TOPIC 3. CHALLENGES OF AN EVER ENLARGING EUROPEAN UNION (1993-2013)

At the same time the rest of the european partners have really positive attitude

towards fontaine blue.

The permission for certain colleagues not to get involve in the deeper political

integration process.

80’s: Southern enlargements and shift to neo-liberal policies

The UK accepted to support the european budget but at the same time the UK

forced this european Parliament to give back the perceptual money which has

not been expended.

After the Fontaine Blue-> the European Community accept to have the same

political symbols (passport and flag)

EU FLAG: the blue has been associated to Maria (verge) -> christian countries.

Turkey, Morocco apply the European Community in 1997 almost at the same

time as Spain.

1

EC 12+ East Germany (1990)

The western Germany lenders decided to incorporate the eastern part of the

country.

The Treaty of Maastricht facilitated somehow the final competition of the single

market. We could say that Maastricht finally ended the process to create a

single market within the European partners and at the same time Maastricht

merx into one single entity.

To be precise we must avoid using the european communities after 1993 and

using european union before 1993.

The Treaty Maastricht permitted the creation of this structure:

Those public policies that were mainly designed by the commission.

In the second and third pillars we have the Intergovernmental policies.

Opposite to the first policy we have the second and the third ones.

A part from this structure, the Maastricht Treaty also introduce important

achievements.

- New policies: education, culture (were introduced in the process)

- Recognition of a European Citizenship

- Timetable for the EMU by 1999

- Introduction of Principle of Subsididarity

- Extension of cohesion and social policies

- New institutions: Obudsman (defensor del poble), CoR (Council of the

regions), ECB

- EP gain co-decision capacities

- Major use of QMV

The Treaty of Maastricht was a huge step in the integration process and not

everybody was totally convinced that this European Union could function.

2

The Treaty of Maastricht was important because it stablished a Union, it unifies

the three communities.

After Maastricht we have other treaties: Amsterdam 1999, Nice 2004, the

European Convention and finally Lisbon. Why are these legal treaties so

important? They fixed the criteria.

The European integration process have to be understood as a collection of

international agreements between independent states, this agreements are

fixed in the treaties. In this precise moment in time, the european member

states put on the table their intentions for the integration process itself.

Immediately before the Maastricht Treaty,

In the early 90’s, those states where always independents states but we also

have new states that were previous Soviets. (Azerbaijan, Ukraine). As early as

1993, we had the proposal to those states to joint the European Union (it must

be the independent state to ask to the European Union).

In 1993, we have a meeting in Copenhague which permit to establish a

framework to manage the potential inclusion of this new european states in the

european union.

ACQUIS COMMUNATAIRE

This economics goals were related to the debt, GDP. They had to adapt to their

own national legal framework.

Since the european integration process have this enormous challenge the

Maastricht treaty was not sufficient to permit the addition of the centre east

european states. It had to be renewed. Left overs were introduced in

Amsterdam. Amsterdam Treaty permitted the adaption of eastern and central

enlargement.

A part from this huge enlargement, in the 90’s we also the fourth enlargement

wave towards Austria, Sweden and Finland. It was a very easy enlargement for

the European Union because in many aspects this three states were already

accomplishing the criteria and the national frameworks were even more 3

demanding than the european standards. All of them were rich countries.

Another very important key, they were small countries. In terms of power, in

the European Institution it was very easy to incorporate this people because

nobody pretended to be treated as a very important state.

The most important moment in the 90’s is 1993 when the European members

decided about who was joining the European Union.

Near 2000 we had another review of the European Treaties in the city of Nice,

the deadline for this huge enlargement towards central and eastern Europe

was already fixed and everybody knew that this deadline was for first January

2004. Nice was the perfect moment to deal with all this things. Moreover, in

1999 we have a transcendent event in Europe, the Kosovo War. The Kosovo

War consider the need to joint the European Union.

Nice permits the European Union to prepare the enlargement in 2004. It’s

constraint by the War in Kosova.

In 2004 we have ten new member states: Poland, Estonia, Letonia, Lituania,

República Checa, Malta, Chipre, Eslovenia i Hongria. Figure how difficult was to

the small island of Malta to joint the European Union.

