REGIONAL INTEGRATION AND NATIONAL ADAPTATION:

INTRODUCTION
REGIONAL INTEGRATION AND NATIONAL ADAPTATION:
SOME OBSERVATIONS FROM EUROPEAN EXPERIENCES
Edward Best 1
What does a country have to do to participate effectively in a regional integration scheme?
This is an important question, not only for each country involved, in terms of being able
effectively to promote its national interests and ensure a balanced impact of the scheme,
but also from the standpoint of the regional grouping as a whole, at least in more ambitious
integration processes, since the viability and net benefits of the system depends on the
capacity of each member. In key respects, an integrated regional chain is only as strong
as its weakest national link.
The inevitable (though frustrating) answer to the question, however, is that there are no
universal rules. It all depends - on what kind of integration scheme, what country, and what
policy area is being considered. This workshop has been framed with appropriate caution
and respect for the formidable challenge of considering what can one learn – or perhaps
better, how one can learn – from an exchange of experiences between different regions. In
the past, in various parts of the world, the institutional arrangements of the European
Community were indiscriminately emulated or exported (and indeed, in some cases,
indiscriminately rejected) as ‘the model’ for all processes of deep regional integration.
There is now a much broader appreciation that no readily transferable models exist, and
that no simple models are available, for appraising regional integration systems.
Meaningful comparison needs to focus on the kinds of specific problems likely to arise in a
particular region, and which will have to be managed by the system, in order to break
down overall arrangements into manageable elements.
The present paper seeks to contribute specifically to a European-Latin American
discussion on ‘the adjustments necessary in each country to participate in regional
1 Head of Unit at the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA), Maastricht, The
Netherlands. This paper is presented in a purely personal capacity.

integration agreements, including effects on labour markets’. This necessarily requires, in
the first place, a clarification of the terms of comparison.
Europe has experience of, indeed continues to benefit from, a variety of different (sub-
)regional cooperation and integration arrangements. Moreover, the European Union itself
is becoming more and more complex, as it encompasses ever wider areas of activity, as
well as ever more numerous and diverse Member States. To be sure, in many respects it
is moving towards an ‘ever closer union’ of the ‘supranational’ kind. There is a single
currency, albeit embraced by only half the Member States, with a European Central Bank
and single monetary policy. Community laws are increasingly adopted jointly by Member
States meeting in the Council (all the more often now, with the possibility of qualified
majority voting) and by the directly-elected European Parliament. And a ‘Constitution’ will
be signed in Rome on 29 October. Whether or not (and with what emotions) one
perceives process as resembling the creation of a ‘super-state’, something is emerging
which does indeed constitute a distinct European political system.
Yet the EU story is not a simple one. On the one hand, in the last decade the Member
States have also responded to emerging common concerns by adopting alternative forms
of ‘policy coordination’: i.e, different ways of cooperating in new and sensitive policy fields
where legislative competence remains at the national or sub-state level. On the other
hand, acceptance of the advantages of conferring greater powers upon the Union has, in
certain respects, been accompanied by an ever greater emphasis on the need to respect
local diversity to the maximum. This has meant, even in areas covered by Community law,
encouragement of as much flexibility as possible in the ways Member States implement
agreed rules and pursue shared goals.
It is indeed in the field of social policy (including labour-market policies) that this variety of
methods is strongest. Moreover, in precisely this area, there continues to be some debate
among Member States as to what extent common European norms and practices are
needed.
Membership of the European Union entails a fundamental political and legal commitment.
It means voluntarily agreeing to pool sovereignty in major areas of activity in what,
essentially, is a community built on law. Yet, nonetheless, the EU in fact employs a variety
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of integration tools, ranging from unification of monetary policy, through harmonization of
laws, to voluntary policy coordination. In general terms, each of these implies different
kinds of adaptation by Member States, and, within the respective limits imposed by each
method, each Member State adapts in particular ways which are strongly influenced by its
own constitutional and administrative systems, its social structures and traditions, and its
habits of international cooperation.
This paper has two parts. The first provides a general discussion of what European
integration demands from countries, in terms of participation and adaptation. It starts by
putting the EU 2 into context by drawing attention to the various, often overlapping, kinds of
regional arrangement which exist in Europe. This is particularly relevant in the social
sphere. Indeed, there have been important European regional-cooperation experiences in
labour markets outside the EU, and these may be just as valuable as the EU itself in
providing points of comparison for other regions. The paper then briefly summarises the
evolution of policy approaches used within the EU, and offers a taxonomy of the basic
methods used, and suggests some of the major challenges posed for the Member States
in each case.
The second part addresses European cooperation regarding labour markets. It has to be
stressed that it does not purport to evaluate the design and impact of alternative labourmarket
policies in themselves, but rather, it identifies the different options available for
common action concerning labour markets in a regional system, looking at European
cases by way of example. It therefore offers a brief overview of the evolution of EU
approaches to social policy, and gives some examples of the operation of the European
Employment Strategy.
2 Terms have become very confusing in European integration. The European Union is the overall
body, without legal personality, which was created by the Maastricht Treaty (the Treaty on
European Union).
The European Community continues as ‘a treaty within a treaty’, having being modified but not
replaced by the Treaty on European Union. The same applies to Euratom. The Constitution for
Europe, if it is ratified, will largely end these distinctions. In this paper, I shall use ‘European Union’
to refer to the integration system as a whole, even when it was in fact the ‘European Community’.
The term ‘Community’ will be used to refer to Community methods as compared to other ways of
doing business within the Union.
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Part One
NATIONAL ADAPTATION TO EUROPEAN INTEGRATION
1. TERMS OF COMPARISON
Since the main aim of this workshop is to identify useful lessons from an exchange of
experiences between European and Latin American experiences, it seems appropriate to
start with some preliminary observations on the terms of comparison.
In the first place, how can one identify, in a comparable fashion, the respective
characteristics of different regional frameworks? A good starting point for international
comparison is provided by the three dimensions of ‘legalization’ proposed by Abbott et al. 3
In this framework, the relative ‘hardness’ and ‘softness’ of a particular agreement can be
judged by its position on each of the three continua indicated below.
Obligation expressly non-legal form binding rule
Precision vague principle precise highly elaborated rule
Delegation diplomacy international court,
organization;
domestic application
3 Kenneth W. Abbott, Robert O. Keohane, Andrew Moravscik, Anne-Marie Slaughter and Duncan
Snidal, ‘The Concept of Legalization’, International Organization 54:3 (Summer 2000): 401-419.
4

