5th Annual Conference Nice - European-microfinance.org

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46 5 th Annual Conference Nice politics’-route (role of experts, ‚bottom-up’ evolution of the issue in the commission’s administration) as well as elements of a ‘high politics’ route (role of high-level policy makers in the European Council‚ top-down’ development in EU institutions). The activities that were identified as milestones in the different phases of the process are chronologically listed in the following table, including the involved actors and the allocation to the high or low politics route. Table 1: Milestones in the agenda-setting process of mirofinance as a European policy issue Year Actors Activity Phase Route Experts, Interest groups, European 1998- Commission (DG Enterprise, DG 2002 Employment) First studies and scientific projects, Recomendations of 2nd Round table of Banks and SMEs Issue initiation low Council of the European Union Guarantee window for microcredit in the Issue initiation high 2000- (ECOFIN), European Council, EIB, Multi-annual Programme for Enterprises 2002 European Comission and Entrepreneurship (MAP) (2000- 2005) DG Regio 2002 Microcredit as instrument of risk capital financing (Financial Engineering) Issue specification high DG Enterprise Working group: Microcredit for Small Issue specification low National administrations Business and Business Creation: Bridging 2003 Experts a Market Gap 2003- 2005 DG Employment and Social Affairs Experts Setting up of EMN, study on microfinance as tool to fight social exclusion Issue specification low 2003 European Council Presidency conclusions with request for more activity on microfinance Issue expansion high 2004 EMN, DG Enterprise 1. Microfinance-Conference in Brussels Issue expansion low 2005 European Commission, European Parliament, Council of the European Union Inclusion of microcredit into the Integrated Guidelines for growth and employment (guideline 15) Issue expansion high 2005- 2006 DG Regio, EIB JEREMIE (Joint European Resources for Micro to Medium Enterprises) Issue expansion high 2007 European Commission, EMN European initiative for the development of Issue entrance low micro-credit Issue initiation The Commission-funded studies and projects between 1998 and 2002 were the first systematic work conducted on microfinance operations in Europe and acted as reference points for the further development of microfinance as policy issue. They established the most important aspects of political representation of microfinance in Europe that were taken up later in policy images: microfinance as efficient tool to finance SMEs without access to banks (Evers et al 1999); microfinance as tool to fight social exclusion and unemployment (Nowak et al. 1999); microfinance as tool for local development (nef et al 2001) and microfinance provision as a challenge to the regulation of the European financial systems (Reifner 2002). In retrospective, the collaborations that were formed to write these studies acted as a nucleus for an emerging expert community on microfinance in Europe that would finally evolve into the EMN. These activities indicate an issue initiation on the low-politics route, with non-state
47 5 th Annual Conference Nice experts and their contact persons in the Commission’s administration as the pivotal actors, successfully initiating the agenda-setting process of microfinance referring to “professional concerns” (Princen/Rhinard 2006:1122) supported by the provision of data and expertise. Thus with regard of the role the EU institutions played in this phase of the process, this notion cannot be maintained. Mostly because the main impulses for the first recognition of the issue of microfinance at EU level came top-down from the systemic level of the European Union. Especially the political dynamics of the Lisbon Strategy and the concerns in Council, Commission and Parliament about instruments to address the financing gap for SMEs in Europe provided the political momentum for the start of the further agenda-setting process on microfinance. Therefore, the issue initiation of microfinance has to be located mainly on the high politics route. The activities of non-state experts played a supporting role in this phase of the process. A role that should became more influential in the following development of the agenda-setting. Issue specification A similar mixture of top-down and bottom-up activities was observed during the phase of issue specification that took place in the years between 2002 and 2005. Yet the influence of non-state experts, especially from the emerging European microfinance community, was stronger and more important than during the initiation phase. Issue specification developed over three main policy venues: the venues of social/employment policy, enterprise policy and regional/structural policy. All three venues were mainly governed by the accordant DGs of the Commission. The explorative online survey showed that the policy image of microfinance as a tool to fight poverty and social exclusion was closest to the self-conception of most of the representatives of microfinance providers organised in the EMN and was strongly supported by their representatives during the process of agenda-setting. Additionally the institutional conditions for the involvement of non-state actors were especially favourable regarding social and employment policy in the European Union, since this venue is generally dominated by the horizontal aspect of policy making. This DG Employment and Social Affairs mainly acts as coordinator of trans-national cooperation between stakeholders in the member states to develop and support innovative policy measures for policy transfer throughout Europe. With the European Employment strategy (EES) and the OMC Social inclusion, this policy venue offered non-state actors in the past years many opportunities to frame and place policy images of their policy projects (see de la Porte/Pochet 2005). The analysis identified multiple references for a direct involvement of the European microfinance community in the issue specification process on microfinance in this policy venue. The non-state experts were successful in placing a policy image of microfinance that emphasized its use as a tool to fight poverty and social exclusion in Europe as well as to stimulate employment (see Siewertsen et al 2005). DG Employment and Social Affairs itself supported the community in this phase substantially with funds for network building and the awarding of study projects, which in turn were used to further frame the policy image of microfinance. Similar to the venue of social/employment policy the mode of governance in the policy venue of enterprise policy is characterized by activities of the DG Enterprise to facilitate coordination and exchange between the member states and the relevant interest groups (see Linsenmann et al. 2007). But in contrast to social/employment policy the involvement of non-state experts in this venue is normally rather limited and focuses on the deliverance of technical expertise in working groups. This has not much changed with the introduction of an Open Method of Coordination in 2000 to develop a supportive environment for SMEs and start-ups in Europe (European Council 2000: 5). The analysis showed that during the phase of issue specification the political representation
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