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Domestic Politics and Regional Harmonization in the European Communities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Donald J. Puchala
Donald J. Puchala
Affiliation:
Columbia University, Columbia Institute on Western Europe
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Abstract

In an operational sense, European integration amounts to the transnational harmonization and standardization of diverse national laws, practices, and norms. Insight into the integrative process in Western Europe, therefore, can be gleaned by looking into problems encountered during attempts at transnational harmonization. Case studies of national attempts to implement EEC directives in the fields of regional aid, pharmaceutical marketing, investment control, and fiscal harmonization point up important interplays between regional harmonization and domestic politics. Evidence concerning the politics of regional implementation shows that the ability of an EEC country to contribute to European integration depends fundamentally upon its government's ability to act politically in its domestic arena.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , July 1975 , pp. 496 - 520
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1975

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References

1 Private conversation at the Commission of the European Communities, Brussels, September 17, 1971.

2 The literature on decision making in the European Communities is vast. Any inventory of this work would include Haas, Ernst, The Uniting of Europe (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1958)Google Scholar; Lindberg, Leon, The Political Dynamics of European Economic Integration (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1963)Google Scholar; Lindberg, Leon and Scheingold, Stuart, Europe's Would-Be Polity (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall 1970)Google Scholar; Gerbet, Pierre and Pepy, Daniel, eds., La décision dans les Communautés Européennes (Brussels: Presses Universitaires de Bruxelles 1969)Google Scholar; Coombes, David, Politics and Bureaucracy in the European Community (London: Allen and Unwin 1970)Google Scholar; Clark, W. Hartley, The Politics of the Common Market (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall 1967)Google Scholar; Alting von Geusau, Frans A.M., Beyond the European Community (Brussels: Heule Publishers 1968)Google Scholar; Caporaso, James, European Integration (Pacific Palisades, Calif.: Goodyear 1974)Google Scholar; Spinelli, Altiero, The Eurocrats (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press 1966)Google Scholar; Noël, Emile, Comment fontionnent les institutions de la Communauté Européenne (Paris: Bureau d'information des Communautés Européennes 1968)Google Scholar; Newhouse, John, Collision in Brussels (New York: Norton 1967)Google Scholar; Camps, Miriam, Britain and the European Community, 1955–1963 (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1964)Google Scholar; Camps, Miriam, European Unification in the Sixties (New York: McGraw-Hill 1966)Google Scholar; Pryce, Roy, The Politics of the European Community (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield 1973)Google Scholar; Hallstein, Walter, Europe in the Maying (New York: Norton 1972)Google Scholar; Mally, Gerhard, The European Community in Perspective (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath 1973)Google Scholar; Wallace, Helen, National Governments and the European Communities (London: Chatham House/PEP 1973)Google Scholar; Rosenthal, Glenda, The Men Behind the Decisions: Cases in European Policy-Making (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath 1975)Google Scholar.

3 For an introduction to technical aspects of rule enforcement in the European Communities, see Benoit Aubenas, “Quelques considerations sur les infractions contre les traités de Paris et de Rome,” Revue du Marché Commun, No. 127 (October 1969), 458–64.

4 Cf. Rosenthal (fn. 2), chap. 1 and passim.

5 A partial list of interviewees is attached as Appendix III to Puchala, “A Report to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Concerning Research Supported by a Travel and Maintenance Grant in 1971.”

6 Treaty Establishing the European Economic Community, Rome, 25 March 1957 (London: H.M.S.O. 1973), 38–39Google Scholar.

7 Ibid., 38.

8 Paul Romus, “L'Évolution économique régionale en Belgique depuis la creation du Marché Commun (1958–1968),” Revue du Marché Commun, No. 119 (January 1969), 19–40. Cf. also Agence Europe, No. 597, June 24, 1970, and Agence Europe, No. 849, July 14, 1971.

9 “Belgium to Modify Regional Aids,” European Community, No. 167 (June 1972),

10 Pierre Collet, “Qu'est-ce qui entrave le marché commun des médicaments?” Communauté Européenne, No. 127 (February 1969), 25–27. Cf. also “Commission Urges Common Market in Pharmaceuticals,” European Community, No. 145 (May 1971), 6.

11 Collet (fn. 10), 25–27.

12 Agence Europe, No. 309, April 8, 1969.

13 Agence Europe, No. 30, January 30, 1973.

14 Agence Europe, No. 309, April 8, 1969.

15 Journal Officiel de la République Française, January 29, 1966, p. 11621.

16 Van der Spek, Peter G., “The Outlook for Foreign Investment in the EEC,” Columbia Journal of World Business, vi (November-December 1971), 76–78Google Scholar; Hellman, Rainer, The Challenge to V.S. Dominance of the International Corporation (New York: Dunnelon Publishing Co. 1970)Google Scholar, 133.