Using these parameters, for example, European Community law would be ‘hard’ law in the
sense of an agreement which has:
- a high degree of obligation, i.e., legally-binding rules which must be implemented in
or by national legal systems;
- a sufficient degree of precision to make it possible to judge compliance – i.e., at
least a clear specification of binding results to be achieved; and
- a high degree of delegation to autonomous institutions (the European Commission
and the Court of Justice) for monitoring and enforcement.
Other forms of cooperation can be classified accordingly.
Much more difficult is the question as to what arrangements may be held to be most
effective for achieving particular objectives. One may argue, for example, that high
degrees of obligation and delegation are probably necessary to achieve long-term goals
where, in view of foreseeable contrary pressures from some affected parties, it is essential
to maintain the credibility of commitments both between the states and in the eyes of the
market. However, there are no simple equations and the choice of institutional
arrangement will usually not be made on the basis of such instrumental considerations, but
in the light of historical circumstances, perceived sovereignty costs, substantive national
interests, and ideological preferences. 4
These latter factors obviously depend overwhelmingly on the specific characteristics of the
region in question. What are the real driving forces at work in each case? In this respect,
one may recall the various dimensions of 'regionalism' suggested by Hurrell:
4 See Kenneth W. Abbott and Duncan Snidal, ‘Hard and Soft Law in International Governance’,
International Organization 54:3 (Summer 2000): 421-456; Edward Best, ‘Capacities for Regional
Integration: a Conceptual Framework for Comparative Analysis’ in Madeleine O. Hosli & Arild Saether
(eds.) Free trade agreements and customs unions. Experiences, challenges and constraints. (Brussels
& Maastricht: European Commission TACIS & EIPA, 1997) pp. 51-78; Andrew Moravscik, The Choice
for Europe. Social Purpose and State Power from Messina to Maastricht. (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1998).
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- 'regionalisation', meaning 'the growth of societal integration within a region and...
the often undirected processes of social and economic interaction';
- 'regional awareness and identity';
- 'regional inter-state cooperation', referring to functional cooperation;
- 'state-promoted regional integration', meaning the formal choice of such levels
of ambition as: free trade, customs union, common market, and so on, implying the
commitment to abide by common rules; and,
- ’regional cohesion', as a possible outcome of some combination of the above. 5
These dimensions are present in different mixes in each region. Moreover, each
regionalist experience is in turn embedded in a broader set of social and economic
interactions, cultural and historical relationships, which directly and uniquely shape the
motives, scope, institutional forms, and required management capacities of any particular
integration project.
To sum up, regional institutional arrangements need to be evaluated against two criteria:
1) A regional system needs to have a level of problem-solving and stabilization
capacity which is adequate to deal with problems which are likely to be generated
in pursuing agreed integration objectives of a certain level of ambition.
2) A regional system must be appropriate not only to the real needs arising in that
region, but also to the specific historical, social and cultural traditions within and
between the countries involved.
Mismatches, often caused by inappropriate transfers from other regions, may result not
only in low efficiency and effectiveness, but also legitimacy deficits. 6
5 Andrew Hurrell, 'Regionalism in Theoretical Perspective' in: Louise Fawcett & Andrew Hurrell
(eds.) Regionalism in World Politics. Regional organization and international order (OUP, 1996): 37-
73.
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2. REGIONAL COOPERATION FRAMEWORKS IN EUROPE
There was a time, in the late 1960s, when one could more or less match particular sets of
Western European countries to particular frameworks, and ‘styles’, of regional cooperation.
2.1 Regional Frameworks
At the broadest level, there were a number of frameworks for cooperation based on the
principle of ‘intergovernmental cooperation’, in the sense that agreements are only legally
binding if the countries involved choose to make them so, and only within the terms initially
agreed, and under international law. Most countries had been able to agree, after the
Second World War that these frameworks were beneficial, although some were frustrated
that they did not go far enough. Two of these have been general in scope, respectively
promoting political cooperation and economic development.
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe was the first major European organization to be created in the postwar
period, in 1949. Its main instrument is the European Convention, of which the most
important component has been the 1950 European Convention on Fundamental Rights
and Freedoms, which set the basis for the European system of human rights protection.
Member States which sign and ratify such agreements submit themselves to judicial
control over compliance, by the International Court in The Hague, the Strasbourg Court of
Human Rights (if that Convention is invoked), or, assuming that the Convention can be
invoked by citizens in the legal system of the country, by national courts.
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
By the late 1960s, most Western European countries were also members of the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This was created in
1960 out of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), established in
1948 by 16 countries in the context of the Marshall Plan to push for post-war
6 Edward Best, ‘Regional Integration and (Good) Regional Governance: Are Common Standards
and Indicators Possible?’ UNU-CRIS Occasional Papers, O-2004/6. United Nations University,
Comparative Regional Integration Studies. Bruges, 2004.
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econstruction in Europe on a cooperative basis. The OEEC had provided an important
spur for trade liberalization, and facilitated the establishment (in 1950) of the European
Payments Union. It was also involved in promoting functional cooperation, through such
bodies as the Conference of Ministers of Transport, created in 1954. The change in name
to OECD partly reflected its progressive expansion in membership beyond Europe.
However, more than a purely geographical entity, once the EEC and EFTA had been
created, the OECD became an association for pursuing forms of collaboration with the aim
of improving national policies.
2.2 Subregional Frameworks
Benelux
Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg had founded a Benelux Economic Union back
in the 1940s. A monetary union between Belgium and Luxembourg had existed since the
early 1920s. Towards the end of the Second World War the three countries (sharing the
painful experience of small countries caught up and overrun in battles between the big
nations) agreed to form an economic union, which was given definitive form under the
1948 Treaty. Some of its general provisions - on free movement of goods, for example - in
practice became largely meaningless, in view of the broader integration achieved within
the European Community. Nevertheless Benelux did provide a framework for various biand
trilateral measures concerning cross-border employment and police cooperation.
Indeed, these latter were the basis for the Schengen system which was set up in the
1980s and 1990s as a means of achieving abolition of internal frontier controls between
participating countries, ahead of the Union as a whole.
The European Communities
The Community experience was clearly a subregional initiative at first, consisting of only
six countries - the three Benelux countries, France, Germany and Italy – which took the
unprecedented decision to place key economic sectors under supranational authority. The
1951 Treaty of Paris created the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), thereby
attributing important powers to an autonomous High Authority (the first version of the
European Commission) which was backed up by a European Court and which interacted
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with a special Council of Ministers, together with an Assembly (the first version of the
European Parliament).
The Treaty reflected visionary changes in the rules of the game in Europe, aiming to
overcome, once and for all, the historical rivalries between France and Germany and, in
the memorable words of the Schuman Plan of 9 May 1950, to make war ‘not only
unthinkable but materially impossible.’ More immediately, it provided a means for France
to satisfy its concerns about future German power and its own economic interests, and for
the others to set a framework for industrial reconversion. This was a unique historical
combination of factors which have not since been repeated.
The original scheme was not a great success. Moreover, the initial enthusiasm quickly
faded, as proposals to rush into a European Defence Community and a European Political
Community collapsed in 1954. Nevertheless, the ECSC strongly influenced the design of
the system created in 1957 to achieve a common market, and eventually the Union.
The two Treaties of Rome of 1957 (which came into force in 1958), establishing the
European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community
(Euratom), represented a very ambitious economic and political project requiring strong
commitment from Member States.
The degree of economic integration envisaged was high. From the onset, the level of
ambition aimed at a full common market, based on four freedoms - free movement of
goods, services, labour and capital - as well as common policies in trade, agriculture,
competition, transport, and cooperation in certain other spheres. A more or less automatic
procedure was laid down in the treaty for achieving a customs union as the first step. This
was in fact completed 18 months ahead of schedule, in July 1968.
Moreover, there were clear political dimensions of a general nature, reflected in the
reference in the Preamble to ‘ever closer union’ between the peoples of Europe. The
decision to adopt a common commercial policy marked a remarkable step forward in selflimitation
of autonomy in international affairs (the ECSC did not cover external trade). The
Treaty provided for a series of commitments which implied a limited pooling of sovereignty
in decision-making. Most notably, the independent European Commission would have, the
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exclusive right of legislative initiative, as well as important powers of control over
compliance with commitments. There was eventually to be qualified majority voting in the
Council in specified areas of Community competence. Community Regulations would be
directly applicable, meaning that these laws would enter into force in each Member State,
with no act of national transposition required or permitted; and acceptance of the
automatic supranational jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice within the terms
agreed.
This was not easy for everyone in the founding countries to accept. Even as the Court of
Justice elaborated the doctrines of the supremacy and direct effect of Community law in
the early 1960s (see below), there was political resistance to the supranational project,
most strongly expressed by French President de Gaulle, leading to a crisis in 1965. The
resulting ‘Luxembourg compromise’ meant that the Community did not move to qualified
majority voting in those sectors for which it was foreseen, and unanimity remained the
norm until the 1980s.
Nevertheless, by the end of the 1960s, there was a clearly identifiable bloc of countries
which had chosen a ‘Community method’ of integration resting on supranational legislation
which, from the very start, involved a limited pooling of sovereignty (acceptance of some
exclusive competences, and majority voting in some areas) as well as the delegation of
certain powers to autonomous institutions (the Commission and the Court).
Especially in the context of comparison with other regions and other periods, it should also
be noted that early success in achieving a customs union was assisted by the unique
nature of the Franco-German relationship. Moreover, the economic climate of high growth
and low unemployment in the 1960s facilitated the process in ways which have likewise
not been often repeated.
This model was to evolve in the following decades, as the Member States pursued new
goals and responded to new challenges in a variety of ways – and as the Community
gradually incorporated many other European countries which had initially favoured other
forms of regional cooperation.
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Nordic Cooperation
The first alternative sub-regional system which emerged was that of Nordic cooperation,
originally between Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, with Finland joining later. In
the 1950s, these countries shared with the United Kingdom a reluctance to join in
supranational integration projects and a preference for functional cooperation on a more
intergovernmental basis. The Nordic Council was thus set up in 1952, largely as a
response to the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community. In some respects,
indeed, Nordic cooperation is the reverse of the Community approach.
The first contrast is in the process. The progressive establishment of a highly ambitious
Community - between countries which not only had strong national identities and interests
but had recently been at war, and in the face of predictable pressures - required
continuing, top-level political commitment, and the assistance of supranational institutions.
Although it would be wrong to understate the degree of grassroots social and economic
interactions which have underpinned the Community process, it has been primarily a ‘topdown’
process, in which institutions have long been trying to involve people.
Nordic cooperation, on the other hand, was built ‘upwards’ from an institutional
perspective. The cooperation arrangements have (idealising somewhat) grown out of the
nature of the countries and their mutual relationships. They have a relatively high degree
of similarity in social values and policies. They all have, for example, comprehensive,
publicly financed social security systems, and a deep-rooted tradition of tripartite
cooperation in labour policy. There is a strong sense of common identity, albeit
accompanied by a highly developed sense of independence – a single family, so to speak
- which places great store by the individuality of its members. The starting point, dating
back to the mid-nineteenth century, may be characterised as transnationalism in the sense
of the growth of Nordic civil-society organizations, economic interaction, and social
communications. Next was inter-parliamentary cooperation, starting formally in 1907 with
the Nordic Inter-Parliamentary Union, and given new form with the establishment of the
Nordic Council between the Nordic parliaments in 1952. On top of this came ‘ad hoc
intergovernmentalism’, and only at the end the Nordic Council organizations. Significantly,
in the period in which the greatest advances were made, the Nordic Council was based on
resolutions of the respective parliaments. It was not until 1962 that the Helsinki Treaty
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placed it on a more formal international basis. The Nordic Council of Ministers was only
created in 1971. 7
The second contrast, however, concerns the results. The European Union has achieved
an internal market, common policies, a single currency and so on, but has had much
greater difficulty in dealing with the movement of persons and of workers. The Nordic
countries, on the other hand, introduced a Common Labour Market in 1954 and a Nordic
Passport Union in 1955. A Scandinavian Airline System (SAS) was set up in 1951. These
countries have developed deep functional cooperation on the environment, education and
other social fields. They also work together in some areas of external relations, including
development policy – and even in United Nations peacekeeping. Yet plans for a Nordic
Customs Union failed during the 1950s and for a Nordic Economic Union, in the 1960s, as
did proposals for a defence pact in the late 1940s. Differences in economic interests have
been too strong to be reconciled through the consensual Nordic approach alone. Likewise
security posture are radically different: Iceland, Norway and Denmark are members of
NATO, while Sweden is neutral, and Finland non-aligned.
EFTA
A second, overlapping, subregional arrangement was the European Free Trade
Association (EFTA). This was set up as an alternative to the Community in 1960 following
the failure of efforts to establish a West European-wide free trade area. It foresaw little
more than free trade in industrial goods. By the end of the 1960s, it encompassed the
United Kingdom, the Nordic countries, Switzerland (plus Liechtenstein), Austria and
Portugal.
3. EVOLUTION OF EU METHODS AND INSTRUMENTS
The end of the 1960s saw a major turning point in the development of the Community. A
customs union was achieved and de Gaulle retired. There was now the need and the
possibility to move forward in both deepening and widening the Community. Externally, a
7 See Bengt Sundelius, Managing Transnationalism in Northern Europe (Boulder: Westview, 1978);
Bengt Sundelius and Claes Wiklund, 'The Nordic Community: The Ugly Duckling of Regional
Cooperation', Journal of Common Market Studies, XVIII: 1 (September 1979): 59-75; Gunnar
Nielsson, ‘The parallel national action process', in: A.J.R. Groom and Paul Taylor (eds.)
Frameworks for International Co-operation (London: Pinter, 1990): 78-108.
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single European voice in trade could be accompanied by at least a more harmonized voice
in foreign policy. The practice of systematic information, consultation and concertation,
known as European Political Cooperation, was started in 1970. Within the Community,
there was still much to do before there would be a common market, especially in terms of
removing non-tariff barriers. Moreover, new goals were set in the early 1970s, including
such ambitious visions as the achievement of monetary union by 1980. And new policy
areas such as cohesion, environment, consumer policy, and research, had to be
addressed.
This has led to the development of a more complex toolbox of integration methods, which
pose different kinds of demands upon Member States.
3.1 Dimensions of Change in EU Integration
As already noted, the Community was born as a community of law, and there is a general
consensus that this hard core of legislation – as well as the fact of Member States’
willingness to respect the law even in the absence of sanctions – has been an essential
condition for the survival and success of European integration. However, different forms of
legislative acts were foreseen from the beginning, depending on the degree of uniformity
which was felt to be necessary to achieve the agreed goal:
A regulation shall have general application. It shall be binding in its entirety and
directly applicable in all Member States.
A directive shall be binding, as to the result to be achieved, upon each Member
State to which it is addressed, but shall leave to the national authorities the choice
of form and methods.
A decision shall be binding in its entirety upon those to whom it is addressed. 8
Moreover, the Rome Treaty itself foresaw that the Community should in some cases use
instruments which do not have binding force. Article 189 thus listed non-binding
8 Article 249, ex Article 189, TEC (emphasis added).
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Recommendations and Opinions together with Regulations, Directives and Decisions as
normal instruments of Community action.
As the integration process advanced, a wide variety of other instruments which are not
legally binding came to be used in the Community. Collectively these are referred to as
‘soft law’, which has been well defined as ‘rules of conduct which, in principle, have no
legally binding force but which nevertheless may have practical effects’ 9 . Soft-law
instruments have been widely used over the decades by the Commission, for example, as
a means of setting out its views on a particular policy area in broad terms and in a
proactive manner without having to negotiate with other institutions. 10 They have been
notably used by the Council where there is ‘consensus that the matter is one of
Community concern’ but are also ‘strong extrapetal forces pushing towards diversity being
maintained in the area in question’ 11 and/or there is no Treaty basis for action. 12
This was notably the case already in the 1970s, as the Community tried to respond to new
policy concerns which had not been foreseen in the Treaty. For example, environmental
policy as such started with a Commission Communication of 1971, leading to a first ‘Action
Programme’ adopted in 1973 by ‘the Council of the European Communities and the
representatives of the Governments of the Member States meeting in the Council’, without
any explicit Community competence existing in the Treaty.
Since the 1970s, however, evolution has taken place in the range of the EU’s integration
methods, which goes well beyond this contrast been hard law and soft law.
On the one hand, the Member States chose to deepen their cooperation in foreign policy,
justice, and home affairs, on an intergovernmental basis. This resulted in the ‘temple’
construction of Maastricht, in which the European Communities – the heart of the system –
came to be flanked within the overall structure of the Union by two more intergovernmental
9
Francis Snyder, ‘Soft Law and Institutional Practice in the European Community’in S. Martin (ed.),
The Construction of Europe. (Kluwer, 1994): 197-225.
10
Snyder, ‘Soft Law and Institutional Practice’, p.200.
11
Chalmers, European Union Law, p.162.
12
That is, there is no explicit competence attributed in the Treaty and the catch-all provisions of
Article 308 (then 235) were considered inappropriate (‘If action by the Community should prove
necessary to attain, in the course of the operation of the common market, one of the objectives of
the Community, and this Treaty has not provided the necessary powers, the Council shall, acting
unanimously on a proposal from the Commission and after consulting the European Parliament,
take the appropriate measures’.)
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‘pillars’ dealing with a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), known as the ‘second
pillar’, and cooperation in the area of Justice and Home Affairs. The latter, known as the
‘third pillar’, has undergone important reform following entry into force in 1999 of the
Amsterdam Treaty, and is now limited to Police and Judicial Cooperation in Criminal
Matters.
On the other hand, within the areas covered by the Community itself, there has been a
gradual diversification of approaches. In parallel to a partial strengthening of
supranationalism, there have been various exploratory moves away from classic legislative
approaches, as the Union has tried to manage common concerns in new areas,
characterized by high degrees of sensitivity and diversity, in a political context, following
the difficulties in ratifying the Maastricht Treaty, which strongly emphasises the concept of
subsidiarity. This principle had been included in the Treaty of Rome at Maastricht, together
with the principle of proportionality, precisely in response to concerns about the apparently
limitless impact of completing the internal market. A new wording of Article 3b thus read:
‘The Community shall act within the limits of the powers conferred upon it by this
Treaty and of the objectives assigned to it therein.
‘In areas which do not fall within its exclusive competence, the Community shall
take action, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, only if and in so far as
the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the
Member States and can therefore, by reason of the scale or effects of the proposed
action, be better achieved by the Community.
‘Any action by the Community shall not go beyond what is necessary to achieve
the objectives of this Treaty.’
Moreover, the ‘vertical’ concept of subsidiarity, concerning the way in which rules should
be agreed and implemented across the different levels of government, was accompanied
implicitly by a ‘horizontal’ concept which implied that public regulation should only be
adopted if private agreements would be insufficient. The Edinburgh European Council in
December 1992 thus proclaimed that:
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‘The Community should legislate only to the extent necessary. Other things being
equal, directives should be preferred to regulations and framework directives to
detailed measures. Non-binding measures such as recommendations should be
preferred where appropriate. Consideration should be given where appropriate to
the use of voluntary codes of conduct.’
It may be helpful to place these changes against two dimensions which reflect the peculiar
dual nature of the Union as both a system of international cooperation between Member
States and an emerging political system in its own right.
The first, ‘horizontal’, dimension concerns the goals of interaction between governments,
in which legally-enforceable compliance with uniform common rules is at one end and
voluntary policy learning at the other.
Goals of interaction between governments
Common binding rules
Fulfilment of obligations
EU regulation by
classic Community
legislative process
Common goals and approaches
Policy learning and convergence
Open Method
of Coordination
The second, ‘vertical’, dimension concerns the ways in which rules are formulated and
implemented. At the extreme ‘command-and-control’ end, binding uniform rules are
formulated, monitored and enforced by public authorities. At the other end, associations of
private actors set and monitor their own rules with no public interference.
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Public-private
interaction in the
formulation and
implementation
of commitments
Consultation by
authorities
Legally binding acts
Public enforcement
Private formulation
Voluntary compliance
3.2 Alternative Approaches to Regulation
A first line of approach has been the growing political and practical arguments in favour of
keeping European legislative harmonization to a minimum, focusing on those issues
(health and safety, basic rights…) which, by their nature, require legally-enforceable
uniformity, and then leaving it to lower levels of government, and wherever possible to
non-governmental actors, to see how they comply and to demonstrate compliance.
Standards
EU regulation by
classic Community
legislative process
EU-wide commitments
by co-regulation and
self-regulation
The first manifestation of this model was the so-called New Approach in the 1980s, in
which the scope of legal harmonization is reduced to the definition of essential
requirements (usually of health and safety), while compliance with these requirements may
be shown by voluntarily conforming to technical standards drawn up by private
standardization bodies. One of the reasons for the frustrations of the 1970s had been the
pursuit of detailed European harmonization of product specifications, which was extremely
difficult to achieve in practice, owing to the requirement for unanimous decision-making in
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the Council. A first response was the formulation of the principle known as ‘mutual
recognition’, as formulated by the Court of Justice in its 1979 Cassis de Dijon judgement:
products which were lawfully marketed in one Member State could not be prevented from
circulating in others. Where this entailed a conflict between legitimate restrictions under
the terms of the treaty, some minimum harmonization was inevitable. The New Approach
itself was definitively formulated in a 1985 Council Resolution. 13
- legislative harmonization is limited to the adoption… of the essential safety
requirements (or other requirements in the general interest) with which products
put on the market must conform, and which should therefore enjoy free
movement throughout the Community,
- the task of drawing up the technical specifications needed for the production and
placing on the market of products conforming to the essential requirements
established by the Directives, while taking into account the current stage of
technology, is entrusted to competent organizations in the standardization area,
- these technical specifications are not mandatory and maintain their status of
voluntary standards,
- national authorities are obliged to recognize that products manufactured in
conformity with harmonized standards (or, provisionally, with national standards)
are presumed to conform to ‘essential requirements’ established by the
Directive. (This signifies that the producer may choose not to manufacture in
conformity with the standards, but that in this event he has an obligation to prove
that his products conform to the essential requirements of the Directive.)
Harmonized standards were to be drawn up by consensus among national standards
bodies meeting in the European Committee for Standardization (CEN), European
Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC), and European
Telecommunications Standards Institute ( ETSI), on a mandate from the European
Commission.
13
Council Resolution of 7 May 1985 on a new approach to technical harmonization and standards,
OJ C 136 of 4 June 1985 pp.1-9.
18

