The EU as a continent wide political entity : external "normative actor" and internal "normative power"
What does the theory say about continent
wide political entities? To what extend do those theories apply to the European
Union? And what do they tell us about the role of the European Union on the
world scene? Two contemporary French political geographers may provide some
useful starting points for the discussion.
1) Continental entities as global
players
Rather that speaking of "control",
Jacques Levy distinguishes three levels of spatial organisation in every
political entity [1]:
-
the strategic level ;
-
the civilian level (norms, administrative organisation, public services)
;
- the democratic level (legitimacy
institutions: churches, parties, trade unions).
This distinction by Jacques Levy may help
to understand the specific constraints of large, continent wide political
entities.
Usually large political entities have
strategic difficulties to secure their vast territory and long borders against
all internal and external potential threats.
They find it difficult to ensure an even
level of service and control throughout their territory.
They have to find ways to accommodate into
a single system many local interests, identities and diverging economic
priorities resulting of heterogeneous economic clusters within their territory.
This explains the specific role of the
military, the focus of infrastructures, and the usually federal organisation of
government.
A certain sense of un-security, limited
resources available at central level, and constant internal divisions, make
continent wide political entities often oscillate between expansion, isolation,
and risks of destabilisation from within.
In one word, they have good reasons to qualify
for being 'difficult' players in the international system.
Paul Claval returns to the weberian
distinction between power and authority.
He helps to understand why bigger
continental wide-entities can survive and succeed.
If mere
power is difficult to keep and organise over time upon a continent, authority
can nonetheless be accepted on the basis of well established common rules - be
they written (institutions, laws) or resulting from a common material
civilization created by participation to a common economy and a common
information space. Self-enforcement of common rules at local level makes them
effective more than any kind of central control.
While
issues formally decided at central level remain limited and check and balances
organised in a way that dominance is prevented[2],
convergence happens at grass-root level through shared culture and economic
practices. Each local community, although having a strong identity, engages
itself in the respect of common basic principles and acts as a microcosm for
the whole[3].
There is
then no surprise if such political constructs- rather weak in the centre -
usually engage with caution in multilateralism as soon as it has a binding
dimension, rather favour self-determination for other nations, and hesitate
between projecting its own values beyond its borders or limiting itself to
pragmatic cooperation.
The
European Union, although not a federation, witnesses some of same difficulties
which continent wide political entities are usually facing:
- the
constant challenge to create and up-date continent wide infrastructures,
- the
relative scarcity of resources at central level,
-
difficulties in consensus building, institutional complexity,
But it
also possesses some of the assets of the most successful ones:
- a well
established common market,
- widely
acknowledged general principles,
-
elements of a material civilization derived from capitalism, industrialisation,
welfare state and consumerism,
- a
common wish by Members States and citizens to retain an influence on global
affairs.
2) Continental entities as external
"normative actors"
For more than a decade, the European Union
has indeed been asserting itself as a new or emerging normative foreign policy
actor, driven by self-declared principles. Some have said that the European
Union had not other choice but to turn to soft power. Some others considered on
the contrary that a rule and value based diplomacy as a signal of maturity in a
polycentric world in which cooperation is more likely to bring about changes
and deliver transformation than traditional power politics.
This more assertive role has been backed by
stronger institutional support since the Lisbon Treaty with the establishment
of the External Action Service. It has grown in a time when the US themselves
have tried to increase their soft power and "lead from behind". In
the same moment, Russia, China and India have also increasingly developed into
assertive actors on the global stage and have claimed to be driven by a
normative agenda"[4]
If the European Union is to be an effective
normative actor, the challenges seem to be clear-cut:
- "singing the same song" if not
by one voice. This is a field in which fine tuned polyphony has to be
priviledged over the "creative cacophonia" described by Kalipso
Nicolaïdis and the Gonzales' Report as the rule within the Union.
- gaining one seat in as many normative
fora as possible[5],
- being able to back one's word with some
leverage (aid, sanction, coercition),
- establishing a effective cooperation with
other normative actors and standard setters, and - in some cases - normative
alliances.
But "having a common position and
sustaining common values will not be sufficient for the European Union to be
considered a global actor. If the European Union is to be a pole in the global
system, it needs a capacity to deliver more or less in line with the capacity
of other large continent-wide political entities"[6].
3) Continent wide political entities as internal
normative powers
What is the value added of those large political entities for
global relations?
- They are able to implement and enforce
commitments made to third parties over vast territories and large populations.
- They are able to pool together
significant resources at central level in order to face unexpected
circumstances.
- Due to this and due to the size of their
economy, they are able to provide substantial aid and meaningful sanctions
- Usually they act as monetary entities
will full-fledged monetary institutions.
This is how continent wide entities reduce
the complexity of the global economy.
The "Hobbesian" institutional
capacity to ensure implementation of treaties, agreements, standards - in one
word the internal normative power - are here
more important than the external normative activity.
To be considered a serious partner in the
global multi-polar setting, the capacity to deliver on commitments and to apply
one's own common rule consistently over time is the first credibility test, not
only for fellow States in the international system, but also for investors,
migrants, NGOs...
In that regard, the European Union, with
its impressive "acquis communautaire" soon implemented in 28 Member
States, and even beyond through neighbourhood arrangements and accession
negotiations, is clearly performing one of the key function of a continental
political entity. One may even wonder if the European Union is not performing
this Hobbesian function to have rules implemented better than other fully fledged political federations.
Brazil
|
Canada
|
India
|
E.U.
|
U.S.
|
|
Free flow of goods
|
Tax on interstate
trade (7% or 12%
depending on the
destination).
