Managing Europe From Home: The Europeanisation of the Irish ...

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Irish administrative culture influences how EU business is managed. As mentioned in Section I, the cult of the generalist is very strong in Irish administrative culture. Irish civil servants are expected to handle any post that they are placed in and to move to radically different work in the course of their careers. It is thus exceptional in the Irish system that an official would work only on EU matters for their entire careers. That said there are a small number of officials whose careers are largely EU related in the diplomatic service and in the key EU ministries. These are officials who might have served on high level EU committees for long periods and because of their EU knowledge become a key resource in the system. Although they constitute an essential resource in the Irish system, the EU cadre may not be adequately recognised. One senior official concluded that : Within the system, there is hardly any incentive to be a ‘Brussels insider’, in terms of finance or family commitments. There is no one central system to bring this about. People don’t want to be pigeonholed in that way … the weighting given in civil service panels to such skills might not be great’ (Interview 53, 12.02. 02). There is no specially trained EU cadre in the system or no EU related fast track. Training is ad hoc throughout the system. In 1974, there was extensive training for the first Irish Presidency, which included considerable exposure, to how the EU worked. The training effort for subsequent Presidencies was geared more towards meeting management as it was felt that EU knowledge in the system was adequate. Lectures on the EU formed part of induction programmes for young diplomatic staff and administrative officers. Officials assigned to the Representation in Brussels would not receive training before leaving for Brussels and would not shadow the area of responsibility before taking up their new positions. Language training within the Irish system is also weak. Consequently EU expertise is build up on the job The manner in which Irish officials do their homework for negotiations in Brussels and conduct negotiations is influenced by a number of factors. Size matters. The relatively small size of central government, coupled with the small size of the country, and the fact that Irish delegations tend to be smaller than those of other member states all influence perceptions of how the Brussels game should be played. Irish officials have an acute sense of the constraints of size. Irish officials work on the basis that as a small state; Ireland has a limited negotiating
margin and should use that margin wisely. One interviewee for this study argued that ‘Ireland has fewer guns, and not many bullets so it must pick its fights carefully’ (Laffan 2001). In 1985, the then Taoiseach, Garrett FitzGerald, identified Ireland’s negotiating strategy in the following terms: As a small country we must ensure that we not create problems for our partners save in the case of issues that are of vital importance to us. Only when our case is strong—so overwhelmingly strong that in logic others should objectively accept it. Should we press our interests in a way that can create problems for other people (Fitzgerald 1985) This approach was confirmed by an official who suggested that in negotiations Irish officials would not raise difficulties unless they have a real problem (Interview 75, 29.05.02). Irish officials try to avoid isolation in negotiations and are largely successful. In the five years between 1996 and 2000 Ireland abstained in 1 vote and registered a negative vote 7 times (3 per cent). This was out of a total of 75 abstentions and 206 votes cast in the Council. Ireland, Austria, Finland and Luxembourg are among the member states that find themselves on the losing side of votes least often in the Council (Peterson and Shackleton, 2002, 64). One interviewee for the study concluded that ‘Very rarely are we without a negotiating margin and without room for manoeuvre’ (Interview 55, 07.03.02). In the end the minister will decide if he/she wants to go out on a limb but would be told ‘Minister, you are totally isolated on this and a lot of people will come down heavily on you in Council’ (Interview 55, 07.03.02). The aim is to avoid this if at all possible and to negotiate away problems. The approach to negotiations is to seek to shape or re-shape the five or six problem areas in any proposal for Ireland. This stems from Ireland’s size, limited human resources and pragmatic culture. All proposals are scanned and assessed in terms of problems. The identification of problems is identified on the basis of an informal checklist of the kinds of issues that need watching. Those that surfaced most frequently in interviews were: • existing national law or policy; • departmental policy; • likely impact on the public purse either in terms of the cost to the national budget or erosion of the tax base,
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Managing Europe From Home: The Euro
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Among practitioners and academics,
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the executive of conflicts between
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analyses the Irish core executive
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2002 appointed a Minister of State
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Arts, Sport & Tourism Health & Chil
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played a key role in the detailed d
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encourage mobility across departmen
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attention in the Irish service. In
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Ireland’s approach to the managem
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as the Department of Finance was th
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The preparations for the 1975 Presi
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egions in 1988 in response to Commi
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membership of the European Affairs
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Figure 2: Levels of management of E
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Table 1: Ministerial involvement in
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VERTICAL STRUCTURES - THE CORE-CORE
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committees serviced by the Unit inc
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