The Environment
Another process of evolution took place in environmental policy. Once the basic (and
indispensable) legislative framework had been agreed, effectiveness required a strategy
for promoting stakeholder involvement. In 1992, while approving the 5 th environmental
action programme, the Council thus argued that:
‘...the involvement of all levels of society in a spirit of shared responsibility requires
a deepening and broadening of the range of instruments to complement normative
legislation including, where appropriate, market-based and other economic
instruments, research and development, information, education and training,
financial support mechanisms, voluntary schemes’. 14
This was, of course, very much in tune with the spirit of the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development which took in Rio de Janeiro in the same year. Principle 10
of the Rio Declaration stressed that ‘Environmental issues are best handled with the
participation of all concerned citizens, at the relevant level.’ 15 Agenda 21, adopted at the
same time, emphasised that effective implementation of its goals depended on ‘the
commitment and genuine involvement of all social groups. One of the fundamental
prerequisites for the achievement of sustainable development is broad public participation
in decision-making.’ Business and industry should be encouraged to continue ‘taking
voluntary initiatives, promoting and implementing self-regulation and assuming greater
responsibilities for ensuring their activities have minimal impacts on human health and the
environment.’ 16
Social Dialogue
In parallel, new steps were taken in the construction of ‘social Europe’, partly through
legislative harmonization (and by majority vote) in areas such as workers health and
14 Resolution of the Council and the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States,
meeting within the Council, of 1 February 1993 on a Community programme of policy and action in
relation to the environment and sustainable development (93/C 138/01).
15 Report of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, 3-14
June 1992) Annex I Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. A/CONF.151/26, 12 August
1992.
16 http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agenda21/english/agenda21toc.htm.
19

