Europeanisation, National Identities and Migration ... - europeanization

94 Andrew Geddes
Parliament 1998; Chopin and Niessen 2001). The change of government in
the UK in 1997 also removed the opposition to the inclusion of specific antidiscrimination
provisions held by the Conservative government. Ideas about
anti-discrimination had been actively circulating at EU level throughout the
1990s. The new Article 13 reflected these ideas and brought together a number
of equality concerns (race, ethnicity, religion, age, disability, gender and sexual
orientation) under one Treaty heading. The key factor was, however, the
intergovernmental impetus given by the widely held view that ‘something needed
to be done’ about racism and xenophobia and the unblocking of the process after
the change of government in the UK. This does leave another issue: the rapid
progress from proposal to legislation (December 1999–June 2000) of the antidiscrimination
directives.
In seven months between December 1999 and June 2000 the Commission
proposals on anti-discrimination legislation were turned into two directives on race
equality, equal treatment in the workplace and an accompanying action programme
to support implementation of the legislation. This ‘world record’ progress is
particularly interesting because these areas were new policy issues for the EU (Tyson
2001). Ideas had been circulating, but there had not previously been a Treaty
basis for legislative action. Indeed, the Commission itself had been sceptical about
progress. It hoped that its package of measures – the two directives and action
programme – would be adopted by the end of the French Presidency in December
2000. The Portuguese government which held the Council Presidency were keen
to secure some prestige associated with adoption of at least one directive, but found
it difficult to judge the issue on which progress towards legislation was most likely.
February 2000 was the key month. By this time, the Council working group
composed of national officials had only had time for a first reading of the proposals.
Parallel to this were developments linked to the entry into the Austrian coalition of
Haider’s Freedom Party (FPÖ). On 31 January 2000 14 member states announced
that they would suspend bilateral official contacts at political level with an Austrian
Government integrating the FPÖ, but on 3 February, a coalition government
was formed in Austria with the FPÖ. A week later (11–12 February), an informal
meeting of the Ministers for Employment and Social Affairs in Lisbon had been
scheduled. The French minister Martine Aubry and her Belgian colleague were
the most vocal in calling for action against the new Austrian government. This had
a symbolic dimension when the French and Belgian ministers refused to participate
in the usual end of meeting group photo.
What effect did this have on the negotiations? The British, Dutch and Swedish
governments were happy with the content of the directives because they accorded
fairly closely with measures already adopted in national law. They had one
or two particular concerns, but the adoption of the directives would be fairly
costless because there was a good fit with national legislation and thus little
adaptive pressure. The Portuguese presidency was keen to push for a resolution.
The issues were potentially trickier for the French because their policy approach
had consciously eschewed British- and Dutch-style ethnic minorities policy and
preferred the assimilationist approach central to ‘national integration’. But, as