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The Economic and Social Committee in EEC decision making

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Juliet Lodge  and
Valentine Herman
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Extract

Neo-functionalism ascribes a dynamic role to interest groups in the process of integrating pluralist communities. By participating in the policymaking process, interest groups are expected to develop a stake in promoting further integration in order to acquire economic payoffs and additional benefits from maintaining and stimulating the organization through which certain demands can be articulated and goals attained. This implies that in the integration process interest groups have an instrumental role to play in the maintenance of the system; and that by virtue of their participation in the policy-making process of an integrating community they will “learn” about the rewards of such involvement and undergo attitudinal changes inclining them favorably towards the system. Thus, they acquire an interest in seeing the system's perpetuation, and the policy and decision makers acquire an interest in being responsive to interest groups' demands. What is implied overall is that actors' loyalties will shift towards those decision makers in the systems best able to reward them.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , Spring 1980 , pp. 265 - 284
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1980

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References

1 See Haas, E. B., The Uniting of Europe: Political, Social and Economic Forces, 1950–57 (Stanford, Ca.: Stanford University Press, 1958)Google Scholar; Lindberg, L. N., The Political Dynamics of European Economic Integration (Stanford, Ca.: Stanford University Press, 1963)Google Scholar; and Lindberg, L. N. and Scheingold, S. A., Europe's Would-Be Polity(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1970)Google Scholar. On the limitations of neo-functionalism see Nye, J. S., “Comparing Common Markets: A Revised Neofunctionalist Model,” in Regional Integration: Theory and Research, Lindberg, L. N. and Scheingold, S. A., eds. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971)Google Scholar, and Haas, E. B., The Obsolescence of Regional Integration Theory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975)Google Scholar.

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3 Haas, E. B., “The Study of Regional Integration: Reflections on the Joy and Anguish of Pretheorizing,” in Regional Integration: Theory and Research, p. 19Google Scholar. For a critique of the notion of “learning process” see Lodge, J., “Towards a Human Union: EEC Social Policy and European ntegration,” British Journal of International Studies 4 (1978): 107–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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7 Haas, E. B., “The Study of Regional Integration,” p. 29Google Scholar.

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11 See Lindberg, L. N., The Political Dynamics of European Economic Integration, p. 10Google Scholar.

12 The ESC admits as much. See ESC Annual Report (1976), p. 27Google Scholar. Also see Palmer, M. and Lambert, J. et al. , European Unity (London: Allen & Unwin, 1969), pp. [185–87Google Scholar, Robertson, A. H., European Institutions (London: Stevens & Sons Ltd., 1973), pp. 195–96Google Scholar; and one of the only studies of the ESC (a mimeo) by Bernard, N., Laval, C., and Nys, A., Le Comité Economique et Social (Brussels: Brussels University Press, 1972)Google Scholar.

13 The forerunner of the ESC was the 51-member Consultative Committee of the European Coal and Steel Community set up to represent the interests of producers, consumers, and dealers within the coal and steel industry. In 1976 the Consultative Committee held seven meetings and passed seven resolutions.

14 We have drawn on several reports and documents of the ESC in the preparation of this paper, especially the Annual Reports of the Committee 1973–1977Google Scholar, the Twentieth Anniversary of the ESC (May 1978), and The Right of Initiative of the ESC (October 1977).

15 Document CES:4F/58, Appendix 4.

16 Ibid.

17 See Herman, V. and Lodge, J., The European Parliament and the European Community (London and New York: Macmillan and St. Martin's Press, 1978), pp. 1–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 The ESC now has 144 members: twenty-four from each of the four largest member states, twelve from both the Netherlands and Belgium, nine from both Ireland and Denmark, and six from Luxembourg.

19 Somewhat paradoxically perhaps in view of British Labour Party boycotts of the European Parliament and ESC until the 1975 referendum, in recent years Britain has appointed well-known union leaders to the ESC. Even so, their work in the ESC is not well publicized.

20 The Tripartite Conference, which has met regularly since 1975, is a forum for exchanging views between the economic partners. Representatives of the key supranational employer, employee, and social interest groups attend. The Commission and Council are represented by one of their number and the Tripartite Conference is attended by a member of the ESC's Secretariat, although the ESC has no formal corporate representation as such. The interest groups report back to the ESC, however.

21 Article 198 (2) of the EEC Treaty reads: “The Council or the Commission shall, if it considers it necessary, set the Committee, for the submission of its opinion, a time limit which may not be less than ten days from the date which the chairman receives notice to this effect. Upon expiry ofthe time limit, the absence of an opinion shall not prevent further action.”

22 Genton, J., Représentation et influence des operateurs économiques dans la Communauté Européenne (Brussels: Free University Press, 1965), p. 34Google Scholar.

23 See memo from the Council of Ministers' Secretary-General to the ESC, 28 April 1965.

24 On the importance of the October 1972 EEC summit of Heads of Government and State, see Lodge, J., “Toward the European Political Community: EEC Summits and European Integration,” Orbis 19 (1975): 626–51Google Scholar.