safety, and partly by prompting European level agreements between ‘social partners’
(organizations of employers and workers) within a new European ‘social dialogue’.
The treaty now even provides for a link between private agreements and Community law
(following the model of legal extension of collective agreements erga omnes). Before
submitting social-policy proposals, the Commission must consult the social partners on
direction and content. The social partners may choose to negotiate between themselves,
and then, if they reach agreement, they may choose to implement the agreement either
themselves or through Community law.
3.3 EU Policy Coordination
At the same time, and partly overlapping with the above, the Union has come to adopt
various forms of EU policy coordination as explicit alternatives to t attribution of EU
legislative competence.
This has taken place, so to speak, in the terrain lying between two poles of
experimentation and debate. On the one hand, debates continued over social policy.
Outside the area of health and safety, harmonizing legislation was generally seen as
unacceptable, inappropriate or ineffective. What else could be done to improve
international competitiveness, or to find common responses to the growing problem of
unemployment? On the other hand, the process of economic and monetary union agreed
at Maastricht had created some new paradigms for common action – convergence
criteria to qualify for the single currency and multilateral surveillance of economic
policies.
The result has been the emergence of various methods of policy coordination which are all
too often lumped together indiscriminately. I propose here to borrow the neat analysis
made by Stefan Collignon which is summarized in the matrix below. Collignon identifies
‘four methods to deal with externalities caused by simultaneous decision-making of
autonomous governments, reflecting different combinations of ‘preference consistency
between actors’ and ‘time consistency between actions’.
20

Preference consistency
disjunct
converging
Policy Coordination Regimes
Discretionary policies Rule-based policies
I. Delegation to unified actor
Commission, ECB
III. Voluntary coordination
Open Method of
Coordination, Lisbon
Strategy
Time consistency
II. Hard coordination with sanctions
Stability and Growth Pact,
Excessive Deficit Procedure
IV. Soft coordination by guiding rules
BEPG, Luxembourg and
Cardiff Process
Source: Stefan Collignon, ‘Is Europe Going Far Enough? Reflections on the EU’s Economic
Governance’, European Institute, LSE, EI Working Paper 2003-03, December 2003, Figure 1, p.17.
At the ‘hardest’ end, there is the community method of delegation; that is, the transfer of
policy-making competences to a unified agent such as the European Commission or the
European Central Bank. This is appropriate where ‘national policy preferences are disjunct
and discretionary decisions need to be taken’, as in the case of monetary policy in the
eurozone.
‘Binding rules are necessary when the short-term preferences of different actors are
inconsistent with their long-term preferences. Simple voluntary adherence to coordinated
policy action is not enough.’ Dynamic consistency is assured though binding commitments
to an agreed long-term goal, as in the case of the Excessive Deficit Procedure, originally
laid down in the Maastricht Treaty, and developed in the 1997 Stability and Growth Pact.
The Stability and Growth Pact
regular surveillance aimed at preventing budget deficits rising above the
3% reference value
– multilateral surveillance of budget positions
– stability and convergence programmes
Council may give an ‘early warning’ (by qualified majority on a
Commission recommendation) if a significant slippage is identified
Council may issue a ‘recommendation’ to a Member State to correct an
excessive deficit; these may be made public
Council may impose sanctions
21

In intermediate forms of ‘guided’ coordination, rules are agreed to prevent dynamic
inconsistencies, but these are subject to frequent revaluation and, since non-compliance is
less of an issue, only soft coercive mechanisms are required. The main examples are
economic policy, originally agreed in the Maastricht Treaty, and employment policy,
introduced in the Amsterdam Treaty in 1997 and known as the ‘Luxembourg Process’.
The Luxembourg Process
Council adopts Employment Guidelines (consistent with the BEPGs)
taking into account the conclusions of the European Council. From 2003,
these are only subject to fundamental review every three years.
Member States submit National Action Plans and reports on
implementation
Joint Employment Report by Council and Commission
Council may make recommendations to Member States (by qualified
majority); these are public.
Finally, purely voluntary coordination may be appropriate where there is at least ex ante
preference coherence between governments, as in the so-called Open Method of
Coordination (OMC) created to implement parts of the Lisbon Strategy – that is, the range
of measures intended to improve European competitiveness while maintaining social
cohesion. The four conceptual stages in this approach were stated in the Presidency
Conclusions of the March 2000 Lisbon European Council.
The Four Stages of an OMC Process
EU guidelines with timetables for achieving the goals which they set in the
short, medium and long terms;
quantitative and qualitative indicators and benchmarks against the best in
the world and tailored to the needs of different Member States and sectors
as a means of comparing best practice;
national and regional policies with specific targets and adopting measures,
taking into account national and regional differences;
periodic monitoring, evaluation and peer review, organised as mutual
learning processes
This kind of approach has been developed in such areas as social inclusion, pensions,
information society, research policy, enterprise policy, education and training, all of which
22

fall within the Lisbon Strategy. It has also begun to be pursued in other areas, including
asylum and immigration policy.
3.4 Other Forms of Policy Coordination in Europe
EU policy coordination seems to have quite a lot in common with other European
frameworks and traditions. Indeed the kind of convergence and coordination foreseen in
the European Employment Strategy, despite being known as the ‘Luxembourg Process’,
was clearly very directly influenced, in the mid-1990s, by the accession of Sweden.
As noted above, Nordic cooperation is largely ‘intergovernmental’, in the sense that there
is no supranational legislation, no Nordic Court or Commission to control and enforce
compliance. Yet the arrangements for Nordic legislative cooperation 17 entail a broader
process of interaction and convergence than separate incorporation by each country of the
agreed norms, as is the case in most frameworks of international law. Nordic Conventions
are binding agreements between states, which may make it necessary to modify national
legislation in the area concerned. The other approach, however, is Nordic legislative
harmonization. In this case, the political initiative emanates either from a Nordic country
which proposes to implement national legislation, or from a proposal by one member to the
Nordic Council. If there is political consensus among the Nordic ministers of justice, a
working group of lawyers is set up. The working groups often sees agreement on the main
principles of new legislation as sufficient. Precise formulation and adaptation of legislation
may thus be carried out independently, but the ministries keep each other informed as the
process continues. In this sense it is rather like a voluntary version of a Community
Framework Directive. Just as the character of the overall relationship is transnational, and
indeed inter-societal, the interaction between governments has always taken the form of
horizontal networks in each area of cooperation, which may better be termed
‘transgovernmentalism’.
An OECD approach has likewise evolved by which there are systematic agreements on
the definition of shared values, norms and practices, together with the establishment of
permanent mechanisms by which the members, on the basis of OECD evaluations,
17 For a clear summary, see Nordic Council, Nordic Legislative Cooperation, December 1991.
23

discuss each other’s performance. This has evolved in certain spheres, such as the
environment, into formal arrangements for peer review.
Cooperation within the Council of Europe has also evolved away from formal legal
approaches, and towards the creation of peer pressure and peer review around common
values. General democratic principles may be elaborated in specific common standards
and be disseminated through policy instruments and guidelines, exchange of best
practices, training programmes, such as the Council of Europe’s integrated project on
‘Making democratic institutions work’. Moreover, the Group of States against Corruption
(GRECO) produces reports (which may be made public) on national compliance with the
anti-corruption instruments of the Council of Europe, thus creating specific fora of peer
pressure.
3.4 Current Concerns
Finally, it must be pointed out that there is presently an important debate taking place in
the EU regarding the effectiveness (and even the legitimacy) of these forms of non-binding
policy coordination. Most notably, the Stability and Growth Pact came into question,
following the failure of the Council, in November 2003, to take the measures foreseen
against Germany and France, which had repeatedly exceed the 3% limit for a budget
deficit foreseen in the agreement.
There are also some concerns as to whether the Open Method of Coordination is
adequate to the challenges. A high-level group, chaired by former Dutch Prime Minister
Wim Kok, was set up with a mandate to present a report on the Lisbon Strategy in
November 2004.
4. NATIONAL ADAPTATIONS
4.1 Community Law and National Legal Systems
Membership of the EU implies a general political and legal commitment to do everything
necessary to make the Treaty work. This is stated in the co-called ‘cooperation’, or
‘solidarity’, clause of the Community Treaty:
24