To be harmonized as of
2013.
|
Interprovincial non-tariff trade
barriers on a few products
(e.g. dairy and agricultural
products, alcohol).
|
• Constitutionally,
a State is allowed to
impose restrictions on the flow of
trade
• Tariffs
across states
• Non-harmonized
Standards
|
Mutual
recognition of national rules
|
|
Free flow of services
|
Strong regulations on
professional services
Public procurements
|
• Administrative
burden
• Some
regulations on professional Services
|
Some regulations on
professional services
|
||
Free flow of people
|
Non-mutual recognition of certain
professional qualifications across provinces
|
• Constitutionally,
a State is allowed to impose such restrictions on the flow of people
• Some
labour market rigidities hampering
labour force mobility
|
Schengen area
|
||
Free flow of capital
|
Free flows
across states, but not at the international
level.
|
Free flows across
states but controls on FDI re-introduced since 2007.
|
|||
Monetary integration
|
Euro area
|
||||
Fiscal integration
|
|||||
Political integration
|
Separatist provinces
|
Table
1:
Level of integration and openness of continent wide political entities
Source:
Preparing for Complexity, the European Parliament in 2025, Brussels, European Parliament, March
2013
The internal normative power of the
European Union is certainly its key asset in the traditional American vision.
The European Union is granted to bring "stability" to the continent
and to provide a secure, reliable and largely predictable environment for
American investors.
Addressing internal blind spots first
If the European Union entity is de facto playing the role of the continent wide political entity of Western
and Central Europe and having there the internal "normative power"
over 500 millions consumers and workers, then its international credibility as
a global actor can be separated from internal organisational issues. Investing
in solving those issues may do more for restoring the lustre of European Union
on the world scene that just an assertive and value based diplomacy.
1. Institutions matter not only for us but also for the rest of the world: the capacity of
the European Union to retain cohesiveness, to minimize the number of
exemptions, to decide and implement swiftly is not only essential for us but
also for our global partners. It is not enough to recall the rule of law as a
general principle of EU's action in the world. We are to deliver internally.
The expected result calls stable and predictable rules, implemented throughout
the Union in a consistent fashion.
The generalisation of opt-outs, exemptions,
enhanced cooperation would on the contrary weaken the role of the European
Union as the normative hub of Western and Central Europe and weaken the
interest of third parties to deal with Europeans at that level.
The quality of internal arrangements around
decision-making is a pre-requisite for external credibility and influence.
The subsidiarity and proportionality
principles, the double-check on the European Commission by Member States and
pan-European political forces represented in the European Parliament, the whole
mechanism of "comitologie", are not byzantine innovations that just
end up slowing down the decision making process at European level. They are
instruments here to facilitate the building of acceptable compromises that can
be brought to effective implementation.
Keeping decision taken at European level
legitimate for the majority of citizens is by no means a peripheral challenge
for the Union's role in the world.
The new citizen initiative, a more
politicized European elections, representatives closer to citizens and shorter
budget cycles may be part of the answer. The establishment of a direct link
between citizens and the European Commission President that may result from a
new type of European election campaign with lead candidates presented by
pan-European political forces. This new linkage is in line with the requirement
of traditional "conservative" political theories which claim that
legitimacy is to be attached to the leaders more than to the rules and
processes of the political system, as this has been recalled to us by professor
Seminatore.
2. A solid 26 Members (or more) EMU remains one of the achievements expected from the European Union as
a pole in the global economy. The divide between EMU and non EMU member states
within the Union is accepted as a transition process not as a structural
permanent split. This is the reason why, to my opinion, future EMU members have
to be associated as fully and as early as possible to decisions taken on the
common currency.
3. The pooling of resources at central level to face the
unexpected remains the weak point of the European Union as a continental
political entity and will have to be addressed at a point[7].
Progress may be on the way in the monetary
field with the creation of rescue funds and financial backstops. But even there
things remain fragile.
There is no serious pooling of resources in
the field of transport, energy infrastructure or digital infrastructure.
There is no serious pooling of resources in
the field of defence or defence industry. On the contrary, what seems to occur
seems to be renationalisation and globalisation, which increases the dependency
ratio for most of the Member States.
If the mutualisation of Member States'
resources together with a central additional European Union dimension is likely
to remain adequate in the field of diplomacy, the normative power inside the
Union, which is the key to international credibility, has to rely on much more
robust institutions that allows stronger discipline based on decisions taken in
a more democratic fashion. The institutional instruments for external normative
action and those required for internal normative power should not be necessary
aligned. One size does not fit all.
F.D.
[1] Jacques Levy, " Contrôle : un concept
incontrôlé ? Pouvoir, espace et société " in Hervé Théry, L'Etat et les
stratégies du territoire, Paris,
CNRS, 1991
[2] See also Sergio
Fabbrini, Compound Democracies: Why the United States and Europe Are
Becoming Similar, USA,
Oxford University Press, 2010.
[3] Paul Claval, Espace et
pouvoir, Paris,
PUF, 1978 et La Conquête De L'espace Américain - Du Mayflower Au Disneyworld,
Paris, Flammarion, 1990
[4] Nathalie Tocci (ed.), Who is a Normative Foreign Policy Actor ?
The European Union and its Global Partners,
Bruxelles, CEPS, 2008
[6] Preparing for Complexity. European
Parliament in 2025. Going global, going local, going digital. Final Report by the Secretary-General, Brussels : European
Parliament, April 2013
