What Constitutes of Power and Exactly How Is It Manifested Within the European Union - Essay Example

? “Despite the Extensive Advances in the Integration of the European Union, the Member s are Seen to Remain in the Driving Seat.” How Accurate is this Description of Where Power Lies in the European Union? Name: University: Table of Contents Introduction 3 The European Union 3 The History of The Formation of the European Union 4 The Role of The European coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and European Community in the Formation of the European Union 5 What constitutes of Power and Exactly how is it manifested within the European Union? 8 The European Union’s Global Influence: 9 The Role and Relative Power of the Various European Union Institutions: 10 State Power to Influence and Remain in the Driving Seat Within the EU and Some of the Treaties that Influenced the Power Balance between the Member States and the EU Institutions 11 Intergovernmentalism and Supranationalism in the European Union 13 Theories as to Why EU Member States Continue to Remain in the Driving Seat Despite the Integration Advances in the European Union 14 Recent Events at the European Union and their Impact on the Union’s Driving Power 17 Conclusion 19 Bibliography 20 “Despite the Extensive Advances in the Integration of the European Union, the Member States are Seen to Remain in the Driving Seat.” How Accurate is this Description of Where Power Lies in the European Union? Introduction The European Union The European Union which is more formally referred to as the European Economic and Monetary Union is essentially an economic and political Union that that comprises of 28 different countries that are seen to primarily located in Europe. The European Union (EU) is seen to primarily operate through a number of institutions that variously include; the European Union Council, the EU court of Justice, the Court of Auditors, the European Commission as well as the European Parliament. The Union essentially serves to establish a common market for use by its different member states, a factor that caused the Union to eliminate the restive border controls that existed between the member states. This has allowed for the relatively free flow of both people and goods although there are however, random checks that are normally conducted to prevent drug trafficking and crime between the different members states (Staab, 2013). The common market formed by the European Union is seen to allow for the legal sale of products that have been manufactured in one country in another different country without the restrictive influence of any duties or tariffs. Taxes across the Union’s different member countries are also seen to have been greatly standardized. The EU is also seen to allow service providers in various fields such as medicine, banking, law, tourism, and insurance to freely operate across all the different member countries of the Union. While the formulation of successive treaties is seen to have helped provide the EU with an extensively elaborate foreign policy making machinery, the various member states of the EU are seen to not collectively mobilize their strength to help the Union fully realize its power. It is this position that is seen to raise question surrounding power in the European Union and the general postulation that “Despite the Extensive Advances in the Integration of the European Union, the Member States are Seen to Remain in the Driving Seat.” The History of The Formation of the European Union The idea behind the formation of a unified Union Europe is seen to not be a new one. During the 9th Century, the Frankish emperor is seen to have made efforts towards the unification of Europe and ended up dominating much of Europe. During the beginning of the 19th century, Napoleon Bonaparte is seen to have led France in an attempt to try and attain this objective and also ended up conquering a large part of Europe. During the 1930’s, the dream of having a unified Europe is seen to have been borne by Adolph Hitler who sparked the second world war in his attempt to conquer all of Europe. Throughout history, numerous wars are seen to have been fought throughout the European continent in an attempt to try and unify and control its land, resources and religion, however all of these wars have been met with extremely catastrophic results (Dedman, 2010). With the devastating effects of the Second World War after Hitler’s failed attempts to conquer the entire European continent, it was seen to largely become quite apparent to all the various European leaders that it was not possible for hatred and violence to effectively unify the Entire European continent. The end of World War II in 1945 left numerous European cities in Ruin and large number of people were essentially homeless, railroads and bridges had been bombed out, factories were widely destroyed and there was general despair across the entire European continent. Most people across the continent were not aware of how they would be able to finally rebuild their lives and live relatively normal lives again. During this distressful period it was perceived that it would definitely require a new way of thinking if Europe was to successfully be rebuilt and be able to help all Europeans to rebuild their lives: people were essentially going to have to work in a more peaceful and unified manner if this objective were to ever be attained. A new spirit of cooperation had to quickly be fostered while the numerous ancient