Looking Forward or Harking Back? The Commission and the Reform of Governance in the European Union

Abstract

The White Paper on European Governance can be seen as a bid to make a major contribution to the strategic leadership of the Union. By centring its deliberations and proposals on the concept of 'governance', the Commission signalled an intention to explore the limits of conventional hierarchical law and policy, and propose alternatives. Yet the White Paper concludes that a renewed and reinvigorated 'Community method' should be at the heart of EU policy-making, with the Commission itself playing an enhanced role. Moreover, the paper criticizes the Member States and 'intergovernmental' institutions, rather than the Commission itself. These features are neither good politics nor a full response to the questions raised by the White Paper or set for it by Prodi. Enlargement and the increased importance of the issues of (re)distribution and related emergence of new modes of governance, such as the open method of co-ordination, pose challenges and provide opportunities for the Commission and the Union more generally. A White Paper that was both more modest and self-confident about the part to be played by the Commission might have made a more important intervention in current debate.

Greening the European Union for legitimacy? A cautionary reading ofEurope 2020

“…19. The Commission's tendency to use perceived moments of crisis in the integration project to put forward its own agenda is well established by scholars Á see Wincott (2001). It is also clear in the plea for 'more Europe' Á specifically the deepening of the single market Á that is the heart of Europe 2020 (pp.…”

The Withering of the Welfare State

“…However, the understanding of civil society was narrow in that it equated this with a certain type of organised citizen -the transnational NGO (Magnette, 2003). The proposals made by the White Paper were treated with a great deal of scepticism (Wincott, 2001;Armstrong, 2002), earlier research having demonstrated that such organisations often lacked the capacity and/or the willingness to engage in this type of activity at the European level (Warleigh, 2001), instead understanding their role in terms of lobbying the EU institutions rather than engaging in political socialisation of citizens in the member states.…”

Developing Multilateral Surveillance Tools in the EU

“…a policy tool 'European' enough to address the incentives to act, and 'national' enough to prevent a shift of competences from the national to the EU level. The result of this search was the OMC, an instrument that -in its developed form -allows for: i) the setting in place of a coherent framework to discuss employment concerns at the EU level and 898 R. De Ruiter generate solutions that are less vulnerable to the legal and economic challenges of EMU (Scharpf 2002: 653); ii) agreeing to disagree on the best approach to the unemployment problem (Scha¨fer 2004;Meyer 2005: 140;Pochet 2005: 58); iii) while preventing institutional and policy reforms from transforming the position of member states in ways that are undesired (Chalmers and Lodge 2003: 17;Wincott 2001).…”