13:57, 4 December 2009
If the appointments in November of a new permanent President of the European Council and High Representative for Foreign Affairs were intended to signal the beginnings of a bright new era in how the European Union both manages its decision-making and presents itself to the world, the row that has blown up this week over President Sarkozy’s remarks to Le Monde that the English were “the big losers” in the latest allocation of Commission portfolios suggests that it is, instead, very much business as usual.
The French President’s comments following Michel Barnier’s appointment to the crucial Single Market role were met by indignation and anger in the UK media: “Sarkozy whips up sympathy for the City” (Daily Express); “We are in charge now, Sarkozy tells the City” (The Times); and “Le grand stitch-up” (Daily Mail) provide just a few examples. Meanwhile, on Radio Four’s ‘Today Programme’ yesterday David Buik, a respected and regular commentator on the City, fulminated at the possibility of French-inspired attempts to reduce its ability to be a global financial centre (thereby scuppering the chances of a swift economic recovery) through heavy-handed EU-level regulation.
It is a familiar, if faintly depressing, pattern: the mischievous French prod while the perennially over-sensitive British react. However, what has been largely ignored in the UK media is that Sarkozy’s comments were intended for a domestic audience that may have been critical of his “inability” to secure one of the two new, high-profile top jobs for France. His suggestion instead that “real” power in the EU actually lies within its economic portfolios thus reveals once more the long-standing pathologies that exist on either side of the Channel, with Anglo-French rivalry this time played out through opposing economic models.
More importantly, however, this affair underlines the dearth of understanding of how EU decision-making functions, how policy is made and how individual Member States seek to influence outcomes. The notion that because the Commissioner responsible for the Single Market is French, long-standing policies of liberalisation and openness will suddenly be rolled-back in favour of a dirigiste model of market intervention makes no more sense than assuming that because the EU’s Foreign Policy chief is British we will see a sudden upsurge in the EU’s levels of overseas military intervention. This is demonstrated not least by the literature on how Member States organise their inputs through policy co-ordination at national and EU-levels (see for example Kassim et al, 2000, 2001), and by how policy, once agreed and legislated upon, is then implemented through the so-called “comitology” system (e.g. Dogan 1997; Dehousse, 2003).
What this research highlights is the highly iterative nature of policy-making, where actors engage with one another regularly and intensively over extended time periods, and where “zero-sum” strategies tend to be less successful. It also emphasises the importance of constructing broad-based coalitions involving a variety of Member States to achieve desired outcomes. Finally, it suggests that while resources and organisation alone cannot guarantee the successful pursuit of policy goals, they can play a significant part. In this regard, the UK and France are among the best-organised and best-resourced Member States. They recognise the need to be present and heard in as many of the venues where real influence can be exercised – particularly the many different working groups that produce the all-important “first drafts” that frequently determine the nature and direction of any new proposal. Moreover, once legislation has been passed, how it is then implemented offers another important opportunity for Member States either to promote measures they support, or slow those they do not.
The picture that emerges, therefore, is one that is much more nebulous and complex than might be believed from the public pronouncements of national politicians. While the allocation of Commission portfolios is a serious matter for Member States, it is only one piece of the jigsaw. Moreover, while Messrs Sarkozy, Brown and the other EU heads of government would doubtless be delighted to think that a phone call to “their” Commissioner would ensure the pursuit of particular national objectives, this is not how the game is played. Consensus-building and compromise remain the key ingredients of EU policy-making, even if French politicians occasionally resort to their long-perfected art of pushing British buttons.
