AT THE HEART OF THE UNION

AT THE HEART OF THE UNION

Also by Neill Nugent TIIE BRITISH RIGHT (co-editor with R. King) RESPECTABLE REBELS (co-editor with R. King) TIIE LEFf IN FRANCE (with D. Lovve) TIIE GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS OF TIIE EUROPEAN UNION TIIE EUROPEAN BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT (co-editor with R. 0' Donnell) TIIE EUROPEAN UNION: Annual Review of Activities (editor) TIIE EUROPEAN UNION, Volumes I and 2 (editor)

At the Heart of the Union Studies of the European Commission Edited by Neill Nugent Professor of Politics Manchester Metropolitan University

First published in Great Britain 1997 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-349-25793-5 ISBN 978-1-349-25791-1 (ebook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-25791-1 First published in the United States of America 1997 by ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 ISBN 978-0-312-17413-2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data At the heart of the Union : studies of the European Commission I edited by Neill Nugent. p. em. Includes bibliographical references (p. )and index. ISBN 978-0-312-17413-2 (cloth) I. European Commission. 2. European Union. I. Nugent, Neill. JN33.5.A 7 1997 341.242'2-dc21 96--46501 CIP Selection and editorial matter and Chapters I and 15 ~Neill Nugentl997 Other chapters ~ Macmillan Press Ltd 1997 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1997 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenbam Coun Road, London WIP 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 06 05 04 03 02 OJ 00 99

Contents Preface List of Abbreviations Notes on the Contributors I At the Heart of the Union Neill Nugent 1 2 European Commissioners 1952-1995: National Routes to a European Elite Andrew MacMullen 27 3 Identities in the European Commission Maryon McDonald 49 4 Administrative Culture in the European Commission: The Cases of Competition and Environment Michelle Cini 71 5 A House with Differing Views: The European Commission and Cohesion Policy Liesbet Hooghe 89 6 The Commission as an Agent Mark A. Pollack 109 7 Uniting European Industrial Policy: A Commission Agenda for Integration Thomas C. Lawton 129 8 Safeguarding the Economic Constitution: The Commission and Competition Policy Lee McGowan 145 9 The Commission Made Me Do It: The European Commission as a Strategic Asset in Domestic Politics Mitchell P. Smith 167 vii viii X v

vi Contents 10 The Commission and Implementation in the European Union: Is There an Implementation Deficit and Why? B. Guy Peters 11 Managing the Managers: The Commission's Role in the Implementation of Spending Programmes Roger Levy 12 The European Commission and the Politics of Legitimacy in the European Union Helen Drake 13 The Commission and the Intergovernmental Conferences Desmond Dinan 187 203 226 245 14 The Role of the Commission: A Theoretical Discussion ]anne Haaland Matlary 265 15 Themes and Prospects Neill Nugent 283 Annex: Directorates General and Special Units of the Commission 295 References 297 Index 316

Preface This book is based on two main premises. The first is that the significance of the Commission is such as to make it worthy of extensive and detailed study. The most obvious manifestation of this significance is the large number of key roles the Commission exercises within the European Union's system of governance. Particularly prominent are its legislative, executive, judicial, representative, and mediative roles. The second premise is that not as much has been written about the Commission as might be expected given its position as a key institution of the European Union. A considerable amount of research has been, and is being, undertaken on the Commission, but not enough of it has appeared in published form. The aim of the book is to make a significant contribution to furthering understanding of the Commission by bringing together in one volume the fruits of new research and new thinking. Different aspects of the Commission are explored via a range of perspectives and with the use of both empirical and theoretical approaches. Many of the book's chapters focus on subject areas that have been barely touched upon, let alone rigorously examined, in the existing literature on the Commission. I would like to express my gratitude to the contributors for producing, on schedule, what I believe to be work of very high quality. I would also like to thank Maureen Nugent for her invaluable secretarial assistance. February 1997 NEILL NUGENT vii

List of Abbreviations CAP CCP CFI CFSP CIS COM/COM DOC COREPER CSF DG DTI EC ECA ECJ ECO ECSC ECOFIN ECU EDF EEC EFTA EMS EMU EP EPU ERM ESPRIT EU EURATOM EUREKA GATT IGC IT Common Agricultural Policy Common Commercial Policy Court of First Instance Common Foreign and Security Policy Commonwealth of Independent States Commission Document Committee of Permanent Representatives Community Support Framework Directorate General Department of Trade and Industry (UK) European Community European Court of Auditors European Court of Justice European Cartel Office European Coal and Steel Community Council of Economic and Finance Ministers European Currency Unit European Development Fund European Economic Community European Free Trade Association European Monetary System Economic and Monetary Union European Parliament European Political Union Exchange Rate Mechanism European Strategic Programme for Research and Development in Information Technology European Union European Atomic Energy Community European Programme for High Technology Research and Development General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Intergovernmental Conference Information Technology viii