In 2007 they didn’t fulfill those Copenhague criteria, the European Union

enlarge Romania and Bulgaria.

Then decided to create a European Convention.

The members of this European Convention (2004) pretended to create a

constitution for the European Union, not only a review of the treaties. The

European Convention headed by a former President of Europe. Spain vote for

this constitution in 2005, a constitution for Europe to express the will. The

problem arrived when this referendum was holds in Netherlands and France , in

both countries voted against the treaty to create a constitution. In Nice the

european partners committed themselves in the treaty to create a european

constitution, since this constitution fails never come into force. Solve the

problem to review the treaties. was solved in Lisbon. In Lisbon there were no

convention anymore, we came back to the standard formal of the integration of

european process.

2007: treaty of Lisbon (27 states) already introduce some symbolic figures

which show the will to continuo in the european union. In Lisbon they

introduced few changes in some important policies. 4

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Despite the European Commission is present in the whole process is almost a

black box.

The European Union is very opaque, it’s not transparent because the

commission is not elected by any person. We cannot choose for our

representative in the Commission, it is set to be covered by experts.

At the same time, it’s present in the whole process and on the top of that it set

to be the guardian of the treaties. The Commission despite being opaque is

present.

Commission:

- offices

- construction

- functionalism

- supranationalism

- inner sphere

The European Commission is supranational in spite of being governamental

because the nations transfers their power to the commission and because the

commission is thinking on behalf of the whole integration process. The

commissioners are not elected because of their national origine they are

elected because are experts on a very specific area.

The european coal and steel community created the

In the CEE, they created the first supranational power, where countries transfer

power/sovereignty to the european integration. In Rome, there is a new step,

the creation of the conversion of that power to the commission.

1. Nature and functions of the European Commission

To understand how commission works today, we have to look back and see

how all began. The tensions of talking on behalf the member states or talking

on behalf of the integration process is being a problem always, today and in

5

the past. That’s why it is say that commission has always been considered as a

strange institution (“zaza ave”) because it is not either a government or just a

secretariat. International organization have those secretariats, when they are

created some few people conformed the secretariat which is the leading body

of this organization and the body in charge to call for the meeting of the

national representatives. In the secretariat there is no transfer of power. They

are just a body which organize the daily life of this organization. Contrary to

that we can consider the commission a government of Europe.

We have 27 commission, is the number of states before the large enlargement

-> one commission for each member state. There’s a huge problem in

considering this people as a government of EU because they are not elected.

One main problem is the fact that the european parliament does not create any

European government, they are not member of the european parliament. They

form the “College of Commissioners” who are in charge of the different sectorial

administrative bodies in the european union which are the DGs the Directors

Generals. This commissioners since they are not in the commission because of

their national origine (because of their expertise) they are considered not to

think on behalf of the national states, under the finished national benefit. He is

doing his work under the presumption in working on behalf of the whole

european union.

The commissioners take decisions as a whole, as a single body and expresses

its own willing and its own opinion. We can not distinguish the positions

between this black box, because they are supposed to work on the benefit of

the European Union.

Three very different things:

- it is set that the commission protects the treaties, if a particular state does

not apply it is the commission who says to the state to comply the law, the

commission starts the sanction process if they don’t accomplish it.

The European Commission propose (they are supposed to be the experts) and

the European Parliament and the Council read this proposal and accepts them

or not. Then, the European Commission is in charge of the execution of the

6

budget and the creation of this multiannual programs which permit the union

make (previsions) of the budget.

Who decides which budgetary has to be accorder with much money or not

(who spends the money in any of the public policies that we have)?

Government and the ministries, the DG’s are spending the money, that’s why

sometimes there is some problems in deciding what are their duties.

Three main tasks:

- assure compliance of the treaties

- spend money

- fix budget programs

- make the proposals

Since the European Commission doesn’t have any democratic mandate they

can not decide, they only make the technical proposals because they are

considered the experts of the process. After being elected by Duran Barroso

they have to pass an exam in the European Parliament, they are questioned in

specifically subjects.