prejudices and rivalries had to be cast away. And some form of cooperation is seen to have been achieved as is exemplified by the results of the Berlin Airlift where after the USSR had blockaded all the waterways, roads and railways that served to connect the two sides of West and East Berlin in an attempt to try and force West Berliners to accept a communist System, the Western allied nations that together governed East Berlin organized a massive airlift that went on for nearly a year aimed at the provision of supplies to the West Berliners. The 1948 United States sponsored Marshall Plan that served to provide Europe with machinery, food and other suppliers is also another factor that is seen to have helped in peacefully unifying Europe during this period (Dedman, 2010). The Role of The European coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and European Community in the Formation of the European Union While economic recovery across Europe was seen to be dragging at a very slow pace after the devastating effects of the Second World War, West Germany was seen to be making a remarkably quick economic recovery form the devastation of the Second World War. France proposed the idea of forming the ECSC not only to help in the integration of the West German and French steel and coal mining industries, but also to help in keeping an eye on the developments in West Germany. As a result of the fact that other European countries wanted to essentially closely monitor the various development in West Germany, the ECSC was eventually formed in 1951 by by the signing of the Treaty of Paris and become effective in 1952. At its formation the ECSC was seen to integrate all the trade and productin of steel, iron and coal across Luxemburg, France, Netherlands, Italy, West Germany and Belgium. The unification of these six countries in 1952 under the ECSC is seen to have essentially paved a way toward the creation of a unified Europe. In addition to helping create the ECSC, The 1951 signing of the Treaty of Paris is also seen to have aided in the elimination of trade quotas and tariffs in across the six-notion economic Union that were signatories to the treaty. The elimination in tariffs and quotas essentially extended to cover trade in coke, Iron ore, Steel and coal. The Treaty of Paris also provided a number of administrative units to aid in the supervision of the ECSC, these administrative units were seen to include a council of ministers, an executive council, a court of justice as well as a common assembly. Although these administrative units were seen to initially have relatively very little power, they are commonly regarded as nevertheless being an vital unit of the beginning of cooperative organization that involved what was a very important part of European Industry.The success of the ECSC and its various administrative units is seen to have resulted in the signing of two more treaties, the 1957 and the 1958 Rome Treaties that served to greatly increase the cooperation between the six member countries created the Common market (Dedman, 2010). With the creation of the common Market, a number of various European countries joined together and formed the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), these countries were mainly Austria, Denmark, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Switzerland and Norway. Although this association was seen to largely relax tax on the trade in industrial products, it was however seen to fail in the reduction of taxes in agricultural products and was perceive to be much less powerful than the Common Market. The existing political tensions that were being experienced between a number of European leaders were seen to largely prevent the formation of a more unified and much stronger European organization for a number of years. After numerous negotiations and changes in leadership, three countries were seen to move from the EFTA to join the European Community. This move now caused the membership of the European Community (Common Market) to now consist of Belgium, Italy, Luxemburg, France, Denmark, The United Kingdom, Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands. The activities of this now enlarged European Community were seen to become greatly successful in increasingly the general prosperity of the member countries by the promotion of economic cooperation between the various member countries. In 1974, the various head leaders of all the European Community countries were seen to start meeting on a regular basis three times every year under the European council organization. Under this organization, they were able to gradually formulate and implement additional treaties that served to draw the members of the European Community towards more unification, as well as the development of the European community to cause it to emerge as an organized that was essentially fully elected by and was able to adequately represent all the various concerns of the ordinary European citizens and promote the general prosperity of if various member countries. The European Community (EC) was able to gradually continue strengthening is authority across the economies of all its member nations and to effectively do this, the European Court of Auditors and the European Monetary System were established in 1977 and 1979 respectively. Increased progress was seen to be made in the further unification of European economies with the setting up of a direct election system for the EC. The entering of Greece, Spain and