Festschrift für Fritz W. Scharpf - MPIfG

Héritier · Containing Negative Integration 115
tive, as electricity liberalization showed. And if it chooses to “go it alone”
against the opposition of governments, it will no longer be able to rely on
the support of the Court in case of conflict.
4.2 The Vertical Dynamic Claim: Mobilization from Below and
the Link to the EP
Mobilization from below is an important precondition for bringing service
public issues onto the European agenda. To mobilize around a planned decision
requires a clear perception of its impact on citizens’ lives. The more
clearly perceived the impact is, the higher the willingness to engage in collective
political action. For this reason, the liberalization of postal services
and rail transport had high political saliency. With telecommunications and
energy this is somewhat less so. In the case of telecommunications, the turbulence
of liberalization was cushioned by technology-induced productivity
gains from which both producers and consumers profited.
If political demands put forward by decentralized collective action are to
be successfully translated into European policy-making, against the odds of
a Commission liberalization drive, it is crucial that they are incorporated in
the demands of one or several member-state governments. These then have
to form an alliance with the EP. The EP has proven to be a reliable partner
for service public concerns. This is not surprising if one considers that all
voters are utility consumers and hence have a stake in the provision of general
interest services.
“Mobilization from below” has materialized at various levels in the
course of the liberalization of the public sector. “Social movements”
emerged in France, particularly in the context of the liberalization of transport.
Paradoxically, privatization has given rise to a lot of political attention
and participation in these sectors, in particular if they still receive public
subsidies, as is the case for the railways. Dividends paid to shareholders and
management salaries are compared to service performance. Governments
have introduced a multitude of monitoring methods for assessing the performance
of licensees. This has been reinforced by the development of consumer
movements and, indeed, European consumer policies, which led to
the incorporation of a right of access to general interest services in the Citizens’
Charter. In its Communication of 2000 and its Report to the Laeken
European Council, the Commission also proposed regular assessments of
public services provision in all liberalized sectors under the Open Method of