The Commission is also in charge of the representation of the european union

in the enlargement policy.

The founding member transfer the capacity of decision to the European

Commission.

The european body who rules and who manages the enlargement ways is the

european commission through all the policy feels.

The question is whether the european commission is politicized or not , if these

commissioners take ideological decisions or just technical decisions. It is sed to

behalf and to take decisions on the base of technical arguments and on the

integration process.

In the 80s the commission was considered to be very left wing. Despite on the

paper we must accord this neutrality to the commission we see how the

7

commission can not separate themselves from their biographies and they are

partially working and thinking on behalf of the EU.

We cannot forget that this people have their own national and political

background (despite they have to be neutral).

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

The European Parliament:

- citizens

- co-federalism

- constitutionalism

- integration + sphere

As it happen exactly the same as it happen with the European Commission, the

European Parliament we have today is completely different from the one we

had at the very beginning of the European process -> The huge transformation

that the European Parliament has suffered from 1952 to 2014. In 1952, we (the

member states) didn’t have a European Parliament we had a European

Assembly. This Assembly was not direct elected, the members of this European

Assembly were not elected by the European citizenship. They were appointed

by the national assemblies (the french assembly, the german assembly…)

under the umbrella of the european coal and steel community. The first change

arrive with the Treaty of Rome (1957), they already decided that this

community assembly had to be directly elected by the european citizenship.

The point is that this mandate did not came into force since 1979. We had this

delay on the implementation of direct elections of the european parliament

because the states pretended to lead the process. The states were continually

postponing the elections. The council prevented the european parliament to

have a direct mandate from the european citizenship up to 1979. If we had a

european assembly directly elected by citizenship we were probably now in a

much constitutionalize Europe. The main political capacities have been

projected to the citizenship and not to the states. We must consider who is in

power of what, and who is preventing to do something.

8

In the 70s a part from this long standing debate on the British, there were

other budgetary problems conserving the European Union.

The national contributions were all to support the policies introduced by the

European Commission.The European member states gave money to the

European Commission on the basis of their political power and their population,

the same as the Spanish government

The Communities have to be in this positions of their own budget and had to

had the possibility to create their own resources system. Our right stand from

the internal market policy and … proposed that this policies also create an own

resources system for the European Community.

1979 call for the first direct elections. In 1980 we have this Isoglucose Case,

the court of justice of the european communities declared that the council was

no longer able to a approve a law without asking the opinion to the parliament.

It was evident that the council representing the member states was no longer

able to adopt any legal law without asking the opinion of the european

parliament.

The european integration system have two legislative bodies: the parliament

and the council. At the beginning, only the council was able to create new

legislations but from 1979 this competence was also curved to the parliament.

We move from a non direct parliament to a direct parliament and we move not

directly elected parliament to a directly elected parliament and we move from

parliament whose main competence is to present reports to a parliament who

began a co-legislative body of the european integration process.

From 1979 towards the idea is each time that the european integration process

requires an institutional important change, each time that we face a relevant

change in the institution architecture of the european integration process

would have a reformulation of the political capacities of the european

parliament. More and more we assist to the transformation of this european

parliament standard assembly more closed to what a national assembly is.

9

Maastricht, Amsterdam, Niece and Lisbon, the European Parliament acquires

more capacities which push it their standard form of a national assembly.

The idea behind this evidence is that the european integration process is the

more and more complementing the democratic lacks of the original model. The

most important objective of the european economic community in 1957 was to

create a common market and citizens were considered workers not people. We

could look at the evolution of the european parliament as the transformation of

workers into citizens.

The most important thing is the co-decision procedure which was introduce in

1952 in Maastricht. In relation with the Isoglucose Case, after Maastricht there

is no european act that can be approved without the permission of the

Parliament.

If we try to focus on the daily life of the european parliament the first thing we

have to take into account is this contradiction between efficiency and diversity.

This diversity of languages is also present in many other aspects of the political

life, some politics are from a unitary states an other from a federal state.