Portugal into the European Community in 1981, 1986 and 1986 respectively and the creation of the single European Act helped in creating a whole new Dimension in the European Community, this was because of the fact that as opposed to being mainly concerned with economic development of its member countries, the EC was also involved in the improvement of the living standards of all the various citizen members of the community of which, the living standards of the citizens in the new Mediterranean member countries were relatively low. It was therefore found to be important for the EC to provide economic aid to these countries so as to help them attempt to strengthen their economies and subsequently manage to achieve relatively higher social and economic standards for the citizens o these countries (Dedman, 2010). During the 1990’s, further negotiations and the enactment of more legislations were seen to aid in the further creation of the necessary framework seen to be required for the creation of the new European Union. In 1993, Treaty of the European Union was adopted by the Maastricht European Council and was key in forming and defining the European Union as it is now seen to be today. In addition to the Maastricht Treaty giving the European Union (EU) increased governance and authority in matters pertaining to issues surrounding, the environment, consumer protection, health, security and education, it was also seen to call for the creation and adoption of a new unifying currency that was to be referred to as the Euro. Over the years, more countries were seen to gradually join the EU and cause it to grow to having the current membership of 28 different states. What constitutes of Power and Exactly how is it manifested within the European Union? Together the different members of the European Union are seen to have an estimate gross national product of about ?11 trillion which is found to be about form times that of the six of China’s economy and slightly larger that of the size of America’s economy. It is this quite immense concentration of wealth that is seen to allow the EU governments to be able to spend an estimated ?150 on their various armed forces. While the immense resources that are seen to be at the disposal of the EU should naturally mean that the EU should be easily deploy political, military and economic that should only be ranked second to that of the United States, The European Union is seen to consistently to turn the considerable theoretical clout that it happens to hold into real genuine power. The EU has been largely accused of seemingly always to be punching below the belt in regards to comparisons between its power and that of the United States (Blair, 2009). The European Union’s Global Influence: The European Union is considered to be one of the widest ranging and unusual significant political actors in the international system. This unique capacity of the EU is seen to have been gradually expanding since the 1950s to now encompass various foreign policy initiatives across the globe, via the use of a diverse foreign policy tools that include the diplomatic, economic, and limited military operations that primarily relate to peace enforcement and peacekeeping. This new capacity of the European Union is however seen to not have been originally included under the Rome treaty nor was it also predicted by many European integration knowledgeable observers. There was initially relatively very little optimism over the influence of the European Union in foreign affairs, even after the end of the Cold War when the Union was seen to be expanding its foreign policy cooperation. According to Ginsberg and Smith (2005) many observers claimed that that both the European Union and NATO would eventually atrophy and that the EU would never be able to fully organize its own military cooperation. Ginsberg and Smith (2005) also point out that it was also argued that through economic integration, “the European Union had managed to succeed in the creation of its own corner of the world and as such, it could now be able to simply go on to enjoy the fruits of its efforts and leave the United States to continue in the tough role of being the world policeman” (Ginsberg and Smith 2005). Although the European Union did indeed experience a fair share of a diverse range of setbacks, failures and difficulties in foreign policy cooperation, it is nevertheless have actively defied these predictions and engaged in a continual process of critical institutional growth in this tough domain that have served to produce various institutional mechanisms that serve to produce regular foreign policy outputs that have had a positive effect on a number of global problems. The Role and Relative Power of the Various European Union Institutions: The real power and influence of the three EU actors of the Council of Ministers, its parliament as well as the Commission within the European Union has long been a scholarly debate pertaining to law making in the European Union. A recent research study conducted by Thomson and Hosli (2006), to try and show exactly which organ has legislative power among the three organs of the European commission, parliament and Council, showed that that there exists a Council-centric view on the balance of power among the European Council, Commission and Parliament as depicted by the Union’s recent legislative decision outcomes. As such, the findings by Thomson and Hosli (2006), are seen to support the perception that the interests of the Union’s