainly conforms to expectations of the latter being less Europeanized in their outlook. On the other hand, it is difficult to see effects of factors such as country size or old/new member state. 13

Table 2. EU preference by member state Member state Mean value of EU Preference Germany 0,3 Netherlands 2,0 Slovenia 0,2 Sweden 2,0 United Kingdom -0,9 Table 3. Effect of member state on EU preference (reference category: Sweden) (1) EU Preference United Kingdom -2.919** (1.118) Netherlands -0.00198 (0.901) Germany -1.658* (0.859) Slovenia -1.808** (0.774) Constant 2.002*** (0.477) N 48 R 2 0.222 adj. R 2 0.149 Standard errors in parentheses * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01 14

We now turn to the most central question for the socialization hypothesis, namely whether prolonged and/or intense exposure to the EU level impact on which frames are adopted by the respondents. If we can find that persons that have worked for a long time in the Brussels environment, and/or currently spend most of their working time in Brussels, display more EU preference than persons that have only little experience working at the EU level, this would be a sign that socialization processes are going on. In our dataset we have respondents that have recently started working in Brussels alongside very experienced officials. Similarly, we have respondents that are being parachuted into negotiations when needed alongside people that spend all their working time in Brussels. Can these differences explain varying levels of EU preference? Table 4 below shows the effect of years the respondent has worked in EU working groups and committees, and of hours per week the respondent spends working in Brussels with and without controls for member state. The results are, from the socialization perspective, surprising. It was expected that prolonged exposure to the EU environment would lead an individual to adopt EU level frames to a higher extent. Instead, as shown in Table 4, having worked for many years in Brussels leads to a lower expected value on EU preference, also when controlling for member state. When it comes to how many hours per week that are spent on working in Brussels, this has no effect at all. 15

Table 4. Effects of prolonged or intense exposure to the EU environment on EU preference. (Model 2: reference category: Sweden) (1) (2) EU Preference EU Preference Years in working groups -0.257*** -0.184** (0.0770) (0.0875) Hours per week in Brussels -0.00187-0.0100 (0.0135) (0.0152) United Kingdom -2.185* (1.263) Slovenia -0.628 (0.832) Netherlands 0.356 (0.919) Germany -1.218 (0.898) Constant 2.724*** 3.039*** (0.748) (0.818) N 44 44 R 2 0.215 0.302 adj. R 2 0.176 0.189 Standard errors in parentheses * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01 It should be recalled that the above findings are preliminary. A few more interviews will be added and, more importantly, our measure of EU preference will be validated using interviews with national level government officials. Thus, the above analysis is here complemented with an analysis using an alternative measure of a supranational inclination, namely the preferred level of decision making for the policy area in question. Respondents were asked if they think that the policy area that the proposal deals with should be decided at the national or regional level or the European level. The scale ranges between 0 (exclusively at national of regional level) and 10 (exclusively at European level) and our respondents embrace the full range on this scale. 16

Table 5 shows the effect of EU level experience (measured as above) on this alternative measure of EU preference. Although this time no negative effect is found, the results are similar in the lack of support for the socialization hypothesis. Although puzzling from the perspective of socialization theory, these results are in line with previous research on role perception, showing that extensive exposure to the European level does not necessarily lead to supranational role playing (Beyers 2005: 899). Table 5. Effects of prolonged or intense exposure to the EU environment on preferred level of decision making. (Model 2: reference category: Sweden) (1) (2) EU Level Decision Making EU Level Decision Making Years in working groups -0.0638-0.0530 (0.0906) (0.106) Hours per week in Brussels 0.00157 0.00410 (0.0160) (0.0180) United Kingdom -0.620 (1.308) Slovenia 0.155 (1.033) Netherlands 0.759 (1.153) Germany 0.891 (1.059) Constant 6.331*** 5.943*** (0.909) (1.017) N 47 47 R 2 0.012 0.054 adj. R 2-0.033-0.087 Standard errors in parentheses * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01 17

Conclusion This paper aims to provide a contribution to research on a classical question in European integration research: the role of national vs. supranational factors for forming preferences and positions. Socialization theory suggests that social interactions cutting across national borders such as interactions in the EU arena will lead to changes in actors behavioral practices, norms, perceptions of reality, and preferences about outcomes. This paper has approached this question in a new way, by studying a specific kind of crosspressure; namely the exposure of permanent representatives to conflicting policy frames. The purpose is to analyse the effect of varying national and supranational frames and framing activities on these key decision makers. Through interviews and document studies, we first investigated which frames were present at the EU level and the national level respectively, for the twenty policy issues and five member states. This information was then used in interviews with the government representatives in Brussels who were responsible for negotiating the 20 proposals in the Council of the EU, from the five selected member states. From the interviews we calculated the EU preference, that is the extent to which a respondent preferred EU level frames over national level frames. The analysis showed that this EU preference is related to which member state the respondent comes from, with respondents from the United Kingdom being the most EU sceptical in terms of their choice of policy frames, whereas respondents from the Netherlands and Sweden to a higher extent embraced the EU level frames. Contrary to expectations and contrary to the socialization hypothesis respondents with a lot of experience with EU level work did not display more EU preference than others. In fact, the number of years spent working in EU working groups and committees had a negative impact on EU preference. It remains to see whether these results hold when we add interviews with national level officials, which gives us the opportunity to validate the national level policy frames that now are derived from documents. 18

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