European Negotiations Research Articles

Religion between Nation and Europe: The French and Belgian ‘No’ to the Christian Heritage of Europe

Religion has new salience in contemporary European politics, but its range and nature are still not properly understood. In contrast with most other member states, France and Belgium held a common position of refusal regarding any reference to the Christian heritage of Europe in the now defunct Constitutional Treaty. The two countries were however motivated by two different models of laïcité anchored in distinct socio-political historical paths: the French all-encompassing laïcité, supposing the neutrality of the public space; and the Belgian institutionalised laïcité, organising the pluralism of philosophical and confessional worldviews. The analysis addresses the dynamics of each national configuration in the wider perspective of the interactions between religion and politics today; the patterns of European negotiations; the effects of this issue on domestic politics and mobilisations of civil society. It concludes that religion in the integration process is a way of reformulating old symbolic resources and of coming to terms with identity and social adaptations, rather than a source of political cleavages.

Leading Negotiation Successfully on Behalf of Europe: Analysis of the European Commission High-Ranking Officials’ Practices

Continual negotiation is the method chosen by the European construction. The EC’s high-ranking officials play a key role as principals in the negotiation. Following around fifteen interviews and their analysis, a series of features emerge which favour the success of the European negotiators. The following text sums up twelve action keys centred on the three dimensions of negotiation: process, people, and problem

Leading Successful Negotiations on Behalf of Europe: An Analysis of the European Commission High-Ranking Officials’ Practices

Permanent dialogue, steered by continual negotiation, was the driving force behind the construction of Post-War Europe. In this context, the countries of the European Union have extended the mandate of the European Commission (EC) to negotiate an increasing number of topics, giving the EC’s high-ranking officials a pre-eminent role of agents in the process. It is, then, urgent and useful to investigate these negotiators’ practices, to list a number of recurrent features, and to compare them with current negotiation theories. In 2004, at the request of the EC, 15 in-depth interviews were conducted with high-ranking EC officials, from different directorates, in charge of top-level negotiations. An interview guide was drawn up to address the five following points:•the success factors in negotiation,•the reasons for failure,•the management of people, relationships, cultural aspects, the mandate, and the stakeholders’ map,•the management of substantive issues and their solutions, including the use of justification criteria,•the management of the process, agenda, multilateral mechanisms, and communication.Following the interviews, a report was submitted to the EC’s General Administration Directorate. The report highlights a number of features that may favour the success of European negotiators. In what follows, some keys to success are linked to three dimensions of negotiation: process, people, and problem.

EC Aviation Scene: Major Developments November 2006 - February 2007

This article gives an overview of important developments on the EU aviation scene between 1 November 2006 and 31 March 2007. In addition to the general overview (section 1), the following major developments will be covered in detail in sections 2 to 4: ? The EU/US Air Transport Agreement concluded by European and US negotiators on 2 March 2007 and adopted by the Council of EU Transport Ministers on 22 March 2007 (section 2); ? The airport package proposed by the European Commission (the Commission), including the proposed Directive on airport charges, the assessment of the impact of ground-handling liberalization and the Commission?s Communication on an action plan for airport capacity, efficiency and safety in Europe (section 3). In the discussion relating to the Communication, section 3 will also summarize the main findings of the November 2006 study by Mott MacDonald on the impact of secondary slot trading; and ? The Commission’s Consultation Paper on the possible revision of the CRS Code of Conduct (section 4).

Implications of the revision to the bathing water directive for local authorities in the Solent

This paper focuses on the revision to the Bathing Water Directive and its likely implications for local authorities in the United Kingdom. It outlines the proposal and its current status in European negotiation and the likely outcome. It then details the work the Solent Forum, in particular a subgroup that focuses on water quality, the Solent Water Quality Association, has done in relation to the proposed revision and their implications for coastal local authorities. Initially, this group considered what the implications for coastal local authorities might be through a national conference and has since concentrated on ensuring authorities at the local level are prepared for the enhanced responsibilities the changes will place on them. This has been achieved through individual project work related to ensuring beach management plans are in place for incidents of non-compliance, undertaking research at local beaches to understand the needs of the public vis-a-vis information, and hosting national events to share best practice.

Still ‘Regime Competition’?

This article studies trade unions’ response to transnational change in a large multinational corporation within the motor industry in Europe. We show how the use of the European Works Councils (EWCs) as a forum for European negotiation did not counter the management’s effort to whipsaw trade unions, such as to play off workers against each other in local negotiations. This seems to suggest that the effort to network and coordinate between employee representatives, and to negotiate with management through ‘active’ EWCs is ineffective at controlling inter-union competition in cases of transnational restructuring. Hence, research outcomes illustrate that an analysis of the impact of European-level agreements on plant level is requested in order to assess the effectiveness of ‘active’ EWCs in forging cross-national links.