individual member states are generally important in defining the final outcomes of the Union’s decision making. The findings also suggest that the Council is actually on equal footing with the parliament under co-decision. According to Mahony (2009), the former EU president Hans-Gert Poettering is quoted as claiming that contrary to 30 years back when he was first successfully elected when the Union’s assembly was seen to have zero legislative competence, the European parliament is in essence now on a lever power footing with its various member states as pertains to the European Union’s rather complex institutional triangle after what has been years of its being considered to be a mere afterthought for the various EU governments. He also pointed out that it was also rather possible that the EU parliament now had an upper hand over the Union’s commission as the commission is now only able to come into office once parliament is able to successfully vote in its favour. Of note however, is that the results of this study do not in any way imply that actors other than the Union’s Council are essentially marginal; the Union’s parliament, commission as well as a range of other transitional and domestic interest groups may also be seen to affect the policy positions that the various governments are seen to advocate in negotiations within the council and thereby exerting indirect influence on the council’s eventual decision outcomes. State Power to Influence and Remain in the Driving Seat Within the EU and Some of the Treaties that Influenced the Power Balance between the Member States and the EU Institutions When Margaret Thatcher managed to secure a substantial rebate on Britain’s total contribution to the EU in 1984, this was widely perceived to be a clear expression of the immense power that the Union’s member States could be able to effectively wield within the Union’s organizational framework. Under the rebate, Thatcher sought to try and receive the total refund on the United Kingdom’s total net payments that were made into the EU budget primarily as a result of the relatively lower benefits that Britain was able to enjoy from the Union’s Common Agricultural Policy. Under the Fontainebleau Agreement, that raised the rebate that the UK obtained when it joined the Union from 50% to 66%, Thatcher was able to ensure that the United Kingdom received a rather substantial discount on its total Union membership fees. By leveraging its power towards the attainment of a unilateral advantage, the United Kingdom is also perceived to have been responsible for the generation of a trend that saw other EU member States to also demand for reductions in their membership fees (Gowland, Turner and Wright, 2009). Thatcher’s Fontainebleau’s stance is seen to nevertheless not be an isolated exemption in the Union’s policy making and it is possible for similarities to be drawn between it and the 1960s Charles De Gaulle Empty Chair policy that was eventually seen to be solved by the formulation of the Luxembourg Compromise of 1966 which is also deemed to be another power-preserving agreement. The compromise which sought to try and reconcile the gradual introduction into the European Union of the a majority voting system among the Union’s Council of Ministers that happened to have diverse member state interests, the compromise stated that in the event that there happened to be Commission proposal that required a majority vote and significantly affected the interests of one or more EU member states, all the various member states would ensure that they endeavor to within a very reasonable time frame, reach solutions that would subsequently be generally adopted by all the various council members while maintaining mutual respect on their interests and those of the Community (Nedergaard, 2007). In a bid to secure the preservation of the power of member states within the EU, the 1994 Loannina Accord was reached so as to effectively preserve the 23 votes Veto power as the Union continued to grow (Gerven, 2005) and increased frustrations were experienced pertaining to the gradual dilution of voting power within the Union. The increasing frustrations over the diluting voting power are seen to have come to the fore of the rather controversial Nice vote-weighting negations and this issue is seen t have become a persistent and major issues in all the Lisbon Treaty debates. The use of veto powers within the Union is seen to have become more frequent over the past 15 years. Intergovernmentalism and Supranationalism in the European Union Suparanationalism essentially describes a method of effective decision making in a community of various multi-national political communities delegate both authority and power to make decisions and implement them to a Union or multi-national organization and has long been a key method in the decision making process within the European Union. In this system, states are seen to essentially lose any veto rights that they might happen to have and are seen to be bound by the various majority decisions of the respective cooperative states; this is seen to cause these states to lose some of the control that they would have had (Oudenaren, 2006). Recent advances in the European Union have seen Intergovernmentalism increasingly being used in the EU. Intergovernmentalism is various defined as being the arrangement whereby a number of nation states that happen to find themselves in conditions and situations that they can be able to effective control endeavor