17 Agence Europe, No. 2890, October 31,1967.

18 Agence Europe, No. 159, August 28,1968.

19 Substantiated during interviews in Brussels, December 1972.

20 “Commission Takes France to Court,” European Community, No. 129 (December 1969), 26.

21 Agence Europe, No. 753, February 24,1971.

22 In actuality, France continued to closely oversee foreign investment through the device of exchange controls. Cf. Van der Spek (fn. 16), 77.

23 European Communities, “The Value-Added Tax in the European Community,” Community Topics, No. 36 (London: European Communities Information Service 1970)Google Scholar.

24 Gianni Pasquarelli, “Perché L'l.G.E. Sarà Sostituita Dall’ I.V.A.,” Comunità Europee (August/September 1967), 13–16. Cf. also Agence Europe, No. 194, October 16, 1968.

25 Agence Europe, No. 409, September 18, 1969; No. 414, September 25, 1969; No. 416, September 29, 1969; No. 418, October 1, 1969; No. 430, October 17–18, 1969; No. 442, November 4, 1969.

26 Agence Europe, No. 409, September 18, 1969.

27 Corriere Delia Sera, “Tensione per l'IVA fra il MEC e l'Italia,” October 14, 1969, p. 6.

28 Agence Europe, No. 326, May 5, 1969.

29 Agence Europe, No. 682, November 9, 1970.

30 Agence Europe, No. 1007, March 16, 1972.

31 American Chamber of Commerce in Italy, “Introduction and Regulation of the Value Added Tax” (Rome: United States Embassy, March 1973). This publication presents an English translation of the full text of Delegated Decree No. 633 which formally instituted the VA T in Italy on January 1, 1973.

32 For a partial tabulation of infraction cases, see “Commission Reports on Violations,” European Community, No. 153 (February 1972), 5; Aubenas (fn. 3), 458 ff; and Nicola Fuiano, “L'execution des directives de la CEE en Italie,” Cahiers de Droit Européen, No. 6 (1971), 662–74.

33 Vaughn, William M., “Transnational Policy Programme Networks in the European Community: The Example of European Competition Policy,” Journal of Common Market Studies, xi (1972), 36–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 “Free Circulation of Pharmaceutical Products Within the EEC,” Common Market, No. 2 (1970), 29–30.

35 Agence Europe, No. 926, November 19, 1971; substantiated during interviews in the Italian Ministry of Finance and the Italian Foreign Ministry. Cf. also Times (London), October 21, 1971, p. 24Google Scholar.

36 Substantiated in interviews at the West German Delegation to the European Communities and with the Groupement Pharmaceutique de la Communauté Européenne.

37 Paul Romus (fn. 8), passim. Romus here presents a statistical breakdown of Belgian regional aid granted between 1959 and 1967. The near 55%-45% division in almost every category as between Flemish and Walloon districts hints rather strongly at the “political arithmetic” involved in regional aid decisions. Cf. also , Romus, La Wallonie dans la Communauté Européenne (Brussels: L'Université Libre de Bruxelles, L'Institut d'Études Européennes 1968)Google Scholar.

38 All of these points were substantiated and elaborated during interviews in Rome and Brussels. Additional documentation is to be found in Corriere Delia Sera, September 2, 1969; October 2, 1969; November 15, 1969; La Stampa, March 6, 1970; Times (London), April 16, 1971; October 21, 1971; Zariski, Raphael, Italy: The Politics of Uneven Development (Hinsdale, Ill.: Dryden Press 1972), 120Google Scholar.

39 Hellman presents a reliable inventory of forces ranged against bowing to the EEC on the investment issue. Cf. Hellman (fn. 16), 126–31. The French press provides further documentation: Le Monde, February 18, 1966; May 25, 1966; June 3, 1966; November 25, 1966; December 25/26, 1966.

40 Apparently by way of a direct telephone call from the Prime Minister of Belgium to the Commission Secretariat.

41 See, for example, the French attempt to change the question of infraction into a debate over the definition of a “European company.” Cf. Agence Europe, No. 159, August 28, 1968.

42 See, for example, Italy, with regard to the conditions that the Commission asked in exchange for granting postponement of the VAT. Cf. Agence Europe, No. 416, September 29, 1969.

43 For an elaboration of this model of the EEC as a multileveled system, see Peter Busch and Donald Puchala, “Interests, Influence, and Integration: Political Structure in the European Communities,” mimeo (forthcoming in published form, 1976).