Personal and political background is different and this diversity could probably

be opposite to present problems the efficiency of this institution. One third to

the european parliament budget goes to the translation services. The european

parliament have two seats, one in Brussels and an other in Strasbourg.

In Lisbon, in our last historical treat we have another very important change

the new treaty issued in Lisbon stablished that the member of the european

parliament have to be considered as the representative of the union citizens.

As the old idea of the MEPs “representative of the Union’s citizens” was no

longer able.

There are 7 political group in the EP according to political affiliation.

We can not vote for a swedish candidate for example, because they are not

present on our list of candidates. Each member states have its own list of

candidates depending on the different political parties who want to be present

in this electoral group. As a consequence of the segmentation, there is a

distribution between the 7 ideological groups. 10

(…)

The European Council is only the high political meeting among the leaders of

the member states.

The Council of the European Union

It is based on the 28 Ministers of the Member States. We actually have one

single institution but this council has ten faces, ten configurations depending

on the issue, the public policy being discussed we may have the council of

agriculture, the council of economic and financial affairs.. and all of them are

the Council of the European Union (are always presided by the rotatory

president of the European Council).

It is up the national minister to decide where the European colleagues are

meeting. The Spanish government has usually had the “Ministerio de Fomento”

but the European Council doesn’t have it. This ten configurations are fixed by

the treaties but they can be further developed.

Two main ideas:

- We have a unique council of the European union but it has ten different

configurations.

- This Council permits the participation of subnational ministers in the

European Council. For Belgium or for Germany it is quite common that one

particular minister participates in the European Council (for example in

education and culture). In Spain they can attend to this meeting but they

can’t speak.

A part from the Council of the European Union composed by international

ministers we also have in Brussels in order to complete the work of this council

we have the Support COREPER, the group of permanent representatives of the

national member states in the council of EU. So, these 28 members states sent

to Brussels some public service in order to complement the meeting of the

CEU. Actually the member of the COREPER are the ones that make things in

advance, permit agreements to be applied. A part from the COREPER the

Committee of Permanent Representatives depending on a very specific subject

11

that is being discussed, the national ministers send public servers for very

particular issues. In Brussels there is only a small group of representatives who

finally close the agreement.

The tension between the big countries and the small countries…

They have to permit at least one time to be the president of the European

Council (although he is from a small country).

Decisions in the council are normally taken by the rule of quality majority

voting. It could be hardly impossible to achieve any agreement cause we have

now 28 different national interests trying to get into an agreement. They way

to avoid this potential blocking of the European Union is the distribution of

votes and establishing a qualify majority voting group for the most part of the

states. They try to respect both: the population and the political way of each

Member State.

How the European Integration Process is able to produce legal norms that

affect the whole sample of the member states, there are different processes

from the treaties but just focusing on the co-decision process, the ordinary

legislative process in the European Union. Any legislative proposal in the

European integration process is monopolized by the European Commission. The

hundred par cent of the ordinary legislative proposals are issued in the

commission. After the draft goes first to the Parliament.

Once it is voted in the plenary and passes it, it goes to the Council (not the

European Council) but the Council on the European Union. Depending on the

policy you choose particular standing groups, probably without knowing that

this groups work closer.

If the council refuses we have a second round.

We have different kind of European norms: regulations, directives and

decisions.

In order to make public our norms we have the official bulletins.

The regulations target a particular person.

The directive do not target a particular person either juridic or physical but try

to establish a general framework for the 28 member states.

12

Once the directive is a rule, each member state decides on their own how to

implemented it and they decided also to be more accurate, more constrained

on the policy frame by the directive.

A part from the three big institutions: Council, Parliament and Commission we

also have other minor institutions with not this out standing political

importance.

- The European Central Bank: is in head of the european monetary union and

after 1999 was able to issue euros.

- The European Investment Bank

- The Committee of the Regions and the European ombudsman

Regional & Local Governments (COR) it is an indirect assembly meaning that

each members are not directly elected to be in such seat. They are members

because they are also seating in order local assemblies throughout Europe. For

instance, all the heads of regional government in Spain… Joint the interests of

the regional and local governments created in 1992 which pretends to defend

those levels of government. The key idea is the principal of subsidiarity.

