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

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politics and administration on eu policy go beyond the question of whether the eu is the appropriate place for the development of policy. A prioritisation committee would more adequately reflect the complex reality of European co-operation, with its varieties of policy domains, instrumentation and relations between the actors. Connecting to citizens begins with the political parties that are able to make their first ‘gains’ with positions on European issues that match their profiles. The challenge for these parties is then to be involved in more than just the traditional debate of ‘more’ or ‘less’ Europe but also in the formulation of appealing answers to topical questions such as ‘What kind of Europe do we want?’ Accountability To date, the Netherlands has always promoted European accountability mechanisms, and partly as a result, it has devoted little attention to national accountability mechanisms for European issues at the national level. As members of the Council of Ministers, government ministers are part of the European legislature, but the Council is not accountable to other institutions at the European level. Because the government is accountable to the Dutch Parliament on European issues, the wrr proposes that the activities of the parliamentary Prioritisation Committee be linked to a parliamentary scrutiny reserve. This would mean that the government would be required to await the outcome of parliamentary debates before adopting definitive positions in the Brussels decision making process. By linking the outcomes of the parliamentary debate directly to the Dutch input in the European decision making process in this way, an ex ante accountability mechanism would be created. This is all the more important because the traditional ex post accountability mechanisms are less suited to amending European legislation once it has been adopted. The strategic function of the Prime Minister that we mentioned earlier also has great potential as an accountability mechanism, since it enables Parliament to call the Prime Minister to account for the strategic input of the Netherlands at the European level. 87 Identification Initiating processes in which citizens can identify more closely with the eu is mainly a matter for the longer term and is something that is virtually impossible for actors from the national political and administrative echelons to enforce (see also wrr 2007). Whether or not this happens depends in part on factors such as the role of ‘Europe’ in education, the question of whether Dutch citizens trust the citizens of other member states (Prast 2007) and the degree to which they benefit from the eu and are actually aware of it. The contribution of national politicians and administrators lies primarily in the creation of a fruitful breeding ground for such identifica-
ediscovering europe in the netherlands tion processes. In order to do this, they must themselves assume responsibility for playing the role of a link and not an obstacle. If politicians and public administrators improve the legitimisation of eu policy via the more consistent representation and accountability of their choices and standpoints, citizens will be able to develop knowledge, awareness and a certain familiarity with European issues, which will enable them to identify more readily with Europe in the longer term. Obviously, the question of whether this will actually happen is not something that politicians can control, but this should not be a reason for not trying to contribute to citizens identifying with Europe. 88 Politicians and public administrators can also stimulate this by portraying Dutch participation in the eu in more appealing ways. It has several times been observed in this report that European co-operation is a complex and multi-layered affair. Citizens accordingly find it difficult to identify with the eu as a political system and are understandably susceptible to doomsday images of a European ‘superstate’ (Crum 2007b). Here again, there is an important role for administrators and politicians, as well as for a more politically visible strategic role for the Prime Minister. To date, the national level has been neglected in the context of the legitimisation of eu policy and this therefore needs to be rediscovered. This chapter has discussed a number of options toward this aim. For the wrr, the most important thing is that the various routes help to enable politicians and public administrators to improve their contribution to the legitimisation of eu policy; the precise structuring of these proposals may however vary. At the same time, the obstacles to overcome remain particularly persistent. Therefore, the options outlined in this chapter are a necessary but possibly insufficient condition for a stronger eu policy legitimacy process . Bearing this in mind, the following chapters focus firstly on different constitutional and democratic traditions and subsequently on actors outside of the political and administrative arena, and address the question of how these traditions and actors may contribute to eu policy legitimisation in the Netherlands.
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The Netherlands Scientific Council
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Following the negative 2005 referen
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