Trans-national governance without supra-national government: The case of the European Employment Strategy

Abstract

In this article it is argued that governance and government are inextricably bound up, though not necessarily at the same level of decision making. The novel, multi-level polity that emerged in the context of the so-called extended re-launch of European integration in the 1980s and early 1990s can be best described as trans-national governance without supra-national government. The privileged partnership between the European Commission and the European Round Table of Industrialists, and the European Employment Strategy are singled out to show that trans-national informal practices of governance have an impact on formal practices at the national level. This is at the heart of what is referred to as asymmetrical regulation: Supra-national regulation in the context of the Single Market and Economic and Monetary Union is limiting the national capacity to act, notably in the field of social regulation. While keeping up the illusion of self-determination, it is national government that is in charge of reforming labour markets.

Key Words:

• Trans-national governance
• asymmetrical regulation
• public – private
• partnerships
• competitiveness
• open method of co-ordination

Notes

¹ For an early account of the multi-level governance approach, see Marks et al. (1996). For an assessment of the normative underpinnings of MLG, see Marsh and Furlong (2002, p. 38).

² In the following, I will refer to only four uses of governance, leaving two uses which have no direct relevance for the argument of this article (i.e. corporate governance and good governance) largely undiscussed.

³ It is now generally acknowledged that the ERT played an important role in the re-launch of European integration in the 1980s, both with respect to the completion of the internal market and the development towards EMU. See, for example, Green Cowles (1994), Holman, (1992), van Apeldoorn (2002).

⁴ For a detailed account of the initiating role of the ERT in the run up to the presentation of the Commission's White Paper on the completion of the Single Market in 1985, see Green Cowles (1994).

⁵ These are the recurrent themes in four different reports on European labour markets which the ERT published in the 1990s. More recently, these themes are part of publications on the progress of the so-called Lisbon process, see ERT (2002).

⁶ The Treaty of Amsterdam can be downloaded at http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/lex/en/treaties/index.htm

⁷ Ibid.