to try and cooperate with each other in matters that are seen to pertain to their common interest. Intergovernmentalism is seen to enable states to be able to agree on whether to freely cooperate in addition to enabling them set cooperation levels that are acceptable to them. Reviews of the European Union’s past decades have ably revealed that during the past two decades there has been a shift in the paradigm of the Union’s integration. While the initial trend within the union is seen to primarily have been that of a gradual strengthening of the various supranational layers within the European Union, this is arguably seen to effectively have come to a standstill. As opposed to the delegation of some of the Union’s key functions, there has been a clear reversal of the trend within the European Union towards Intergovernmentalism as is exemplified by the management of the Union’s security, foreign and defense policy by the Union’s member states with a supporting function being provided by European Union’s Parliament and Commission. However, it should be noted that the various challenges involving EU policy making on diverse matters such as welfare migration, sovereign debt or even the Union’s approach to the Syrian situation is seen to clearly demonstrate the difficulties of attempts to try and run these projects via the use of committees ((Watts, 2008). Such challenges have served to reinforce the perception of the rampant power asymmetries between the union’s various member states, in addition to burdening its management with mistrust. Power within the European Union is seen to matter greatly, however, it is not possible for a single actor within the EU to be able to sufficiently shape its events other than by simply resulting to threats to block the Union’s decision making. Arguably no system within the European Union is found to be either perfectly supranational or intergovernmental and the Union’s different institutions are seen to shift between tier being supranational and intergovernmental at different times (Watts, 2008). An example of this is the fact that the while the European commission is normally seen to be primarily driven by the set European policies, it is however seen to at times be mainly driven by the lead of its member states. Theories as to Why EU Member States Continue to Remain in the Driving Seat Despite the Integration Advances in the European Union A number of possible suggestions have been put forth in an attempt to try and explain the reason as to why the various European Member States are seen to continue to remain the Union’s driving seat despite the impressive advancement in the Union’s integration efforts. Some of these are seen to include: The Outgrowing of Coalition Power by the Veto Power: The role of coalition between the Union’s member states is seen to be an important factor as it is required in the creation and enactment of treaties. The power that these coalitions could be able to apply was generally based on their general comprehensiveness and stability. By integrating the ambitions of the larger Union members, these members could generally be provided with enough incentives to engage themselves within the coalitions while the utilitarian and ambiguous positions of the other union member states would greatly serve to aid in the reinforcement of these coalitions. However, the recent Eastern enlargement of the Union is seen to have resulted in a growing heterogeneity that limits the Union members coalition options. The increased internal competitions and divisions within the Union are seen to have resulted in causing the veto powers to quickly outgrow coalition power as members with veto powers seek to ensure that their interests are observed. The Sizes Aspect of the Union’s Members State: The differences in the size of the member state’s demographics, international status, economic strength and political influence are seen to have a much larger effect on the union as compared to how they did in the Union’s earlier days of integration (Miles andWivel, 2013). During its formation, the union is seen to have essentially comprised of three main and large members and three smaller members to form a community of six member states with France being regarded as the Union’s strongest member. France and Germany were largely perceived to be the Union’s key brokers and although the innate differences between these two countries happened to represent the differences between the six member countries (Gower, 2013), they determination to try and overcome these differences effectively represented the Union’s community spirit. In the current set up of the European Union that is seen to have grown as a result of the addition of numerous small members into the union. Although the new smaller states are seen to make the majority number of the European Union, gravity is seen to have essentially shifted and is now primarily focused on the larger member states as opposed to its concentrated on the smaller but majority union members. The Marginalization of the Peripheral and Smaller Member States: The power position held by the smaller EU member states is seen to have failed to improve with the Eastern enlargement of the Union. This is seen to be fundamentally as a result of the weak resources that the new member states are able to bring into the Union. The smaller members states are also seen to have a weak interaction which is a factor that results in further weakening their power position. For these member states to currently