WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE EU FROM A DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVE?
Judith Keller*
In Western Europe there has been a growing discussion of issues that emerged as problems of the integration process of the EU. The most popular and common pieces of criticism on the EU derive from traditional political thinking, such as the problem of the lack of the EU’s popular legitimacy, and related to this an all-pervasive democratic deficit as well as a policy gridlock where too many actors have multiple veto rights paralyzing decision-making and the institutional system.
In Central European new member states this discussion has been rather limited until recently; the only critical remarks were the tools used by right-wing politicians to raise issues of national sovereignty. This is not without reason. In these countries through the 1990s EU accession had meant the ultimate goal of socio-economic modernization and democratization. The two things that central Europeans expected from EU accession was an increase in their living standards and in civil control of policy-making and politics; i.e. democratization and development. The experience of the last seven years especially in Central European new member states, however, has indicated a completely different reality. It seems that something has gone utterly wrong with the EU from the perspective of the original goal of EU integration.
At origin, the core idea of European integration was the idea of even development and modernization of member states through the achievement of social cohesion and economic convergence. EU regional and cohesion policy was called forth and designed precisely to accompany the construction of an integrated single European market and ease externally driven economic and social change while reducing economic and social disparities within the EU. Over the years it has gradually been associated with a growing number of broader EU objectives, such as economic growth, competitiveness, employment, sustainable development, subsidiarity, regionalism, and good governance, including the participation of civil society (Allen 2005, 213). As Stefano Bartolini has put it, “EU policies have, since the 1980’s, created new legal and material opportunity structures for subnational territories and government. In particular, the EU (a) has made available access to extra-national material resources; (b) has created new legal frameworks and institutions for subnational governments’ action; (c) has fostered a transborder mobilization of the latter; and (d) has fostered new local force reactions and coalitions.” (Bartolini 2005, 257) Many argue that this 1990’s version of the EU’s regional policy regime served as a template for a “higher order governance arrangement” (Herrigel, 2004) that can make developmental policy more inclusive. Often referred to as multi-level governance or networked governance, it was based on the principles of distributed authority in defining the goals and means of development, integration implying policy coordination across levels and branches of government and partnership referring to the inclusion of sub-national and non-state actors in the definition and implementation of developmental goals.
Throughout the first half of the accession negotiations EU incentives were used to encourage new forms of governance, power dispersion and political accountability in the would-be new member states, especially in regional development policy. In the early 2000’s, in the period prior to the accession the Commission has changed its priorities and used its leverage towards the would be new member countries to push them towards more hierarchical mode of governance (Bruszt, 2002; Hughes et al.2004). In the first period, the Commission stressed the need of creating sub-national endogenous problem-solving capacity with a focus on increasing the competence of sub-national and non-state actors to make and implement developmental policies. In the second period the Commission stressed the weakness of national and sub-national administrative capacities to manage and ‘absorb’ EU moneys and pushed the applicant countries towards centralized management (Hughes et al.2004). As a result, CEE new members have applied a “flattened” version of multi level governance for the first planning period; i.e. developmental goals and means were defined primarily by the central state excluding sub-national and non-state actors from the decision making.
Unfortunately, the EU regulations for the next 2007-2013 planning period seem to have strengthened these tendencies, making the original organizing principles of the EU’s developmental policy even less palpable. Moreover, it seems that Structural Funds regulations have ultimately turned to output related capacities that rather hinder Structural Funds be effective instruments of significant socio-economic transformation and to foster new forms of distributed governance in member states. The emphasis on absorption capacity and rates instead of genuine socio-economic development not only hinders innovative policy approaches and modernization but also seem to have provided leverage to actors that already have significant resources at their disposal. In other words, technocratisation and efficiency seem to be leading to the empowerment of those actors that already possess critical resources to benefit from opportunities provided by the Structural Funds. This naturally goes against the original goals of the EU’s cohesion policy, since it increases socio-economic disparities within member states and across the Union. In CEEs, the lack of strategic dimension and the focus on absorption not only reduces the EU’s cohesion policy to the level of a simple money transfer but also strengthens incumbents at the level of the central state to pursue traditional, hierarchical and exclusionary forms of governance where the definition of developmental goals and means can easily be usurped by politico-economic elites.
References:
Herrigel, Gary (2004) Space and Governance in New Old Economy Manufacturing Industries. SECONS Discussion Forum, Contribution No. 7. Socio-economic of Space, Iniversity of Bonn.
Hughes, James and Gwnedolyn Sasse, Calire Gordon (2004) EU Enlargement, Europeanization and the Dynamics f Regionalistaion in the CEECs. The Regional Challenge in Central and Eastern Europe: Territorial Restructuring and European Integration. 2003.
Bruszt, Laszló (2002) “Making Markets and Eastern Enlargement:Diverging Convergence?” in Peter Mair and Jan Zielonka (eds) The Enalrged European Union: Dievrsity and Adaptation. Frank Cass: London, Portland, 121-141.
*Judith is completing her PhD research studies on regional associational strategies and regional development at the European University Institute in Florence
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