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

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strengthening the legitimacy of dutch eu policy: conclusions and recommendations terrorism and cross-border crime requires a vision on the effects of measures in terms of democratic values and fundamental rights. Meanwhile, combined eu action in the areas of asylum and immigration requires that choices be made between the different levels and forms of cross-border solidarity. Tackling cross-border environmental problems has consequences for the competitiveness of industry and the transport sector, while a common climate and energy policy is expensive. How high can the costs be permitted to rise, and above all, who should bear them? Choices also have to be made between integration and diversity, between administration by experts or democratically elected representatives. The issue of whether and how the eu should promote common values on the world stage, and where the boundaries of a common, shared identity lie, is also becoming more complex (Tsoukalis 2005). The political choices which have to be made in these relatively new areas of eu policy are also becoming increasingly urgent in the established domains of eu policy. With reference to the internal market, for example, the more relevant focus has become what constitutes an ‘appropriate’ balance between increasing globalisation, the liberalisation of the services sector in the internal market (which can provide a long-term boost for European economies) and the preservation of distinct national, social arrangements. The effectiveness and efficiency of measures are no longer the only things that count: the parameters of policies, and even the policy objectives themselves, are becoming increasingly controversial. 155 Moreover, choices such as these always impinge on the relationship between the eu as a collective and the individual member states. For example, a robust European asylum and immigration policy in an eu of 27 member states is difficult to imagine as long as individual member states retain national vetoes. Combating terrorism and tackling cross-border crime at the European level will affect national sovereignty in the area of criminal law. It is therefore important to link specific policy ambitions to visions of the direction and nature of European co-operation. Otherwise the risk arises that policy expectations are assigned to the eu which it cannot meet. This connection is also necessary in order to prevent views of the eu as a political system from becoming bogged down in elevated abstractions (‘the federal union’) or in unrealistic doomsday scenarios (‘the European superstate’), while the ambitions on concrete policy issues lead to a feeling of ‘creeping’ integration which appears to mostly ignore those views. The lack of fixed anchor points also underlines the need to link specific policy ambitions to visions of the eu as a political system. Since there is as yet no suitable terminology for discussing the eu as a political system, the public debate tends to fall back on a ‘state-like’ vocabulary.
ediscovering europe in the netherlands This generates public suspicion of the ‘constitutional’ terminology and reinforces fears of a European ‘superstate’. A wide range of options also presents itself in how these stated objectives may be realised. International organisations other than the eu are relevant such as the role of the un, which is indispensable when tackling the issue of climate change, while bilateral and multilateral co-operation offers opportunities for the achievement of immigration policy objectives. These options could exist parallel to, instead of or in addition to eu actions (wrr 2006). Moreover, the eu does not offer just one mode of governance, but a wide range of possibilities for shaping collective action (wrr 2003). Other relevant questions include: Within which policy domains should specific policy ambitions be shaped? At what stages in the decision-making process should interventions be made and by whom? 156 The eu currently does not have an overarching ambition or ‘project’ which can serve as a framework for all of its various concrete policy ambitions. In the past, peace, stability and prosperity and the internal market were Archimedean points for all of the eu’s concrete policies. They provided a functional (rather than a constitutional) interpretation of the eu as a political system. These kinds of all-embracing themes are less obvious nowadays. Obviously, peace and prosperity are still important elements of European integration, as is the internal market, but the eu today encompasses much more. Choices with respect to eu policy objectives (and how they are to be realised) can thus no longer be made against a background of an all-embracing European project. This again leads to a need for new impulses to boost the vitality of policy within the eu. Against this backdrop, the legitimacy of eu policy outcomes will be more important than ever. The benefits of the eu can no longer be reduced to technical solutions which can be uniformly and objectively measured and which benefit all citizens to an equal degree. More frequently, eu policy is created in the context of diverging interests and conflicting policy aims. Therefore, legitimisation via policy outcome can no longer be the exclusive domain of specialists embedded in a technical process. Moreover, eu policy output in the Netherlands is dependent on alternative sources of legitimacy, which require that societal interests and views are represented in the formulation of policy objectives; the adequate functioning of accountability mechanisms; and that the significance of concrete policy results and ambitions for the political system of the eu is taken into account. Thus a first step requires that impulses designed to strengthen the vitality of the eu will have to activate these alternative sources of legitimacy.
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