Member States shall take all appropriate measures, whether general or particular,
to ensure fulfilment of the obligations arising out of this Treaty or resulting from
action taken by the institutions of the Community. They shall facilitate the
achievement of the Community's tasks.
They shall abstain from any measure which could jeopardise the attainment of the
objectives of this Treaty.’ 18
Constitutional amendments have often been required to permit effective membership.
Even as the original Six Member States consciously signed up to this unprecedented act
of political commitment, it seems clear that they did not (and of course could not) have a
clear idea of what it would mean in practice. Among other things, membership of the Union
has entailed coming to terms with two doctrines which were been not stated in the
Community Treaty, but were derived by the Court of Justice through certain landmark
rulings, mainly in the 1960s.
According to the European Court in Van Gend en Loos in 1963:
‘..the Community constitutes a new legal order of international law for the benefit
of which the States have limited their sovereign rights, albeit within limited fields,
and the subjects of which comprise not only Member States but also their
nationals.’
In Costa v ENEL in 1964, the Court concluded:
‘The transfer by the States from their domestic legal system to the Community
legal system of the rights and obligations arising under the Treaty carries with it a
permanent limitation of their sovereign rights, against which a subsequent
unilateral act incompatible with the concept of the Community cannot prevail.’
Member States thus face two federal principles underlying the Community legal system:
- supremacy of Community law in the case of conflict with national law; and
18 Article 10 (ex Article 5) TEC.
25

- direct effect in the sense that some laws can generate rights and duties for
individual citizens as well as for Member States.
Though the principle of direct effect has met with easy acceptance, the principle of
supremacy has not. Though it has now generally met with acquiescence in practice, it is
not true that all Member States have unreservedly recognised absolute supremacy of
Community law when it comes to their own constitutions. Indeed, it is a reflection of the
sensitivity of this question that only now, in the Constitution, is it even being proposed that
so fundamental a principle should be explicitly stated in the primary law of the Union. 19
The original Six Member States thus have had to come to terms with legal principles which
did not clearly exist at the time of signing the constituent treaties. 20 France and the three
Benelux countries were basically monist in their constitutional system; i.e., international
legal norms are, once ratified and published, ‘received within the national legal order while
preserving their nature of international law. But only in the Netherlands and Luxembourg
was the supremacy of international law an established practice. The Belgian courts quickly
came to adopt the principle of primacy. In France, despite the fact that Article 55 of the
1958 Constitution clearly recognized the priority of international treaties, adaptation was
slow and painful. Italy and Germany were dualist; that is, countries where the attitude is
taken that international treaties cannot, as such, display legal effects at the municipal
sphere, so that their norms must be ‘transplanted’ into national law before they can
become operational there. In both Italy and Germany, the courts came gradually to accept
the supremacy of Community law in day-to-day legal business, but not without broader
reservations.
There have been other specific developments in the ‘supranational’ dimension of
European integration which have led to constitutional amendments both in the original and
in later Member States. These have been:
- direct elections to the European Parliament (Treaty signed in 1975);
19 Even then, the statement of the principle is to be accompanied by a declaration stating that the
article in question ‘reflects existing case law of the Court of Justice of the European Communities
and of the Court of First Instance’, rather than any fundamental constitutional leap.
20 The following account is based mainly on the summary given in Bruno de Witte, ‘The Nature of
the Legal Order’, in Paul Craig and Gráinne de Burca, The Evolution of EU Law. (OUP, 1999)
pp.177-213.
26

- concern over the involvement of national parliaments;
- the right of EU citizens of one nationality to vote and stand for office in local and
European elections in another Member State where they are legally resident
(Maastricht Treaty);
- monetary union (Maastricht Treaty).
In the context of the Maastricht ratification debates, a new Article 88-1 was thus introduced
into the French Constitution explicitly providing that:
‘the Republic shall participate in the European Communities and in the European
Union constituted by States that have freely chosen, by virtue of the treaties that
established them, to exercise some of their powers in common..’
Other paragraphs of Article 88 dealt with the other issues referred to above. In Germany, a
new Article 23(1) of the Constitution was included, providing for participation in the EU to
realize a unified Europe and allowing the country to delegate sovereign powers for this
purpose.
Member States which joined later should clearly have understood the nature of the legal
system, even though none of the accession treaties actually stated the principle of
supremacy. Accession implies voluntary acceptance of this doctrine.
Ireland, Portugal and Sweden introduced express provisions on EU membership. Greece
amended its constitution to recognize the primacy of international conventions over any
national legislations. Denmark, Spain, Austria and Finland rely on general provisions for
such delegation, transfer or conferral of powers to international or intergovernmental
organizations or institutions.
In the United Kingdom, this adaptation has been particularly sensitive in view of the
country’s traditional doctrine of ‘parliamentary sovereignty’. The question floated around
for years until the Factortame II judgement in 1991 when, for the first time, the House of
Lords ‘disapplied’ an Act of Parliament as being inconsistent with the Community law,
provoking what seemed to many observers to indicate a surprising lack of public
27

awareness regarding the nature of the Community to which the country had voluntarily
acceded.
The 2004 enlargement has seen a new wave of constitutional adaptations to integration.
Nine constitutions of the ten Central and Eastern European Candidate Countries (i.e.
including Bulgaria and Romania) did not, until recently, contain any provisions at all on
transferring competences to international organizations. With the exception of Slovakia
and the Czech Republic, constitutional amendments for EU membership have been
relatively minimal, referring to ‘international organizations’ rather than specifically to the
EU. Moreover, the tone of these countries’ constitutions, perhaps most strongly in the
Baltic states, remains clearly apprehensive with regard to any limitations on sovereignty
and independence. 21
Adaptations may also be necessary to ensure adequate transposition of directives.
Although the treaty provides that directives ‘shall leave to the national authorities the
choice of form and methods’, there are a number of requirements which must be fulfilled.
Directives must be implemented on time, and by binding acts. ‘Mere administrative
practices which, by their nature, may be changed at the whim of the authorities and which
lack appropriate publicity, do not constitute proper implementation’. 22
4.2 The National Policy Process
National Parliaments
All this may have important implications for relations between branches of state. National
incorporation of European norms has tended to involve delegation of powers to the
executive, which entailed ‘parliamentary approval of acts of the government which, in
practice, is often granted retrospectively, so much that the parliament appears to exercise
a merely formal control’. 23
21 Anneli Albi, ‘Constitutions of Central and Eastern Europe and EU Membership’. World Congress
of International Association of Constitutional Law, Santiago de Chile, 11-17 January 2004.
22 Case 1/86 Commission v Belgium Re the Groundwater Directive [1987] ECR 2797.
23 KPE and D Lasok, Law and Institutions of the European Union. (Butterworths, 2001) p. 352.
28

National parliaments, however, were only really ‘woken up’ in the late 1980s, following the
Single European Act, by the realization that, if their governments were going to be
increasingly involved in qualified majority voting, their own role in influencing the final
decision would inevitably be reduced.
There have been repeated proposals to build national parliaments into the system at the
European level, ranging from rather far-fetched proposals for a Second Chamber of
national parliaments to work alongside the directly-elected European Parliament, to the
more reasonable idea taken up in the European Constitution of giving national parliaments
collectively certain power of control over subsidiarity. National parliaments will be
informed directly by the European Commission about new legislative proposals and if onethird
of them consider that the proposal breaches the principle of subsidiarity, the
Commission will be obliged to reconsider its proposal.
Other European-level mechanisms include promoting representation of national
parliaments at the European Parliament (already some 15 national chambers have offices
in the EP), and developing COSAC, the Conference of European Affairs Committees,
which meets half-yearly with delegations from national parliaments and the European
Parliament.
The main conclusion has repeatedly been, however, that national parliaments need
primarily to work effectively at national level in dealing with European issues. This process
of adaptation has been long and varied, with considerable differences in practice between
Member States, in turn reflecting national structures, traditions and party politics.
In EU 15 there has been, at one extreme, the Danish Parliament which gives the national
executive binding mandates for negotiation. Then there are a group of countries (Finland,
Sweden, Germany, Austria) which play a strong policy-making as well as policy-influencing
role. The Parliaments of the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and France have important
powers of parliamentary scrutiny. The other parliaments have had a rather weaker role. 24
24 European Centre for Parliamentary Research and Documentation, European Affairs Committees,
The Influence of National Parliaments on European Policies. Brussels, 2002; Andreas Maurer,
National Parliaments after Amsterdam: Adaptation, Re-Calibration and Europeanization by Process,
Paper for Working Group Meeting, XXIVth COSAC, 8-9.4.2001.
29

