Rediscovering Europe in the Netherlands - St Antony's College ...

ediscovering europe in the netherlands
European associations such as the ‘confederations’ of national organisations.
All in all, there is no clear overview of ‘the organised citizen’, so
that the views of citizens are increasingly becoming difficult to gauge as
guidelines for government action and for these civil society organisations,
especially when it comes to eu policy.
5.3 civil society involvement in eu policy in the
netherlands
5.3.1 the logic of civil society action and the effects of
sectoral ‘segmentation’
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Civil society organisations derive their validity from the representation of
specific interests, by representing specific groups and opinions in society
or by contributing to the solution of specific social problems. However,
when it comes to the adoption of Dutch eu policy, these functions are only
apparent to a limited extent. The involvement of Dutch organisations in
the decision making process is minimal and the eu and eu policy are rarely
an inherent motive for their actions. Recent research on the role of civil
society organisations in the European decision making process at the
national level has however shown that these organisations are mobilised
when their specific objectives and interests are at stake (Beyers 2002).
In other words, civil society organisations usually only participate in eu
policy debates when they determine that it would be useful for their own
objectives and activities (Van den Berg and Brandsen 2007: 31). Thus, for
an accurate assessment of the potential of civil society as a link in improving
the legitimisation of eu policy it is both essential to understand and
to focus on the motivations and priorities of the organisations operating
within it.
However, in practice civil society organisations are by no means always
actually involved in national eu policy, even when there are substantive
reasons for doing so. The sectoral segmentation referred to in the previous
section is a complicating factor, as illustrated by the situation surrounding
the European Commission initiatives in relation to Services of General
Economic Interest. In 2003, the Commission published a Green Paper on
these services and began a broad public consultation round in which (relevant)
interested parties were able to adopt a position on the desirability and
content of the topic. This was also highly relevant for Dutch civil society,
because many organisations fulfil a function in the provision of public
services; any market regulation by the eu in this domain would therefore
have a direct influence on their position and functioning. However, the
total number of responses to this consultation round was fairly low (281);