Festschrift für Fritz W. Scharpf - MPIfG

Héritier · Containing Negative Integration 119
support for the compromise because it involves a gradual liberalization,
MEPs of the Socialist Party disagree and predict that the Parliament will
oppose any proposal that starts with 100 grams. Instead, 150 grams should
be the first step. The Commission will assess the impact of liberalization
measures on the provision of universal services and will present its recommendations
to the Council and the EP by December 2006.
4.3 The Horizontal Dynamic Claim: The Cross-Sectoral Arena
The political dynamic of pressures arising in one member state is accentuated
by the fact that Europe is an open-ended polity. That there are Intergovernmental
conferences at regular intervals creates an enormous political
energy because incentives and opportunities are offered to individual players
seeking to realize their objectives. Every few years a new large political
arena is opened in which many aspects of the polity are put on the negotiation
table. Not only does this create incentives to come up with all kinds of
policy and procedural proposals. Under conditions of unanimous decisionmaking,
encompassing arenas like IGCs offer tremendous opportunities for
trading demands and working out package deals, issue linkages and compensation
payments. This is exemplified by the introduction of the general
interest services issue at the intergovernmental conference preparing the
Amsterdam Treaty. The outcome was the incorporation of Art. 16 into the
treaty.
5 Conclusion
Does European policy-making have an inherent asymmetry in favour of
market making? Approaching this question from two angles, I first asked
whether the Commission and the ECJ – which are hierarchical decisionmakers
who command direct law-making powers – indeed have preferences
oriented solely towards market creation. On an exploratory empirical basis,
I was able to show that both actors actually pursue market-correcting policy-making
goals as well.
Next I investigated whether, at the level of political processes, the cumbersome
consensus building in the Council prevents market-correcting policy
outcomes under all circumstances. In contrast to the prevailing view, I