European Integration, European Lawmaking Institutions And Legal And Constitutional Limts On European Lawmaking Notes

TUTORIAL 1: EUROPEAN INTEGRATION, EUROPEAN LAWMAKING INSTITUTIONS, AND LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITS ON EUROPEAN LAWMAKING Evolution of European Integration Craig "The Nature of the Community: Integration Democracy and Legitimacy", Chapter One in Craig and de Burca, The Evolution of EU Law (i) Theories of integration * Neofunctionalism was an early theory/explanation of pattern of integration. It was favoured by early proponents of EU, like Jean Monnet, who saw economic integration as essential for peace. It said that o States have limited/declining importance. Executive action merely represents the interests of bureaucratic actors, multinational corps, societal interests etc. The welfare-promoting objectives of states would be best served by integration (as opposed to state isolation etc). o 'Positive spillover' is a key to this explanation of integration. It says that economic integration in one area will necessarily lead to integration in another area, e.g. The removal of tariff barriers to allow free trade will create a need to remove non trade barriers e.g. subsidy, which will lead to need to avoid other market distortions e.g. market cartels, hence need for EU-wide competition policy. o 'Transfer in allegiances': As integration gathers pace people will realise that their interests are better served by EU than national institutions. o 'Technocratic automaticity': as integration hastens, the supranational institutions set up to oversee that integration process will themselves take the lead in sponsoring further integration as they become more powerful and more autonomous of the member states. * Neofuncitonalism has been challenged: o Empirical challenge: Backlashes of nationalism e.g. Luxembourg crisis that lead to imposition of various vetoes. Assumptions of spillover are precarious. o Theoretical challenge: (1) It didn't reflect the pace of integration in practice, requiring lots of modifications to the theory, rendering it complex and unclear. (2) Failed to take account of the role of states in international cooperation, assuming instead that EU would inevitably take a federalist direction. * Positive spillover idea still useful to explain expansion of EU's policies into new areas, though less useful re changes of EU institutions. * Neofunctionalism was a consequence of early approach to ECSC: Monnet (who worked behind the scenes for governments to create ECSC). It argued that European unity should be pursued by a technocratic elite, and that popular approval of Europe would follow on later. The early plan was not to have a European Parliament at all. The outcomes of peace and prosperity were the primary aim, with political integration to follow. Democracy was a lower priority. Legitimacy was thought to be derived from positive outcomes. * * Liberal intergovernmentalism comes is an alternative theory articulated by Moravscik to explain integration. It sees integration as strengthening nation states, rather than replacing them. He argues that o Demand for policy cooperation between states comes from preferences of domestic groups, especially economic ones. o Supply of policy cooperation is a function of interstate cooperation and bargaining, bargaining strength being determined by threat of nonagreement (unilateral alternatives to cooperation), alternative coalitions, and compromise/issue linkage. o Integration into a supranational institution reduces the negotiation transaction costs and time taken to reach agreements. Equally the existence of EU courts helps determine the content of these inter-state bargains, and a strong commission is needed to facilitate these agreements. How does the theory account for the European Parliament (EP)? Hard to conceptualise it within the theory as theory is all about facilitating inter-state agreements (via the commission), when the EP hinders the reaching of agreements (represented in EU laws). Its also unpredictable. Craig refutes any analysis of democratic or judicial infrastructure based on utility in furthering democratic infrastructure: We should see them as inherently valuable constitutional features that constrain those exercising power over others. * Multi-level governance is a theory of governance, but has implications for integration. It says that policy-making happens at sub-national, national, and supranational levels. If we look at the EU context, its no longer realistic to see states as having a monopoly on policy-making. The theory emphasized both the increasingly frequent and complex interactions between governmental actors and the increasingly important dimension of non-state actors that are mobilized in cohesion policy-making and in the EU policy more generally. The EU is unique in how far reaching its policy mandate, control over states etc is. * New Institutionalism: This approach places emphasis on the importance of institutions themselves, rather than the 'function' of the EU/integration. New institutionalism also argues that it is wrong to view interests as 'fixed' as liberal internationalists do: they are constantly changing and depend on circumstance. * Combination of new institutionalism and multi-level governance explains role of Commission, EP and ECJ as supranational policy makers. (ii) Democratic Deficit * (Weiler's account): 

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