Implementation
There has been much discussion in Europe in the last ten years about how to ensure
implementation of EU rules. This has partly reflected concern as to the very uneven record
among older Member States in transposing directives, and partly the preparations for the
2004 enlargement. The Copenhagen criteria for accession include political criteria
(‘stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and the
respect for and protection of minorities’) but also two kinds of criteria concerning the
capacity of the new Member States to deal with the obligations of Membership.
- ‘the existence of a functioning market economy, as well as the capacity to cope
with competitive pressure and market forces within the Union’; and
- ‘ability to take on the obligations of membership, including adherence to the aims of
political, economic and monetary union.’
This is not only a matter of incorporating the acquis into national legislation, but also of
ensuring its effective application through appropriate administrative and judicial structures.
A few examples may illustrate the breadth and depth of the requirements. In many
spheres, such as the environment, this necessarily entails important investments to bring
industrial and agricultural facilities into line with EU standards. Administrative adaptations
have covered the reinforcement of monitoring and control mechanisms for market
surveillance or the control of food safety; measures for the effective application and
enforcement of anti-trust legislation; the creation of enforcement mechanisms to control
compliance with public procurement; financial management and audit capacities; and so
on.
National Policy Coordination
Coordination between and within national departments is another key challenge for
national adaptation in Europe. It is not only a necessary condition for the effective
promotion of national interests but may also be a cause of common concern inasmuch as
30

it affects the administrative capacity of Member States to take on the obligations of
membership.
This is primarily a matter for the administration. It is essential not only to avoid divergences
between different national actors in European policy-making processes, but it may be of
great value to a country actively to ensure that a coherent position is made known at all
the right stages in the policy-making cycle and in all the right places (departments of EU
institutions, other Member States, influential private actors…). Here again, it should be
emphasised that there are no uniform patterns. There are both similarities and differences
in how Member States have adapted. These are well summed up by Kassim 25 as follows:
Similarities
- Heads of government have specialist expertise and institutional support.
- Foreign affairs ministries retain a central role but their position is being eroded due
to the increased involvement of prime ministers, the direct involvement in EU
affairs of sub-state representatives and officials from line ministries.
- Interdepartmental coordination is generally managed by mechanisms specifically
devised for the purpose, whether specialist administrative units such as the
European Secretariat in the UK, the Secrétariat general du comité interministeriel
(SGCI) in France, or equivalents in Italy, Spain and Portugal, or special committees
in Belgium, Germany or Italy
- Individual ministries have created special units and procedures to deal with EU
business.
- National parliaments are rarely influential.
- Most Member States have a junior minister for European affairs or equivalent.
25 Hussein Kassim, ‘Meeting the Demands of EU Membership: The Europeanization of National
Administrative Systems’ in Kevin Featherstone and Claudio M. Radaelli (eds.) The Politics of
Europeanization. (OUP, 2003): 83-111.
31

- The Permanent Representation of each Member State in Brussels is central to
national coordination efforts at European level.
Differences
- The status of the foreign ministry varies considerably. In some countries,
responsibility is shared with the economics or finance ministry, as in Germany and
Greece, with the Prime Minister’s department as in Italy, or the Cabinet Office in
the UK.
- The role of other individual ministries likewise varies. In the UK line ministries take
the lead in EU policy, each having a division responsible for coordination.
- Some countries aim at comprehensive coordination covering virtually every issue.
Others have lower coordination ambitions.
- Coordination is centralized in some systems, which aim to define a negotiating
stance at early stages of the policy process, and to ensure coherent representation
throughout by all national actors. Others are much more decentralized.
Moreover, one should not exaggerate the special impact of EU membership on national
administrative systems compared to the demands posed by other forms of international
cooperation, or even by national affairs. One study comparing national adaptation in
seven (smaller) Member States thus concludes that ‘there seems to have been no radical
shift or change in the way things were done ‘before and after EU membership. That is to
say, governmental adjustments were made in an incremental way, building upon traditions
and arrangements that were already in place.’ 26
The Social Partners
Finally, participation in EU processes also creates direct demands on the social partners
(that is, the associations representing employers and workers) at both the European and
26 Ben Soetendorp and Kenneth Hanf, ‘Conclusion: The Nature of National Adaptation to European
Integration’ in Kenneth Hank and Ben Soetendorp (eds.) Adapting to European Integration. Small
States and the European Union. (London and New York: Longman, 1998): 186-194. p.186
32

national levels. This is not just a matter of ensuring that the national administration is
adequately informed of private concerns, but also of ensuring that private actors are
capable of participating. As noted above, the new processes which have emerged from the
European social dialogue and European policy coordination depend on the existence of
bodies which are sufficiently representative and well-organised to play their part.
This is, of course, largely in the area of social policy, including the question of labour
markets, which is the subject of the following section of this paper.
33

Part Two
EUROPEAN INTEGRATION AND LABOUR MARKETS:
OPTIONS AND PROCESSES
This paper does not purport to give an evaluation of labour-market policies in themselves.
The aim of this second part is to look briefly at the main options and processes involved,
based on European experiences. As a first step, however, it seems appropriate to offer
some comments about frameworks for comparative analysis.
First, the Member States of the EU participate in a variety of different cooperation
frameworks affecting labour markets, ranging from the global to the subregional. Within the
Council of Europe framework, European Conventions have been signed on social security,
the equivalence of diplomas and recognition of qualifications, and the legal status of
migrant workers. Some of the main pan-European agreements are broader still: the
Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications concerning Higher Education in the
European Region was developed by the Council of Europe and UNESCO and adopted by
national representatives meeting in Lisbon in 1997; the so-called ‘Bologna Process’ which
aims to create an integrated European Higher Education Area, was initially developed by
the Confederation of EU Rectors’ Conferences and Association of European Universities
(CRE), and is a pan-European agreement between Ministers of Education, involving the
Council of Europe, the European Union, UNESCO and other organizations. At subregional
level, the continuing relevance in labour matters of Benelux and Nordic
cooperation has already been noted.
Second, the discussion of regional integration and labour markets overlaps with, but is not
identical to, the argument adopted in other international frameworks where labour markets
are approached in terms of rights. This is, of course, the case of the United Nations and
the International Labour Organization (ILO), which aim to defend international labour
standards that are understood as rights and values in themselves. It is also the case of
regional organizations dedicated to the promotion and protection of democracy and human
rights, within the scope of which conventions under international law are signed, with the
aim of internalising respect for agreed minimum levels of labour rights. In Europe, this
means primarily the Council of Europe, within the framework of which a Social Charter was
34

signed in Turin in 1961, whereby ‘The Contracting Parties accept, as the aim of their policy,
to pursue by all appropriate means, both national and international in character, the
attainment of conditions in which the following rights and principles may be effectively
realized…’
Consequently, it seems useful to try to maintain a distinction between policy choices which
are made on the basis of values at the national, regional or global level, and options for
common action which are inherently linked to the existence of a regional framework.
It is suggested that three main kinds of reasons may lead a regional grouping of countries
to decide to cooperate on labour market issues at the regional level.
Free movement of workers
The first derives from the very aims of the regional agreement. If the intended level of
integration is a common market or more, then free movement of workers is a necessary
component. This entails a number of functional requirements which will have to be
addressed by the contracting parties at union and national levels, most notably guarantees
of non-discrimination (equal treatment), recognition of qualifications, and coordination of
social security. It should be noted that, as shown by the Nordic case, a common labour
market may be pursued and achieved by a group of countries as a goal in itself, without
the aim of a corresponding level of market integration in products, services or capital.
Labour standards and conditions of intra-union competition
The second motivation for common action on labour markets arises from concerns about
the consequences of different national regimes for intra-union conditions of competition.
The scope and degree to which minimum norms need to be harmonized in the interest of
fair competition, however, may be a matter of some dispute.
Common action to promote employment
The third major kind of motivation is an agreement to work jointly to improve employment
performance across the union. This may be seen as a value in itself, in terms of promoting
human welfare, although the intended result may also be to help stabilize the regional
35

integration process. It may also (as has been the case in the EU) be part of an attempt to
increase the overall international competitiveness of the region while maintaining social
cohesion.
Before looking briefly at the experience of the European Union, it may again be interesting
standpoint of interregional comparison, to consider the case of Nordic cooperation.
The Nordic Labour Market
A Nordic Common Labour Market was created by treaty in 1954, guaranteeing the right to
work in any Nordic country without special permit and the right to equal treatment; a Nordic
Passport Union was agreed in 1955; and a Nordic Convention on Social Security was
signed in 1955, providing that citizens of one Nordic country living in another are
automatically entitled to the same benefits as the citizens of the country in which they
reside. The Nordic Committee of Senior Officials for Labour Market and Working Policy
Issues reports to the Nordic Council of Ministers, and coordinates six Working Groups.
The Working Group for Labour Market Services has established Contact Persons for
employment services, for vocational training, for insurance questions, and for Nordic
employment offices.
Creation of a common labour market has been facilitated not only by this legislative and
administrative cooperation, but also by the existence of certain common traditions
connected to the notion of a ‘Nordic labour market model’. This has been characterized by
an important role for public institutions intervening in the labour market; a wide range of
active labour market placement and qualification services; a comprehensive, tax-financed
system of social security; the encouragement of women’s participation; and a wage policy
that emphasizes solidarity and relative quality and which is usually supported by the
government through active participation in centralized wage negotiations. Also, labourmarket
rules are the result of a strong belief in tripartite labour market cooperation
between labour market authorities and social partners. 27
27 This sub-section draws heavily on Peter A. Fischer and Thomas Straubhaar, Migration and
Economic Integration in the Nordic Common Labour Market. (Copenhagen: Nordic Council of
Ministers, 1996).
36