THE EUROPEAN SINGLE MARKET

We are analyzing how the institution interact with public policies. We are

introducing a huge emphasis on the internal market and the competition

policies. Those policies are the core of this course.

Many reasons support the study of the Single Market process:

The single market was the main goal of the European Community since the

very beginning. They decided to establish a single market for this 6 founding

members. Since it is the oldest policy it also became probably the most

analyzed policy among the literature. This situation permits to use the single

market as a lab to apply the concepts and the ideas and the thoughts we have

accumulated in the more artistic way. It was the first and most important goal.

It is the leading process.

Is the most outstanding and also the policy that has been analyzed more in

deep.

13

In Rome 1957 they want to establish a single market among the six founding

members of the European Communities, and the market was not the objective,

it was the tool for a more important objective that was the potential European

Federation. The market was only one of the steps required to integrate not only

the European Economies but the European Societies. Spaak proposed the need

of a further integration by the single market. The main goal for the European

Community focus on the creation of a single market.

What does a single market mean?

- We have goods, people, services and capital -> are the focus of the single

market, the idea was to establish the free movement of capitals, services,

goods and labor.

People who move for work were not considered workers, were considered

labor.

Treaty of Rome establishment of the four free movement and a single market.

We focus on goods because are easy to be freely move, they form part of our

daily life. They began by shipping goods and not capital or labor. The problem

on the free movement of goods arrived and it was solved. It was easier to move

products than labor.

Good: everything physical that could be sell legally. We must be able to fix a

price in order to sell or to buy. There are much products that are not sell

legally, the free movement of goods does not make reference to this kind of

products.

In the 60s the Italian Minister of Historical heritage didn ’t permit the italian

collection of art to sell or to buy those pieces of art because he considered this

pieces formed part of their culture, and they couldn’t be sold because they

were private goods.

The Court of Justice decided that this pieces of art were also goods, and they

could be perfectly bought or sold.

14

TFUE: Treaty of Functioning of the European Union

It is longer and makes reference to very technical things. In this Treaty we see

that the EU considers the goods with a free movement to be either products

originated in the member states or those products in free circulation in the

member states.

Products in free circulation are those products that are moving across the

Union but they are not going to be sold in the Union, they skip the market

without any economic transitions, it is a matter of physical need.

When talking about the single market, the it a paramount moment in 1967 by

the establishment of common tariffs for the whole territory.

Ankona, Rotterdam and Valencia are of the most important harbor when

trading and transporting goods in Europe.

The borders of the European Union does not perfectly fit with the European

Union territory (Mónaco and San Marino). There are french territories in the

Polynesia, in the Caribbean.

After establishing the need of this internal market, they realize that despite the

external tariff and having introduced this legal requirements for the free

movement of goods they realize that the European Union was not progressing

at all. One of the problems was that they had not change at all the national

legal system, the national legal requirements (the quality standards, technical

requirements were different). The German had traditionally a very specific

process to brew beer. It all happened during the 70s, there was no quotas any

longer, any tariffs but because of the constraining consequences on the

national law the european progress could not improve as the politicians wished.

Dassonville were Belgium importers of whiskey, the father was in Brussels and

the son in France. The son was directly importing scotch whiskey from Scotland

to France and the father was doing the same from Scotland to Belgium. But,

then they realize the shipping was much cheaper to France than to Belgium so

they decided to import it from Scotland to France and from France to Belgium.

This fact was against the Brussels norms. Dassonville argued to the Court that

they were freely moving the goods and they were paying the tariffs. 15

ESSAY:

- bibliography (posar totes les referències a la bibliografia)

- references (cognom, nom, title, publishing house, place, year)

THE KEY ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF JUSTICE

The Charges below are not considered to have an Equivalent Effect:

1) Charges due to concrete and individualized benefited to the importer, and proportional to the

service given.

2) Charges originated in Public Controls required by EU Authorities

The treaties fix that no taxes/quota/tax or any charge of equivalent effect make to prevent

European economic actors to import or export freely across the European Union.

