European Union´s Institutional Reform Options and Their Impact to a Small Member State: The Case of Estonia

Viljar Veebel

doi:10.5539/jpl.v7n3p47

Abstract

Complications with decisive decision-making and policy implementation during the European financial crisis have initiated the debate on necessity of the European institutional and legal reforms in upcoming years to avoid similar complications in the future. The list of problems to be fixed is long: the lack of transparency in terms of member states’ joint obligations, insufficient scrutiny, an absence of clear norms and convincing sanctions, and the inability of the central institutions to regain control over member state violations of the Eurozone criteria are some examples of problems to be solved with planned reforms. The visions of solutions are also different, varying from the federal union, to the “stakeholders” union inspired by the IMF model, but also a simplification and reparation of the current community model is seen as one possible option. Which would be the legal, institutional and fiscal effects of planned institutional reforms and how they influence existing decision-making logic and balance from the perspective of small member states are the main research questions of this article.

Highlights

The hope and illusion that the European integration is a well-built mechanism, leading seamlessly to economic welfare and to political harmony, has been lost and cast away in recent years of financial crisis and institutional fights (Barroso 2012; Cameron 2013, 1)
Which are the problems to overcome, which are possible reform scenarios and which should be the position of small Member States – such as Estonia – in this reform process? What is there to be gained or lost in case of different options and scenarios? How, will institutional reforms impact European Unions economic and financial problems?
In 2014, the EU finds itself in a situation, where the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) – institutions created to halt the financial crisis and secure financial stability in the future – share the values of neither the present European Union nor of the debated federal Europe, they were invoked as if to save the EU today, start building a federation and legitimized on the integration mandate given by citizens in past referenda

Summary

Introduction

The hope and illusion that the European integration is a well-built mechanism, leading seamlessly to economic welfare and to political harmony, has been lost and cast away in recent years of financial crisis and institutional fights (Barroso 2012; Cameron 2013, 1). In process of debate and scenario selection, there is no need to underestimate the critics to the federal model, functional model or stakeholders model, as they help to find potential weaknesses or bottlenecks and throughout the debate improve the end-result. This means that the national competence in assessing the developments of institutional reforms must increase among civil servants, academia, media and public. The main aim of the following study is to compare three main institutional reform scenarios of the European Union in terms of the applicability and impact to small Member States. The case of Estonia will be used in this analyze as example to illustrate the terms of debates, the choices and outcomes and possible differences between the most debated reform scenarios and to indicate the main dilemmas and questions

The First Option for the Institutional Reform

The Second Option for the Reform

Debate

Findings

Conclusions