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

diagnosis
authorities in areas where national autonomy was threatened (issues such
as social policy and the environment).
The issues of European co-operation on security policy, police and judicial
co-operation and the co-ordination of social policy, all of which arose in
the early 1990s, are at least as controversial and problematic. Increased
integration in these areas united new alliances of domestic and transnational
actors and helps produce a greater diversity of views. Given the
increase in (national) sensitivities and the differences in national systems
and preferences, the formal decision making process largely takes place
via the intergovernmental method where the Council dominates, and
where consensus building is a slow process that generates lowest common
denominator outcomes. The decision making processes in these policy
domains are largely supported by an ever more complex and differentiated
system of formal and informal institutions, legislative and implementation
procedures which differ per domain and per topic. As a result, the policy
process is still technical and opaque in nature and has become less and less
visible to the broader public and national parliaments than has been the
case up till now involving the traditional Community or intergovernmental
methods (wrr 2003).
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Controversial enlargement
Thirdly, the transition of the eu via a process of broadening and deepening
coincided with the placement (at the Copenhagen Summit in 1993) of an
unprecedented expansion of the eu from 15 to 25 member states on the
agenda, a number which has since grown to 27. In the early 1990s, it was
already clear to large sections of the population that the ten candidates
from Central and Eastern Europe had a significantly lower level of development
and administrative capacity than the existing member states, while
their experiences with the democratic process, the market economy, and
the eu policy process was only in its infancy. Accordingly, it quickly
became clear that the future 25-member-state eu would have to reconcile
many more different traditions and interests. This, it was expected, would
make the already slow decision making process even more cumbersome,
time-consuming and non-transparent, and consequently, put even more
pressure on the processes of legitimacy that are based on tangible results.
But the alarm bells among the broad European public – and particularly
the lower-educated groups – only really began to sound when a discussion
arose prior to enlargement on its consequences for the welfare state
and employment at the lower end of the labour market. In the majority
of member states, the media succeeded in effectively encapsulating this
debate using the symbol of the ‘Polish plumber’.