They were forcing the Dassonville father to pay the taxes again when joining the Belgium market.

1974-1976: Cassis de Dijon Case

Mutual recognition: if any product was fulfilling the national laws or norms there was no reason to

prevent this product to be exported abroad. Always in the case of no European Standing

Framework, if the European as a whole haven’t approved any general law for all the countries

together.

Since the Cassis de Dijon was fulfilling the national laws, forced the German state to accept the

French requirements (public health). otherwise, this german laws on public health were actually a

measure with equivalent effect as quotas for taxes. The main goal of the European single market

was the full free movement of goods, this national legal framework have to eradicate step by step.

We have an exponential increase in driving changes between the member states under the idea of

mutual recognition.

We can not forget that the treaties themselves and the member states also use some exception to

this general idea of free movement of goods. We are lightly focusing on the exceptions.

16

We can not define in advance the content of this three items.

The Courts are making the single market better, not just solving private problems.

Conegate Case:

Free Movement of Workers

Article 45 TFUE: The right to any EU worker to settle down and carry on economic activities in any

different Member State and the prohibition of any kind of discrimination.

Free movement of labor, capital and services. The most important one is the free movement of

labor because it also helps the European Integration process to get new perspective to be more far

reaching in political terms. Free movements of labor means that in a couple of years you can be

settling down in an other country.

Since we are in the frame of the single market we have to use the free movement of workers, out

of this framework we should called it free movement of citizens.

This free movement of workers only apply for employees, not self-employed workers (autónomo).

It also applies for the Members of the EFTA, group of countries.

This free movement of labor can introduce huge problems in the national … Considering the

enlargements in the European Union, there’s a flux from a member state to another. This is one of

the most debated and the most problematic thing when talking about the entrance of a new state.

The UK did a Campaign with “Summertime and the living ain’t easy”.

The exceptions always arrive in hand with the protectional consumers, the protectional public

health, the quality of the service and so on. How the European Political system treats us? They

considers us like consumers or labor (workers). We also have political rights but at the end of the

day we are protected in health terms and in consumer terms. The same exceptions that apply for

the goods also apply for the free movement of labor. The particularity for the labor market is that

given the fact that most part of the european member states, the public sector was huge and in

some countries still persist. Regarding the freedom of movement from the labor one of the

traditional problems has been focus on this public sector market because in many cases the states

tended to protect their public sector, those parts of the public sectors which were considered to be

of the interest of the national state (security, secret services, strategic research, military research,

17

energetic research) in this kind of sector the state never let foreigners to work on it. This situation

rise many problems that try to define which sector was considered to be of national interest (plenty

of nurses working in the UK). Health system is not considered to be a sector of national interest

although it is very important.

Exceptions related to linguistic skills, related to Public Security or related to Public Health, a part

from those exceptions the golden rule for the rest is the free movement of labor.

Oteiza was a former member of ETA he used to belong to the group and he ask for permission in

France to normally work as a standard worker and the French Minister decided not to give him this

permission because of public security reasons. He had already given up his political ideologies

involving the terrorist group but he wasn’t still able to work in France. What did the Oteiza Case in

relation with the single market? (EXEMPLE EXAMEN)

All this professions have been the object of a judgment in the European Court of Justice, nurses,

medical doctors, professors, scientists no involved in militar research, local architects are not

included in the exceptions of the rule, this kind of people can freely move within the european

member states.

FREE MOVEMENT OF SERVICES

Contrary to the free movement of labor, the free movement of services applies to self-employed

workers (autónomos). If your salary depends on a third you are part of the free movement of

workers but if you are a self-employed workers you are under the umbrella of the free movement of

services. One important distention is that depending on the length of the service we will distinguish

between:

- right of establishment or freedom of establishment

- freedom of services, free movement of services

If you decided to move abroad, to establish your own veterinary hospital in Lithuania for different

reasons you could try to freely establish your services. But in your own state free provision of

services.