The European rescue of the federal state: How Europeanisation shapes the Belgian state

This article investigates the impact of European integration on the Belgian federal polity. In particular, we substantiate two propositions. First, we show that European integration stimulates Regions, Communities and central government to cooperate. Second, Europe prevents the central government level from disappearing. Europeanisation seems to have a centralising effect on some parts of the Belgian polity. In general, the constitutionally dual nature of the Belgian federation has, due to European influences, incrementally evolved into a practice of cooperation and joint decision-making. These conclusions are supported by an in-depth exploration of five policy areas: the overall domestic European coordination procedures, environmental policy, agricultural policy, social policy and the European treaty negotiations.

EU enlargement and the effectiveness of conditionality: keeping to the deal?

PurposeAccession to the European Union is one of the most powerful foreign policy tools exercised within the European arena and enlargement negotiations have been a major stimulus to reform in Central and Eastern Europe. Conditionality has evolved as over time into a dynamic instrument used to ensure that new members are sufficiently prepared to take on the responsibilities of EU membership, whilst also satisfying existing member states that new members will not prove too burdensome. This paper aims to examine some of the lessons learnt from the first stage of the Fifth Enlargement and the stricter use of conditionality mechanisms for Romania, Bulgaria and beyond.Design/methodology/approachThe article is based on interviews with EU officials involved in the enlargement process.FindingsThe article finds that the use of conditionality in the 2004 enlargement has had a far from uniform effect on candidates and policy areas and that the commission has learnt much from this experience. The integration of Bulgaria and Romania will offer more significant challenges and conditionality has evolved as a mechanism to address these.Originality/valueThe article offersboth an empirical as well as theoretical evaluation of the use of conditionality in the context of the EU enlargement process.

The world trading system: In the fog of uncertainty

This paper explores how European leadership in post-war international trade negotiations has both produced and attempted to respond to systemic conditions of uncertainty. Ostry argues that the initial pre-eminence of Europe, along with the U.S., in these negotiations stimulated unforeseen responses that now challenge the ability of Europe to retain its dominant position. European leadership inadvertently contributed to mobilizing interest groups focusing on the “new issues” of trade in services, intellectual property and investment; coalitions of developing world countries; and new advocacy NGOs (non-governmental organizations), all of which seek to recast global trade policy along lines initially neither envisioned nor necessarily desired by European negotiators.

Spain as an Actor in European and International Climate Policy: From a Passive to an Active Laggard?

Based on an analysis of the role of Spain in European and international negotiations on climate change, the article argues that Spain is no longer a mere passive and reluctant ‘taker’ of European Union environmental policy. Rather, it is developing a more active role in the defence of its (perceived) national interests. In addition, the article maintains that the process of Europeanization is not necessarily promoting convergence between Spanish and European policies, but may have even militated against it.

Modeling surface water critical loads with PROFILE: possibilities and challenges.

The critical load concept has become a valuable tool for policymakers in the European negotiations on emission reductions. Despite the international acceptance, ongoing validation of critical load methodology is of the utmost importance to avoid a situation where the calculation results are difficult to defend. In this paper we explore the potential of using the steady state soil chemistry model PROFILE as an alternative to the Steady State Water Chemistry (SSWC) method for calculating critical loads of acidity. The hypothesis is that the uncertainty in prediction of preindustrial leaching of base cations is reduced when soil properties instead of lake chemistry are used as input data. Paleolimnological reconstructions of preindustrial lake chemistry are used to test PROFILE. As PROFILE requires soil data that are not generally available on a catchment level, we used distributions of crucial parameters from soil survey data within the vicinity of five lakes for which paleoecological pH reconstructions were available. An important concern is the characterization of catchment hydrology. A calibration of the "effective" soil depth, needed to give PROFILE predictions that coincided with paleolimnology, suggested that approximately 0.6 m of the total soil depth was hydrologically active in supplying acid neutralizing capacity (ANC) to runoff through weathering. At present, there is insufficient evidence to either recommend or reject the PROFILE model for surface water critical loads. Before such a judgement can be made, the approach presented here has to be tested for other regions, and the definition of catchment hydrology needs to be investigated further.

Gaining and seeking access: The European adaptation of domestic interest associations

Abstract. The multilevel governance literature on European politics argues that supranational governing arrangements have increased their autonomy vis–à–vis national governments. As private interests increasingly bypass national levels and become active in transnational Euro–level policy networks, national governments are no longer the sole interface between supranational and national levels. In contrast, the European Union might also be conceptualised as a two–level interstate negotiation system, an approach assuming that interests are formed and aggregated at the national level. Societal interests enter the fray of European negotiations via national executives, and private interests bypassing the national level are considered as a rather marginal, even irrelevant, phenomenon. In addition, both accounts expect different outcomes regarding which sorts of private interests – diffuse or specific – seek and gain access to both domestic and European public actors. By analysing the varying network strategies of domestic private actors, in particular interest associations, this article explores some propositions held by these two approaches. After a more comprehensive outline of some hypotheses, evidence collected among public and private actors at both the domestic (Belgian) and European levels will be analysed. In general, the results suggest that Euro–level networks of domestic interests are substantially related to their structural location within the domestic realm, that network strategies tend to be quite bureaucratic and that the sort of interest represented – diffuse or specific – has a considerable effect on gaining and seeking access.

