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Shaping European Union: the European Parliament and Institutional Reform, 1979-1989

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Shaping European Union: the European Parliament and Institutional Reform, 1979-1989 Shaping European Union: The European Parliament and Institutional Reform, 1979-1989 European Parliament History Series STUDY EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service Wolfram Kaiser PE 630.271 – November 2018 EN Shaping European Union: The European Parliament and Institutional Reform, 1979-1989 Wolfram Kaiser Based on a large range of newly accessible archival sources, this study explores the European Parliament’s policies on the institutional reform of the European Communities between 1979 and 1989. It demonstrates how the Parliament fulfilled key functions in the process of constitutionalization of the present-day European Union. These functions included defining a set of criteria for effective and democratic governance, developing legal concepts such as subsidiarity, and pressurising the Member States into accepting greater institutional deepening and more powers for the Parliament in the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty. EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service AUTHOR This study has been written by Professor Dr Wolfram Kaiser of the University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom, at the request of the Historical Archives Unit of the DIrectorate for the Library within the Directorate-General for Parliamentary Research Services (EPRS) of the Secretariat of the European Parliament. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author would like to thank Christian Salm for his helpful comments on earlier drafts of this study and Etienne Deschamps for his support in finding suitable illustrations for the text. ADMINISTRATOR RESPONSIBLE Christian Salm, Historical Archives Unit To contact the publisher, please e-mail [email protected] LINGUISTIC VERSIONS Original: EN Manuscript completed in September 2018. DISCLAIMER AND COPYRIGHT This document is prepared for, and addressed to, the Members and staff of the European Parliament as background material to assist them in their parliamentary work. The content of the document is the sole responsibility of its author(s) and any opinions expressed herein should not be taken to represent an official position of the Parliament. Reproduction and translation for non-commercial purposes are authorised, provided the source is acknowledged and the European Parliament is given prior notice and sent a copy. Brussels © European Union, 2018. Photo credits: European Union – Audiovisual Archives of the European Parliament. PE 630.271 ISBN: 978-92-846-3461-3 DOI:10.2861/582654 QA-04-18-957-EN-N [email protected] http://www.eprs.ep.parl.union.eu (intranet) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank (internet) http://epthinktank.eu (blog) Shaping European Union: The European Parliament and Institutional Reform, 1979-1989 Executive summary This study explores the European Parliament’s policies on the institutional reform of the then European Communities (EC) between 1979 and 1989. Alongside contemporary literature, European Parliament (EP) documents and media reports, it also draws extensively on primary sources from the archives of the EP, the European Commission, the Council and political groups including the socialists, Christian democrats and liberals, as well as interviews with eyewitnesses. The study demonstrates how the EP sought to use its limited powers to extract procedural concessions from the Commission and the Council. It quickly became clear, however, that the policy of ‘small steps’ in trying to change institutional rules and practices within the scope of the EEC Treaty were inadequate for achieving the EP’s larger vision of a Community with much more efficient and democratic decision-making structures. The EP’s debate about institutional reform mattered in several ways. Internally, it accelerated the professionalisation of the work of the political groups and committees. It also fostered the cohesion of the major political groups which did not want to be seen as disunited on the future of the EC. Moreover, the EP and the political groups realised the extent to which EC matters were becoming issues of domestic politics, and the necessity to latch institutional demands on to policy integration to achieve substantial reforms. The EP’s constitutional activism also impacted on external dynamics in the form of the evolving inter- institutional relations in the EC. They concerned relations with national parliaments; the need to demonstrate to the Commission how much it depended on the EP for its own institutional legitimacy; and the often tense relations with the Member States. EP activism also impacted on the process of EC constitutionalisation itself. The 1984 Draft Treaty on European Union (DTEU) strengthened the existing ideological trajectory and created ideational path- dependencies. The DTEU also contained some constitutional innovations, such as the possibility of sanctions against Member States that persistently violated conditions of membership such as human rights and the rule of law – a constitutional idea that eventually found its way into the EU’s Treaty framework. Through its wide-ranging networking and its ‘democratic deficit’ discourse the EP actively trapped the national governments rhetorically and forced them to recognise just how out of line the EC institutional set-up and practices were with established national parliamentary systems and practices – a strategy that contributed significantly to the Treaty changes in the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty. I EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service II Shaping European Union: The European Parliament and Institutional Reform, 1979-1989 Table of contents 1. Introduction ___________________________________________________________________ 1 2. Shaping constitutional ideas and discourse in the European Communities ______________ 9 Chapter 1: European Constituent Assembly? Towards the Spinelli Report, 1979-82 ____________ 9 Chapter 2: Shaping constitutionalization: the Draft Treaty on European Union, 1982-1984 _____ 24 Chapter 3: Running out of patience: Towards the Single European Act and beyond, 1984-1989 _ 37 3. Internal dynamics: Actors in the European Parliament ______________________________52 Chapter 1: What 'finalité politique'? Political groups pushing for constitutional reform ________ 52 Chapter 2: Constitution-building: Spinelli and the Institutional Affairs Committee ____________ 62 4. External dynamics: The European Parliament as a networking institution _____________70 Chapter 1: What kind of relationship? Working with national parties and parliaments _________ 70 Chapter 2: 'Pretext for doing nothing'? Cooperating and competing with the Commission _____ 77 Chapter 3: Threatening a multi-speed Europe: Working against reluctant member states ______ 84 5. Conclusion ____________________________________________________________________90 Interviews ______________________________________________________________________ 95 Archives _______________________________________________________________________ 96 Bibliography ____________________________________________________________________ 97 III EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service Abbreviations CAP Common Agricultural Policy CD Group Christian Democratic Group CDU Christian Democratic Union COSAC Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliaments of the European Union CSU Christian Social Union DC Democrazia Cristiana DTEU Draft Treaty on European Union EC European Communities/Community ECJ European Court of Justice ECSC European Coal and Steel Community EDC European Defence Community EDG European Democratic Group EEC European Economic Community EFTA European Free Trade Association ELD European Liberal and Democratic Group EMS European Monetary System EP European Parliament EPC European Political Community EPC European Political Cooperation EPP European People's Party EU European Union IGC Intergovernmental Conference MEP Member of the European Parliament PS Parti Socialiste SEA Single European Act IV Shaping European Union: The European Parliament and Institutional Reform, 1979-1989 1. Introduction Institutions matter. They are not politically neutral. In democracies they shape how power and resources within a society are distributed. They 'influence perceptions, structure, information channels, help to legitimize decisions and stabilize norms about wanted and unwanted behaviour'.1 They also provide the legal tools for the making of policies that matter to citizens in their everyday lives. This is true for the present-day European Union (EU) as much as for the political systems of its member states, or, for that matter, democracies elsewhere. Major changes in the existing institutional set-up have potential, imagined or real, for changing power relations, shaping decision- making and producing alternative legal and political outcomes for salient issues. In September 1983, for example, Paddy Lalor, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Fianna Fail, the Irish nationalist political party allied to the French Gaullists in the European Parliament (EP), defied his group. While his colleagues abstained in an important vote on the EP's Draft Treaty on European Union (DTEU) in the making, he voted against for fear that such major constitutional change would bring abortion to the Republic of Ireland through the back door of European integration.2 Institutions and proposals for institutional reform are intimately connected, therefore, to particular visions of a constitutional order or to concrete interests regarding particular policy issues. Even stable democratic systems with strong consensus on core constitutional
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