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Abstract
The Council is too often depicted as the battleground for intermittent clashes between national ministers. Based upon case studies of legislation produced in five ‘First Pillar’ sectors, the research presented here has explored the submerged, and much larger, part of this institutional ‘iceberg’: Council working groups. It does so by examining how members of these entities interact with civil servants in COREPER and ministers, on the one hand, and representatives of the Commission and the European Parliament, on the other. Contrary to many practitioner or formalist accounts, the principal finding is that working groups do not operate solely on a ‘technical level’. Instead, they are vital arenas through which the ambiguous nature of politics in the European Union heavily influences negotiating processes and legislative outcomes.
Notes
1 This method was deliberately chosen as a manner of supplementing, but also challenging, a number of assumptions and conclusions developed by questionnaire-based research (Beyers and Diericks Citation1998). In addition to examining documents and articles relating to these cases, we conducted forty-five interviews with actors involved in the relevant working groups (Commission officials, Permanent Representatives, civil servants based in national capitals). Although we amassed a considerable amount of detail in order to process-trace what happened in each instance, the results of this process-tracing are published elsewhere (Fouilleux et al. Citation2002). Instead, this article synthesizes the overall conclusions taken from our case studies in order to propose answers to the questions set out in this introduction.
2 In our case studies, only COREPER I is concerned as it deals with the internal market, industry, telecommunications, energy, the environment, research, transport, social affairs, health, education, culture; i.e. mainly First Pillar legislation.
3 Interview with a Permanent Representative, December 2000.
4 Interview with a Council Secretariat official, January 2001.
5 To give just one example, a recent edited book on COREPER provides many illustrations of this trend (Constantinesco and Simon Citation2001).
6 In this recital it was stated that statistical evidence could be one means among many others to define discrimination. In EU legislation, recitals are the introductions to legal texts which set out their purpose. These sentences are less legally binding than the precise articles which follow them.
7 Interview with a Council Secretariat official, November 2000.
8 Interview with a Council Secretariat official, October 2000.
9 Interview, June 2001.
10 Interview with a Permanent Representative, January 2001.
11 The participation of a Portugese delegate who had worked in the film industry was mentioned in this sense. This point was underlined in a more general fashion by an actor interviewed at the Secretariat General of the Council Secretariat: ‘There is a necessity for the Secretariat General to have specialists intervene because, as you know, we are generalists’ (interview, January 2001).
12 Interview with a Permanent Representative, January 2001.
13 Following World Health Organization guidelines, the Commission's initial proposal on maximum levels of lead in water was 10 mg/l. This level was politically inescapable so the challenge for negotiators was to set a norm of 10 mg/l, but not to render it obligatory. The French government was particularly reticent about accepting a strict norm which might oblige it to pay compensation to French private property holders who in future would have to rapidly replace lead piping (of which there are still vast quantities in this member state).
14 Consultation processes in the telecommunications sector have been highlighted by the Commission as an example of ‘best practices’ (The White Paper on Democratic Governance, 2001, p. 16). In the research sector the Commission has always consulted widely (researchers, firms, etc.) before defining its proposals for the Framework Programme. Some Commission-run ‘joint research centres’ are devoted to the preparation of priorities and strategies (e.g. the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies in Seville). Furthermore, co-operation seems to be intensifying between the Commission and a number of external institutes and foundations such as the European Science Foundation, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the European Molecular and Biological Organization, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. This form of information exchange often puts norms and criteria on the EU policy agenda.
15 Interview with a DG MARKET official, November 2000.
16 Interview with a DG MARKET official, November 2000.
17 Interview with a DG ENVIRONMENT official, November 2000.
18 Interview with a DG ENVIRONMENT official, November 2000.
19 As the Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) case study highlights, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) is a particularly important source of such norms.
20 In particular, research on this question would have to address the policy alternatives which, for different reasons, were not even considered by the consultation and pre-negotiation process.
21 Art. 251 of the Treaty on European Union (previously art. 189 B).
22 Concerning the sectors we have studied, most of these now apply the codecision procedure, even if it affects each of these sectors differently. For example, in social affairs, if the working time and health and safety directives were dealt with under codecision, this was not the case for legislation on discrimination (art. 13 of the Amsterdam Treaty did not allow codecision).
23 The exceptions to this rule concern directives accepted in their first reading by the EP. If such a method appears efficient, it can also pose a number of problems. For example, one Commission official working in the telecommunications field told us: ‘The problem is that this procedure is a little too quick and not transparent enough. When we reach agreement on the first reading, the essential work is done beween the President of COREPER and the EP's rapporteur. It is up to the rapporteur to consult the other members of Parliament … So MEPs are often confronted with a choice between “yes” and “no” – there is no deliberation’ (interview, January 2002).
24 Indeed, a senior Commission official gave the following opinion on this matter: ‘The new role of the European Parliament does not change the way one works in working groups. However, it certainly does change the way the chair of each group works’ (interview, January 2002).
25 Interview with a Council Secretariat official, January 2001.
26 Interviews, January 2002.
27 Interview with a Council Secretariat official, January 2001.