List of Abbreviations ix JHA MEP MP MTF NESL OECD OEEC OJ PASOK PHARE qmv PSOE RACE R&D R&TD SEA SEC SEM SEP SPD SOlD TEU UCLAF UK VAT VFM Justice and Home Affairs Member of the European Parliament Member of Parliament (UK) Merger Task Force North East Shipbuilders Limited Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Organisation for European Economic Cooperation Official Journal of the European Communities Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement Poland and Hungary: Aid for the Reconstruction of Economies (this abbreviation subsequently retained for aid schemes to Eastern Europe as a whole) qualified majority voting Spanish Socialist Party Research and Development in Advanced Communications Technologies for Europe Research and Development Research and Technological Development Single European Act Internal Commission General Secretariat Document Single European Market Strathclyde European Partnership Single Programming Document Scottish Office Industry Department Treaty on European Union Unite de Coordination de Ia Lutte Anti-Fraude United Kingdom Value Added Tax value for money

Notes on the Contributors Michelle Cini is Jean Monnet Lecturer in European Community Studies in the Department of Politics, University of Bristol. Amongst her publications is The European Commission (Manchester University Press, 1997). She is the co-author, with Lee McGowan, of Competition Policy in the European Union (Macmillan, forthcoming). Desmond Dinan is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Center for European Integration Studies at George Mason University, Virginia. His most recent book is Ever Closer Union? An Introduction to the European Community (Lynne Rienner, 1994). He is currently editing and compiling The Encyclopedia of the European Union (Lynne Rienner, forthcoming). Helen Drake is Lecturer in French and European Studies at Loughborough University. Her PhD (Aston), completed in 1996, consisted of a study of the legitimisation of authority in the European Union. Amongst her publications, she is the co-editor of The Language of Leadership in Contemporary France (Dartmouth, 1996). She is currently writing a biography of Jacques Delors and is researching in the area of France and Europe. Liesbet Hooghe is Assistant Professor in Political Science at the University of Toronto. She recently edited Cohesion Policy and European Integration: Building Multi-Level Governance (Oxford University Press, 1996). Her current research includes a project on the political orientations of senior Commission officials. Thomas Lawton is Lecturer in European Business and Policy at Royal Holloway College, University of London. His recent publications and his current research focus primarily on the nature and market effects of European Union industrial policy. X

Notes on the Contributors xi Roger Levy is Professor of Government and Head of the School of Public Administration and Law at The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. His publications and his main areas of interest are centred on the financial management of the European Union. He is a member of a Commission expert group on budgetary assessment in the European Union. Andrew MacMullen is Associate Director of the Centre for European Studies and Lecturer in Politics at the University of Durham. He has published on several aspects of European politics. His research interests include the nature of European Secretariats and the personnel of the European Commission. Maryon McDonald was formerly Reader in Social Anthropology at Brunei University, and since 1996 has been Senior Fellow in the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge. Amongst her publications she is author of 'We are not French!': Language, Culture and Identity in Brittany (Routledge, 1989) and is the editor of History and Ethnicity (Routledge, 1989) and Gender, Drink and Drugs (Berg, 1994). Since 1991 she has pursued extensive ethnographic research inside the European Parliament and the European Commission. Lee McGowan is Lecturer in Government and a member of the Public Policy Research Group at the University of Ulster atjordanstown. He has published widely on aspects of competition policy in Europe and is the co-author, with Michelle Cini, of Competition Policy in the European Union (Macmillan, forthcoming). Janne Haaland Matlary is Senior Researcher and Assistant Professor at the Centre for Advanced Research of the Europeanisation of the Nation State (ARENA) at Oslo University. Amongst her publications is Energy Policy in the European Union (Macmillan, 1997). Her research is focused on institutional changes in the European Union and their impact on the state.

xii Notes on the Contributors Neill Nugent is Professor of Politics at Manchester Metropolitan University. Amongst his publications, he is the author of The Government and Politics of the European Union (Macmillan, 3rd edition, 1994), and is the co-editor of The European Business Environmmt (Macmillan, 1994). He is currently preparing a book on the Commission. B. Guy Peters is Maurice Falk Professor of American Government at the University of Pittsburgh. Amongst his many publications he is the author of The Politics of Bureaucracy (4th edition Longman, 1994), the co-editor of The Politics of Expert Advice (Edinburgh University Press, 1993) and Advising West European Governments (Edinburgh University Press, 1993), and the editor of American Public Policy: Promise and Performance (Chatham House, 1995). His current research is mainly focused on comparing bureaucracies and administrative reform. Mark Pollack is Assistant Professor of Politics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has published on several aspects of the European Union. His current research interests include the European Union's supranational institutions and policy-making processes. Mitchell P. Smith is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Middlebury College. He has published on the Commission and on democracy in the European Union. He is currently preparing a book on the Commission as a policy entrepreneur.