be able to obtain any power position, they are forced to join veto groups that are headed by the larger Union member states that happen to have veto powers. The Lisbon Treaty is seen to have further served to limit the powers of the Union’s smaller member states as it effectively marginalized them from the rotating presidency of the Union’s Council of the European Union is now seen to have relatively less impact on the policymaking within the union (Cunha, 2008), as a result of the various shifting weights that are seen to be in favor of the Union’s parliament, Council and commission. The rotating presidency is seen to effectively take away the role that the highly experienced and smaller countries used to play in brokering the formulation of policies. The Sovereign Power of the Individual Members did not wither Away in the EU: From the inception of the European Union integration, the Union has arguably served as a useful tool for the propagation of the various member state interests and status as well as its being a post-national model for the effective sharing and pooling of sovereignty. Intergovernmental disagreements and cooperation are seen to have greatly defined the pace of the EU’s European integration project and as a result of this, the individual power of the Union’s various member states is seen to have grown and now serves to bring factors such as size and weight into the Union’s political bargaining. Recent Events at the European Union and their Impact on the Union’s Driving Power A number of recent events within the European Union are seen to potentially have an impact on the distribution of power within the Union. Some of European countries have increasingly been calling for devolution and a return of competences to the Union’s member states. This is seen to have caused to the debate of the EU’s future role to become quite contentious. The influence of the major member states within the European Union is also seen to be a critical factor that is affecting the operations of the Union’s operations, with Germany being currently perceived to be the main country calling the shots in a number of issues within the Union and especially so as pertaining to Europe’s sovereign debt crisis management. The key position that Germany is seen to have assumed with the EU is seen to have primarily been as a result of its recent emergence as one of the Union’s strongest economies after the devastating impact of the recent global economic recession. Germany was also seen to play a very important role during the events surrounding the 2011 Euro zone crisis when the EU was faced with its greatest economic threat. During this threat, the Greece debt crisis was seen to quickly escalate and cause potential sovereign debt crises in Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy. To prevent the negative impacts of this threat from spreading and crippling the Euro zone (Arestis and Sawyer, 2012), the EU leaders addressed this crisis by assuring investors that it would ensure that it supported the members debts. To successfully obtain this objective, Germany was seen to make a considerable monetary contribution inform of a loan to help the struggling Euro zone member states. Another factor that is seen to critically be impacting the European union’s power distribution is seen to be the growing Euroscepticism. Although Euroscepticism was at first considered to be a British concern, recent studies have revealed that trust in the various EU projects has drastically fallen more drastically that its growth rate across the Union’s different member countries. Current results show that the four largest Euro zone countries have now superseded the United Kingdom to now have far lower levels of trust in the various EU institutions (Leonard, 2013). The threat of growing Euroscepticism can eventually cause the EU to lose more of its power as states assume this power. Conclusion While the arguments over the power of the European Union are relatively hard to make, it can generally be seen that although the initial power in the Union was mostly concentrated in its various institutions, this trend is currently in reversal as various EU member states now assume increasingly more power and control over the Union. The enactment of a number of different treaties such as the Lisbon Treaty have been seen to further shift the union’s driving power from a supranationalist to a more intergovernmentalist approach (Cunha, 2008). This has subsequently resulted in the power to essentially moving from the Union’s various institutions and into the hands of its member states. Of note however, is that that although the power within the Union is gradually shifting to the member states, there exists some large discrepancies in its distribution as although the Union’s smaller members are more Numerous, they are nevertheless overlook as the larger and stronger member states continue to wield their power which helps them to drive and influence the Union’s affairs. Recent events such as the Euro zone crisis, the international monetary recession as well as the rapidly increasing Euroscepticism are also seen to lend credence and further confirm that “Despite the Extensive Advances in the Integration of the European Union, the Member States are Seen to Remain in the Driving Seat.” Bibliography Arestis Philip and Sawyer Malcolm. 2012. The Euro crisis. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York, NY : Palgrave Macmillan. 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