25 Paragraph 4 of Article 20 of the ESC's Rules of Procedure empowers the Committee “to deliver, on its own initiative, opinions on any questions pertaining to the tasks assigned to the Communities.”

26 Zellentin, G., Formen der Willensbildung in den Europäischen Organisationen (Cologne: Athenaum Verlag, 1965), p. 105Google Scholar.

27 Until 1967, there were three Communities: the European Coal and Steel Community, the European Economic Community, and the European Atomic Energy Community. For the sake of clarity, we refer to the EEC.

28 Weil, G. L., The Benelux Nations: The Politics of Small-Country Democracies (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1970), p. 119Google Scholar.

29 ESC Annual Report 1976, Annex C and p. 27Google Scholar.

30 Ibid., 1976 and 1977, pp. 42–47 and 48–53 respectively.

31 ESC Document R/CES 628/77, pp. 69–72.

32 Michelman, H. J., Organizational Effectiveness in a Multinational Bureaucracy, (Farnborough: Saxon House, 1978), p. 35Google Scholar.

33 See Lodge, J., “Members of the House of Commons and the European Parliament,” The Parliamentarian 59 (1978): 239–246Google Scholar.

34 In Eire the composition of the Seanad Eireaan is similar to that of other economic and social committees insofar as candidates for election are members of five panels nominated by bodies representing (i) education and culture, (ii) agriculture, (iii) industry and commerce, (iv) labor, and (v) public administration and the social services. While the Seanad gives a form of vocational representation, political considerations predominate, and analogies with economic and social committees are misleading. (We are indebted to Arthur Aughey for pointing out parallels). Similarly, Britain, despite the National Economic and Development Committee, and specialized committees, lacks a parallel economic and social body. In the Federal Republic of Germany, even the Länder have disbanded their analogous bodies.

35 Ehrmann, H. W., Politics in France (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1971), p. 297Google Scholar.

36 Bernard, N., Laval, C. and Nys, A., Le Comité Economique et Social, p. 13Google Scholar.

37 Mortati, C., Instituzioni di Diritto Pubblico, Vol. II (Padova: Cedam, 1969), pp. 551 ff.Google Scholar

38 See Hayward, J. E. S., Private Interests and Public Policy: The Experience of the French Economic Council (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1966), pp. 36–50Google Scholar.

39 Thomas, H., op. cit., p. 26Google Scholar.

40 See Lodge, J., “Direct Elections to the European Parliament: Toward a Federal Community?,” Co-operation and Conflict 13 (1978): 215–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 Averyt, W., Agropolitics in the European Community (New York: Praeger, 1977)Google Scholar; Kerr, H. H. Jr, “Changing Attitudes through International Participation: European Parliamentarians and Integration,” International Organization 27 (1973): 45–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mennis, B. and Sauvant, K. P., “Describing and Explaining Support for Regional Integration: An Investigation of German Business Elite Attitudes toward the European Community,” International Organization 29 (1975): 973–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Averyt, W., “Eurogroups, Clientela and the European Community,” International Organization 29 (1975): 949–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 See Lodge, J., “Citizens and the EEC: The Role of the European Parliament,” The Parliamentarian 58 (1977): 176–81Google Scholar.

43 See Ferranti, , Preface to the ESC Annual Report 1976, op. cit., p. 6Google Scholar.

44 For a listing of the non-governmental associations set up at the EEC level concerning agriculture, industry, crafts, trade, services, the liberal professions, trade unions and consumer groups, see Economic Communities Yearbook 1977, pp. 361–403. There are approximately 1200 committees, subcommittees, and working parties within the institutions of the EEC. See Comités et groupes de travail fonclionnant au sein des Communautés Européennes (IX/1563/75, updated to 1977).

45 For example, the Commission consults COPA at the preparatory stage of the annual price review. The Commission has also always insisted that supranationally organized groups shall have ready access to its officials. See also Caporaso, J. A., The Structure and Function of European Integration (Pacific Palisades, Ca.: Goodyear Publishing Co., 1974), p. 41–42Google Scholar.

46 See too, European Union, Report by MrTindemans, (Brussels, 1975)Google Scholar; and Report on European Union, Commission of the EC, in Bulletin of the European Communities, Supplement 5/75.

47 ESC, “European Union” (Brussels, 1975)Google Scholar, Appendix 1, “Opinion of the ESC on the place and role of the ESC in the institutional machinery of the Communities in the context of a possible evolution thereof.”

48 Although the sessions of the ESC are not public—unless declared so by a special decision of the Committee—observers can be admitted at the request of workers' and employers' organizations.

49 ESC, “European Union,” op. cit.

50 See Ehrmann, op. cit., and J. E. S. Hayward, op. cit.

51 Caporaso, , op. cit., p. 41Google Scholar.

52 See the statement by Commission President Roy Jenkins to the European Parliament, Debates of the European Parliament, 11 January 1977.