The differences between the primary and secondary establishments, we don’t have only physical

persons but also legal persons, companies are considered to be legal persons and they can have

rights and duties. When a company decides to establish in a new member state it can be through

two different ways:

- Primary establishments: by moving everything to the new member state

- Secondary establishments: like franchises or moving to existing countries in the new member

state, when the headquarters remain in the member state of origin.

Another very important distinction, it’s difficult to distinguish between the free movement of

services and the other free movements like the free movement of goods. Depending on the

economic sector you work in: either freely providing goods or freely providing services.

18

The legal and political consequences:

- free movement of services

- freedom of establishment

Literature refers four ways to provide services:

- the provider of the service travels / moves: moves to be able to do his or her work abroad

(medical worker, architect)

- the recipient of the service travels / moves : the recipient of the services is the one who moves,

people who purposely travel to get this service. (For example: In Spain, to abort you have to go

abroad, sometimes the one who travels is not the doctor but the patient). There are bilateral

agreements that specify who pays what.

- Both travel / move: the recipient and the provider travel. (For example: the touristic services, a

cruiser or the team who travels with a football team)

- None travels / moves: internet trade, e-commerce is the recurrent example. There is huge

european directive, a legal framework covering e-commerce.

What is forbidden? Banning of any legal provision that could affect the free movement of services:

- Direct banning: public aids, sells, Spanish Museum Case. The national laws directly prevent that

regular standard on going job tasks of the provider of services.

- Indirect banning: licenses, academic titles. Those banning are more difficult to appreciate, refer

to the specific titles or permissions that any provider of services is required to conduct his or her

normal job. After graduating you want to move to France and the french national norms establish

that only for dealing with international trade the international title is valid to work in France so our

spanish title couldn’t be valid to prove our services as a specialist of international trade in

France.

THE EU REGIONAL POLICY

Any regional integration process around the world introduce regional disparities, unbalances. In the

same way as any national state, economic system, the regional integration process introduce

regional disparities. Debating the single market and as a complement of the single market we can

not omit that this single market has introduced among the member states disparities. Although we

are establishing a regional integration process, it does not introduce kind of homogenization in the

whole list of state members involved. We still have this heterogeneity among the member states.

Why if considering the disparities within the european regional integration process, why we focus

our attention in the regions? The pivotal pieces of the european integration process are not the

regions, but the states. This paradox bring us to the same idea as the multilevel dynamics in the

19

European Politics (not only the state matters, also the regions, the local government). The regional

policy brings us back to the multilevel shell.

The solidarity is one of the key ideas of the regional integration process. Solidarity between the

states and solidarity between the regional entities within this states.

Region: Bayern, Andalusia, Catalunya, Europe as a region. We use the word region to refer to

many realities. In this policy framework, the region are considered to be the subnational political or

administrative entities. We leave the capacity to fix what is and what is not a region to the member

states. In terms of European Regional policy, the Spanish regions are the “comunitats autònomes”.

In France we have the departments, in Belgium the communities, in Spain we have the lands.

Elements to define a region: history, economy, language/culture, self-government

Why we focus our attention on the regions and not on the states? We should keep in mind in the

history of the integration process we have a breaking point in the 80s. It was not till the last 80s or

till the Maastricht treaty we openly radically talk about European regions. Before this point this

regions existed by they didn’t pay that much attention, there are different dynamics who explain

this emergence of regionalism during the 80s. First of all, this national transformations. Belgium

transformed into a federation in the 60s. Spain arrive to the “comunidades autónomas” in the 80s.

More over, in the 80s we have some regions, Catalunya included which are beginning to be

considered as the growth engines of Europe. “Lion, Stuttgart, Milan and Catalunya” are the four

engines of Europe. At the late 80s some regions like London began to considered themselves

different from the rest of the regions in their respective member states and at the same time began

to claim for this political recognition by both the national and the european levels. After the Treaty

of Maastricht the core idea of subsidiarity (what can be done in the lower level we don’t do it on the

higher, if we can manage in the local level there’s no point on managing on the national european

level). The idea is that the emergence of the regionalism introduce a pressure on the member

states, on the states level.

The Parliament and the Commission talk on behalf of the citizens and on the whole process, not on

behalf of the member states. The inclusion of a new institution: Council of the regions (COR).