Agricultural multifunctionality in the WTO—legitimate non-trade concern or disguised protectionism?

The extent to which the multifunctionality of agriculture can justify continuing domestic subsidies to farmers that may be trade distorting in their effects, has emerged as a key bone of contention in the current World Trade Organization (WTO) agriculture trade talks. Supporters of multifunctionality point to the contribution of agriculture in terms of food security, rural development and environmental protection. In this paper, we focus on the environmental component in order to examine three interconnected questions. First, how robust is multifunctionality as a policy concept? Second, if multifunctionality is a reality, how valid is the claim made by European negotiators that the liberalization of agricultural policy and the abolition of blue box subsidies threaten the joint production of food and environmental goods in rural space? Third, what are the precise implications of this analysis for agri-environmental policy design, and the likely compatibility of the European Union's favoured model with current and future WTO disciplines? We conclude that, while multifunctionality is a genuine, and in some respects, unique, feature of European agriculture, it is in relation to the perceived threat of extensive agricultural restructuring to biodiversity and landscape values in the European Union that the concept has been most fully realized. This has profound implications for policy design, suggesting a need to retain some element of income support in the policy mix in order to defend environmental assets against the extreme consequences of farm structural change. We conclude by exploring what these deductions might mean for the future course of the WTO talks and for the long-term design of agri-environmental policy in industrialized countries.

Rights to Produce in the Light of European Law and WTO Negotiations

Rights to Produce in the Light of European Law and WTO Negotiations

European regionalism and multilateral trade negotiations*

This article contributes a counter‐example to the discussion about the negative effects of regionalism on the multilateral trading order. The article analyzes the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GAIT) negotiations during the Uruguay Round and shows that France was induced to accept a more free‐trade‐oriented package due to her integration into the European Union. The importance of European economic and diplomatic relationships led France to accept a GATT deal which she felt would be disadvantageous. The existence of a regional bloc, the European Union, thus had a beneficial effect for the multilateral trading system.

Nationality and European Negotiations:

This article explores the communication networks of negotiators in the working groups of the Council of Ministers of the European Union. We employ data collected by interviewing diplomats and civil servants involved in these working groups. These data enable us to explore the role of discretion in a more systematic fashion. We show that negotiation behaviour at the micro-level can be affected by influence esteem, professional esteem, ideological esteem and organization self-esteem. Our approach offers an insight into the world of the men and women involved in day-to-day negotiations and can as such be considered a starting point for more systematic empirical research.

Domestic policy networks and European negotiations: Evidence from British and French financial services

Abstract The article examines the influence of sectoral policy networks on national mobilization strategies in the context of international, particularly European Union (EU), negotiations. It argues that stable structures, characterized by frequent interactions and common values among a limited set of organizations, best ensure the active participation of sectoral actors in a non‐conflictual environment, thus facilitating the exploitation of all resources available domestically and the aggregation of public and societal interests. However, the comparison of British and French mobilization patterns in the sector of financial services places particular stress on a further specification: the distribution of power within the network, and the ensuing degree of flexibility. Because they allow for the emergence of autonomous organizations, horizontally integrated networks would in some respects be better suited to the representation of domestic stances ‐ be they public or private ‐ in the multipolar and competit...

U.S. and Europe Close In on LHC Deal

U.S. and European negotiators have drafted an agreement in which the United States would pump about half a billion dollars into the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project at CERN, Europe's particle physics laboratory near Geneva. The proposed arrangement, subject to the endorsement of legislators on both sides of the Atlantic, would allow CERN to come closer to meeting its original target date of 2004 to complete construction of the facility. It would also give U.S. physicists a major role in the $2.3 billion accelerator and its two, $1 billion detectors.

High-Energy Physics: U.S. and Europe Close In on LHC Deal

U.S. and European negotiators have drafted an agreement in which the United States would pump about half a billion dollars into the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project at CERN, Europe9s particle physics laboratory near Geneva. The proposed arrangement, subject to the endorsement of legislators on both sides of the Atlantic, would allow CERN to come closer to meeting its original target date of 2004 to complete construction of the facility. It would also give U.S. physicists a major role in the $2.3 billion accelerator and its two, $1 billion detectors.

First round of European negotiations on a key issue for equal opportunities and equal treatment

First round of European negotiations on a key issue for equal opportunities and equal treatment