As at the general level, the formal measures of cooperation have thus largely built upon
existing realities. In practice, Nordic countries, since the start of the 20 th century, have
tended to allow their citizens to live and work where they chose. Indeed, the first regular
cooperative arrangements for health insurance funds in Denmark, Sweden and Norway
were begun in 1907. Ministries of social affairs started meeting at least every second year,
beginning in the 1920s, and a general social insurance congress was held every third year
from 1935. 28 Mutual recognition of qualifications was not dealt with in the 1954 treaty and
has been the subject of subsequent additions (not without difficulty in some cases).
Given all these favourable factors, it may come as a surprise that ‘In spite of considerably
differing economic welfare and business cycle patterns from one Nordic country to
another, and even though the legal and technical obstacles to intra-Nordic migration
became largely non-existent, … the establishment of the Common Labour Market clearly
had no direct effect on intra-Nordic migration.’ This may be partly be a reflection of the fact
that the Common Labour Market was largely a formalization of existing realities, but it
seems to confirm the thesis that labour is virtually immobile in international terms, unless
forced to migrate. ‘European labour prefers (and can afford) to stay unemployed at a
certain location, to considering international migration… The development of systems of
social security and welfare allows for immobility even under conditions of long term
unemployment.’ 29
The European Union
Free movement and migration within the EU
The introduction of free movement on intra-Community labour migration has likewise had
‘very little impact on the size and direction of international labour movements. Intra-
Community migration regulated by free movement was generally limited to the movement
of highly skilled workers, frontier migration, and short-term circular migration. In no case
did large-scale movements occur.’ 30 Potential migrants are put off by linguistic diversity, ‘a
28
Erik Solem, The Nordic Council and Scandinavian Integration. (New York and London: Praeger,
1977)
29
Fischer and Straubhaar, op. cit. pp.131,135, 209.
30
Simone Goedings, ‘EU Enlargement to the East and Labour Migration to the West. Lessons from
previous enlargements for the introduction of the free movement of workers for Central and East
European Countries’. IISG Research Paper 36. Amsterdam, 1999. p.9.
37

mindset which preferred unemployment in one’s own backyard to searching for a job in
another Member State’, uncertainty and lack of information, cultural and social difficulties,
housing availability, education and job security. 31
Within the original six Member States, migration rose from about half a million before
1960, to about 830,000 in 1968, remaining constant until the early 1980s, and then
decreasing to about 650,000. Most of this figure was accounted for by Italians. Part of the
problem was that there was very little real support for such movement other than from the
European institutions and the Italian Government. However, four main limitations could be
identified. The provisions only applied to citizens of the EU Member States, whereas the
largest migration flow even within the Community was of third-country nationals, and
migration flows into the Community were much more important. Moreover, the system
failed to establish or at least support strong and active linkages between the labour
markets of its member states. Until the creation of the European Employment Services
(EURES) in 1993, no significant arrangement existed to balance supply and demand on
the labour markets of different Member States. Finally, it can be argued that the principle
of equal treatment worked against intra-Community migrants: ‘because these foreign
workers had to be offered wages at the national level, while the cost of their recruitment
remained fairly constant, Community workers became more expensive than local workers
or cheap labour from third countries, and thus less attractive to employers.’ 32 By 2000, only
1.6% of the total population of EU Member States was made up of citizens of one Member
State residing in another (another 3.4% was made up of non-EU nationals). Of these,
30% were living in Germany, 20% in France and 15% in the UK; while Italians and
Portuguese were the largest countries of origin. 33 Nevertheless there are signs that
migration is now beginning to increase within the Union, because of new citizenship rights
giving freedom of residence.
The Evolution of EU Policies 1957 - 1992: a Brief Overview
The first stage in the evolution of EU policy, from 1957 to 1972 was one of noninterventionism.
The free movement of labour was seen as a contributing factor to social
31
Siofra O’Leary, ‘The Free Movement of Persons and Services’: in Paul Craig and Gráinne de
Burca (eds.), The Evolution of EU Law (OUP, 1999) pp.377-416.
32
Goedings, op. cit.
33
EUROSTAT, European Social Statistics: 3 – Migration. (Luxembourg: Office for Official
Publications of the European Communities, 2002).
38

prosperity: workers would move from areas where labour was cheap and plentiful, to those
where there was demand, and wage rates would rise. Consequently, free circulation of
labour would facilitate an equalization in the terms and conditions of competition. Only a
minimum level of harmonization was seen as necessary in order to remove obstacles to
free movement, and to deal with distortions of competition. Indeed, Article 119 of the EEC
Treaty on equal pay for men and women, and Article 120 on paid holiday schemes, were
provisions originally conceived to protect industry in France, where domestic legislation
was more generous in these respects than in the other founding members. Beyond this,
social policy received little attention. The Treaty created a European Social Fund to
facilitate mobility and retraining. An Administrative Committee for social security was
created in 1958. A few pieces of basic legislation were passed on free movement of
workers and their families and the coordination of social security.
A new activism in social policy emerged in the 1970s, following the October 1972 Paris
Summit, as the Community visibly tried to put a human face on regional integration and to
persuade citizens that social consequences of growth were being effectively tackled. A first
Social Action Programme was adopted for 1974-1976. Measures were agreed to ease the
impact of mass redundancies, the transfer of undertakings, and insolvent employers,
together with Directives on sex discrimination. Indeed the case of equal pay for men and
women provided a platform to clarify that there was a social as well as an economic
rationale behind Community policy. In the landmark Defrenne (II) case in the mid-1970s,
the Court of Justice thus argued:
‘Article 119 pursues a double aim. First… the aim of Article 119 is to avoid a
situation in which undertakings established in states which have actually
implemented the principle of equal pay suffer a competitive disadvantage in intra-
Community competition as compared with undertakings established in states which
have not yet eliminated discrimination against women workers as regards pay.
‘Second, this provision forms part of the social objectives of the Community, which
is not merely an economic union, but is at the same time intended, by common
action to ensure social progress and seek the constant improvement of living and
working conditions of its peoples… This double aim, which is at once economic
39

and social, shows that the principle of equal pay forms part of the foundations of
the Community.’
However, the impetus was quickly lost as an adverse economic climate contributed to
rising unemployment, and new pressures were felt arising from the need to adapt to new
technology and competition from the US and Japan where ‘labour market flexibility’
seemed to give a competitive edge. 34 In the early 1980s, consequently, new social-policy
initiatives were unsuccessful. The Commission presented proposals for Directives on
‘atypical’ work, but these were not adopted. Although the Conservative Government in the
UK was prominent in blocking many initiatives, most Member States at the time adopted
orthodox and conservative attitudes to social-policy law. In some cases, soft-law options
(Action Programmes and Recommendations) were adopted; in others not even that.
The Internal Market programme in the mid-1980s, and the inauguration of Jacques Delors
as President of the Commission, saw renewed activism, but with a difference. Delors’
vision was openly of a ‘European Social Space’. However, whereas this would need to be
achieved by supranational harmonization in some cases, it would be preferable (in the
interests of good European governance) as far as possible, to build such a space through
social dialogue, bringing social actors into the system and creating a framework of
European industrial relations.
The Single European Act (signed in 1986 and entering into force in 1987) which paved the
way for completion of the internal market, still reflected the idea that liberalization would
create benefits and that there were few new concessions regarding social competences.
Majority voting was to some degree introduced for legislation on workers’ health and
safety, and a first reference to social dialogue was included in the Treaty. An explicit
policy of economic and social cohesion was now included. This, however, was quickly
accompanied by a massive increased in the structural funds (also due to the simultaneous
for the accession of Spain and Portugal). Concerns about the impact of the internal
market on employment through relocations seemed to support proposals for a new step
forward in the harmonization of social legislation. In 1989, a Community Charter of
Fundamental Social Rights was agreed (although not by the UK), followed by an Action
34
Ruth Nielsen and Erika Szyszczak, The Social Dimension of the European Community.
(Copenhagen: Handelshojsklens Forlag, 1991).
40

Programme. A series of new Directives were adopted on proof of employment contract,
pregnant workers, working time, posted workers, and young workers. News steps forward
were taken in 1989 for mutual recognition of diplomas (higher education), and 1992
(professional education and training) on the basis of the ‘New Approach’.
At Maastricht, it proved impossible to persuade the UK to accede to most new initiatives in
social policy, among them the new provisions on social dialogue. These were included in
an Agreement of Social Policy, applicable only to 11 countries, until the Amsterdam Treaty
incorporated the provisions. In the course of the 1990s, the social dialogue led to
numerous European agreements of various sorts, including a number of texts negotiated
between social partners which were then, as foreseen in the Treaty, transformed into
Community law (notably the Directives on parental leave, part-time work and fixed-term
work).
In the first half of the 1990s, however, unemployment again became a source of deep
concern, particularly in the context of the painful adjustment measures being taken in
many countries to achieve the Maastricht convergence criteria for monetary union.
The Twin Challenges of Competitiveness and Employment
The Commission’s White Paper on Growth Competitiveness and Employment, presented
in December 1993, was quite clear about the nature of the challenges remaining ‘to ensure
that the internal market can develop to meet new needs and to launch new initiatives to
ensure that a continental-scale open market is fully realized.’ In the first place, law could
not be the only method, not only because of the high sensitivity of many issues, but
because the new challenges involved in achieving a more competitive and ‘knowledgebased
economy - research and technology, education, new working arrangements etc. –
did not by their nature lend themselves to ‘command-and-control’ approaches. Moreover, it
was clear that there could be no uniform recipes for improvement. Cooperation and
41

