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

safeguards and direct citizen participation
lines which mark the limits of potential eu intervention and which cannot
be crossed by European institutions, national politicians or policy makers.
An interesting example is offered by the British government’s approach,
which, in the run-up to the negotiations on the Constitutional Treaty in
2003, adopted a series of red lines in the areas of taxation, social security,
judicial co-operation, the European budget and defence. The Prime Minister,
in the name of the British government, even went so far as to declare
that the United Kingdom would be willing to use its veto power to prevent
further European co-operation if its demands regarding these red lines
were not met. The red lines involved issues on which uk representatives
could be expected to not make any concessions in negotiations. In the
Netherlands, the Joint Committee on eu Affairs (Gemengde Commissie
‘Sturing eu-aangelegenheden’) has proposed that the Netherlands also
adopt these types of red lines for specific policy issues.
In the uk’s case, red lining has been highly effective. Their adoption and
sanctioning (in the form of a possible veto against the Constitutional
Treaty) helped create an image of Prime Minister Tony Blair as a principled,
steadfast and visionary European leader with whom British citizens could
identify. The involved politicians and policy makers were thus encouraged
to negotiate within the established limits in Brussels. The transparency and
visibility of the negotiating framework simplified the political debate on
Europe, which in the uk has often also been dominated by specialists. It
also reduced the reticence of many national politicians to discuss European
affairs, who up until that point had not considered themselves equipped to
do so. The red lines also offered an accountability mechanism for politicians
vis-à-vis citizens, the media and civil society. As a result, several
newspapers and current affairs programs devoted quite some attention to
the negotiating process and the uk’s and specifically Prime Minister Blair’s
role in that process. 4 British citizens were informed about the steps they
could take at this particular moment in the European integration process
and the role the uk played in it.
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However, a number of critical remarks need to be made regarding red lines.
They are also defensive by nature, at least when – as in the British case –
they are not accompanied by ‘green lines’, designating the specific topics
on which the eu should act. Additionally, the personal characteristics
of politicians have been of crucial importance regarding the effectiveness
of red lines. Moreover, mechanisms for formal sanctions (e.g., legislative
sanctions) do not exist, and authority thus rests entirely on the powers
of persuasion of the politicians who employ them. It is also no coincidence
that the idea of red lines should be a United Kingdom invention; the political
and administrative atmosphere there made it easier for Tony Blair to