‘diffusion of best practice’ was consequently recommended in the various spheres of
action identified. 35
At the same time, in the first half of the 1990s, the Community continued to face strong
pressures to put in place a more developed social policy for Europe to match the internal
market which was just being (legislatively) completed – but was confronting serious
divergences of opinion between Member States about how to proceed. The emergence of
the open method of co-ordination (OMC) in fact coincided with an accelerating process of
‘convergence of objectives’ in matters of social protection. The Council in mid-1992
adopted two Recommendations on ‘common criteria’ concerning resources for social
protection systems and ‘the convergence of social protection objectives and policies’. 36
The system proposed was ‘a premature version’ of the open method of coordination. 37
Moreover, there was an increasingly urgent need, as the moves towards monetary
convergence began to hurt, to do something to deal with mounting unemployment which
was afflicting most of Europe – but still a fundamental difference of views as to how to do
so. The 1993 White Paper was again clear that there could be no simple, Communitywide,
answers:
‘Reducing unemployment necessarily requires increased employment opportunities
on an unprecedented scale. Pro-active labour market policies will be central to
such a strategy and will require a radical new look at the whole range of available
instruments which can influence the employment environment, whether these be
regulatory, fiscal or social security incentives. The vast bulk of these measures will
be for individual Member States to decide upon in responding to their diverse
national situations.
‘However, the Community can and must play an important supporting role by
providing a forum where a common broad framework strategy can be agreed, and
35 Commission of the European Communities, White Paper on growth, competitiveness, and
employment: The challenges and ways forward into the 21 st century, COM(93) 700 final, 5
December 1993. B.1.5
36 Council Recommendation 92/441 of 24 June 1992 on common criteria concerning sufficient
resources and social assistance in social protection systems (OJ L 245 of 26 August 1992 p.46)
and Council Recommendation 92/442 of 27 July 1992 on the convergence of social protection
objectives and policies (OJ L 245 of 26 August 1992 p.49).
37 Caroline de la Porte, Philippe Pochet and Graham Room, ‘Social benchmarking, policy making
and new governance in the EU’, Journal of European Social Policy 11:4 (2001) pp.291-307 p.296.
42

y underpinning national measures with complementary Community action,
whether in the form of financial support through the European Social Fund … or
through networking and other measures designed to ensure the transfer of good
practice and experience.’ 38
Similar conclusions were being reached regarding social policy and labour relations. The
response to the 1993 Green Paper and 1994 White Paper on European Social Policy 39
clearly indicated that ‘Member States and others were divided in their opinions as to the
need for further legislative action at the European level, particularly as it concerns labour
standards. Moreover, the challenges facing European society were becoming more and
more complex.‘ The 1995-1997 Action Plan thus proposed:
‘… the development of an additional type of response at European level to
complement and reinforce the legislative activity which has formed the backbone of
the social dimension in the past, and which will continue to be taken forward where
necessary. In particular, it means the development of the role to be played at
Community level in terms of providing a catalyst in promoting joint discussion,
exchange of experience, and concerted action on a transnational basis in
responding to common problems.’ 40
In this context, the Essen European Council in December 1994 identified five key areas in
which measures should be taken:
‘1. Improving employment opportunities for the labour force by promoting
investment in vocational training
2. Increasing the employment-intensiveness of growth
3. Reducing non-wage labour costs
4. Improving the effectiveness of labour-market policy:
38
Commission, White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment, B.8.9.
39
Green Paper on European Social Policy – Options for the Union, COM(93) 551 final; White
Paper: European social policy – a way forward for the Union, COM(94) 333 final.
40
Communication from the Commission, Medium Term Social Action Programme 1995-1997.
COM(95) 134 final, 26 April 1995, p.3.
43

5. Improving measures to help groups which are particularly hard hit by
unemployment.’
It also outlined what was essentially a precursor of the Open Method of Coordination:
‘The European Council urges the Member States to transpose these
recommendations in their individual policies into a multi-annual programme having
regard to the specific features of their economic and social situation. It requests the
Labour and Social Affairs and Economic and Financial Affairs Councils and the
Commission to keep close track of employment trends, monitor the relevant
policies of the Member States and report annually to the European Council on
further progress on the employment market, starting in December 1995.’
In the following two years the debate continued as to how to incorporate employment into
the Community. The system which was introduced into the Community Treaty at
Amsterdam in June 1997 owes much to changing political circumstances within the
Community, notably the 1995 accession and, in particular, the influence exerted in this
respect by Sweden; and changes of government in the first half of 1997 in both France
and the UK, which brought in parties much more favourable to active public policies to
address unemployment.
This system came to be known as the Luxembourg Process 41 , due to the Extraordinary
European Council on Employment held in Luxembourg in November 1997 to push ahead
with the provisions introduced into the Treaty at Amsterdam. The Presidency’s
Conclusions explicitly state that the process was inspired by the convergence approach
adopted for economic policies. Guidelines and targets were agreed for each of four
‘pillars’:
- employability,
- entrepreneurship,
- adaptability, and
41
The European Employment Strategy encompasses not only the Luxembourg Process but also
the relevant structural policies.
44

- equal opportunities.
The guidelines have been modified every year. At Lisbon, in addition to the ‘vertical’
objectives, the Member States agreed on quantifiable ‘horizontal’ objectives for the overall
employment rate. According to the guidelines for the year 2002, they aim at an
employment rate of 67% for men and 57% for women by January 2005, and 70% and 60%
respectively by 2010, as well as an employment rate among older persons (aged 55 to 64)
of 50%.
These goals and commitments have been reaffirmed as well as refined in subsequent
European Councils, notably that of Nice (2000), which approved the European Social
Agenda, Stockholm (2001), and Barcelona (2002).
The specific guidelines adopted in 2003 42 cover the following areas:
1. Active and Preventative Measures for the Unemployed and Inactive
2. Job Creation and Entrepreneurship
3. Address Change and Promote Adaptability and Mobility In The Labour
Market
4. Promote Development of Human Capital and Lifelong Learning
5. Increase Labour Supply and Promote Active Ageing
6. Gender Equality
7. Promote the Integration of and Combat the Discrimination against People at
a Disadvantage in the Labour Market
8. Make Work Pay through Incentives to Enhance Work Attractiveness
42 Council Decision of 22 July 2003 on guidelines for the employment policies of the Member States
(2003/578/EC) OJ L 197 of 5 August 2003, p.18.
45

9. Transform Undeclared Work into Regular Employment
10. Address Regional Employment Disparities.
The ‘involvement of parliamentary bodies, social partners and other relevant actors’ is now
explicitly promoted as a means of ensuring ‘good governance and partnership in the
implementation of the employment guidelines’.
By way of example of what these entail, take the first guideline, which specifies agreed
policy options and instruments, and then provides both absolute and relative indicators for
comparing performance (see the text highlighted in bold italics).
1. ACTIVE AND PREVENTATIVE MEASURES FOR THE UNEMPLOYED AND INACTIVE
Member States will develop and implement active and preventative measures for the
unemployed and the inactive, designed to prevent inflow into long-term unemployment,
and to promote the sustainable integration into employment of unemployed and inactive
people. Member States will:
(a) ensure that, at an early stage of their unemployment spell, all jobseekers benefit from
an early identification of their needs and from services such as advice and guidance,
job search assistance and personalized action plans;
(b) based on the above identification, offer jobseekers access to effective and efficient
measures to enhance their employability and chances of integration, with special
attention given to people facing the greatest difficulties in the labour market.
Member States will ensure that:
- every unemployed person is offered a new start before reaching six months of
unemployment in the case of young people, and 12 months of unemployment in
the case of adults, in the form of training, retraining, work practice, a job, or other
employability measure, combined where appropriate with ongoing job search
assistance,
46

- by 2010, 25% of the long-term unemployed participate in an active measure in the
form of training, retraining, work practice, or other employability measure, with the
aim of achieving the average of the three most advanced Member States;
(c) modernize and strengthen labour market institutions, in particular employment
services,
(d) ensure regular evaluation of the effectiveness and efficiency of labour market
programmes and review them accordingly.
European Integration and Labour Markets: A Mix of Approaches and
Instruments
The European situation thus presents a fair degree of complexity. Countries may be part
of:
- intergovernmental Conventions in the framework of the Council of Europe;
- close subregional unions reflecting the specific historical and social realities of subgroups
of countries – Benelux and the Common Nordic Labour Market; and
- the European Union.
The EU itself, moreover, has come to adopt a variety of approaches in response to:
a) the different substantive needs and objectives involved (from the universallyrecognized
need for uniform and enforceable minimum standards of health and
safety for workers where serious risks are involved, to acceptance of very loose
agreements over employment-improvement instruments which aim at policy
learning rather than any having any regulatory intent); and
b) the high sensitivity of the issues and diversity of national (and regional) conditions
and preferences.
47

There is thus an important body of European legislation laying down binding rules and
minimum standards, as well as establishing framework programmes for EU cooperation,
together with a variety of common funds providing financial and other support for mobility,
training, innovation and so on. There is also a strong recognition that flexibility and respect
for diversity are essential. It remains to be seen what will be the impact of the 2004
enlargement on these continuing debates.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
By way of concluding remarks at this preliminary stage, I would like only to make a few
further observations about the challenges of comparison with which I started.
Regional integration can bring major net benefits to the participating countries and beyond.
It can make a positive contribution to basic shared goals ranging from an increase in
regional security to a reduction of poverty. The ways in which regional systems are
designed, and the ways in which participating countries adapt, matter.
Interregional comparison in support of this objective can be helpful, but requires great
caution. There are major problems of policy transferability within regions (as we see in the
kinds of benchmarking exercise being explored in Europe mentioned above) and even
more so between regions. Can we discuss ‘good practice’ in regional-integration
management? Can we develop standards of regional ‘good governance’? I believe that
we can, but this demands not only great care but the elaboration of clear parameters for
comparison.
I hope that this paper may at least help to clarify the complexities of European integration,
and perhaps contribute to further refinement of how Europe and Latin America may learn
to learn from each other.
48