Regions can be considered as an arena and as an actor. The concept arena refers to the idea

that regions enclose, frame a small piece of land which normally have self-government systems

and some very delimited borders. Private actors, political actors try to fosters their interest and try

to get as much benefit as possible. Regions as an actors refers that regions at the same time

decides behaving as an arena and also behave as a political entity which tries to foster the regional

interest face to face other levels of government.

20

- Regions as an arena: we assume that we think this region has political actor, social actor that all

try to increase the gains and to decrease the losses. (Catalunya as an arena: we should

consider the trade-flows inside Catalunya and what is going on on political, social …)

- Regions as an actor: we are not worrying about what is going on the arena but we are focus our

attention on how this region interacts with other countries, with the European Union. (How

Catalunya’s representatives interact to the world on behalf of itself) -> Regional lobbying in

Brussels (e.g. CALRE, REGLEG): regions meet to make sure that their interests are taking into

considerations. Regions are behaving as actors.

They want money, funds from the european regional policy. Policy objectives:

- eliminate regional disparities

- ameliorate social, economic and living conditions

- prevent desequilibriums

MUTUAL RECOGNITION: it is seen in free movement of goods. Managing the free movement of

goods in case that the European Union doesn’t have a harmonized framework related to consumer

protection, quality of the product, packaging requirements of a particular good after the cases de

Dejau case, it is obliged the member states to mutually recognized their products, as long as it

complies with all the legal aspects. Member states can’t pretend that this product attempts to its

market.

Similarities and differences between free movement of goods and services!!!!

In the 80s, Germany and France are considering to renew the treaties. In the period of negotiations

previews to the first modifications (updating process) Margaret Tatcher profits the situation and

gets some economic and financial advantages because in the opposite situation UK was able to

block the new updating process (blackmailing). They accept the reivindications of UK, they got a

kind of financial agreement which forces the member participating to give back the amount of

money they put if at the end of the financial year, they do not use it. (“We want our money back”).

Margaret Tatcher forced this agreement, if the UK haven’t received the money that they have used

to contribute they wanted their money back .

The interaction between the national interest and the european wide interest all along the

european integration process (concepts, dates and examples)

THE EU COMPETITION POLICY

21

The five main focus of the European Competition policy:

- agreements between firms that limit competition -> agreements that could affect the european

single market

- abuse of dominant position

- mergers -> regulation of mergers

- state aid

- the liberalization of National utilities and infrastructures -> liberalizations of monopolistic sectors

When we talk about the competition policy, we are talking about making possible the free

movement of good, services, capital and labor. We are in the liberal economic theory and we are

assuming that despite the claim to provide those four freedom, constantly produced obstacle to this

freedom of market. We are also assuming that the more free a market is, the more efficient it is.

We are approaching the market through the legal economic theory. We are focusing on the

different legal and policy mechanisms used by the European authorities to prevent this obstacle for

the four treaties. It is a complement for the internal market goal. The European Union has created

a strong competition policy to foster the single market under the conviction that without this

competition policy the single market could not be free and efficient.

The competition mechanisms are two-folded:

- they can be addressed to very particular economic actors which are affecting the single market

because of their

- the european competition policy mechanisms can also address the general economic system.

It permits us to see the bottom-up mechanisms affecting very specific economic actors.

We have a double approach: single market as a whole, economic actors as a part of a whole and

both interrelating each other.

Probably the most evident obstacle to liberal economic efficiency market are those agreements

between firms that are presaging their own benefit and the result of this agreement could potential

began a new company, a new setting that could potentially dominate the market share. This

behavior despite being completely normal in terms of economic and private behavior can not be

considered to be positive for the single market. Since the result of this agreement is assuming to

get an excess of market share. This is totally unfair for third companies that are not involved in this

agreement and as a consequence of this agreement couldn’t potentially get into the market. The

European competition policy will only be accorded to those policy focus which could potentially

affect the european single market.

We have the general rule and the exceptions:

22

The benefits of potential agreements are considered to be higher, that’s why they are permitted.

We could assume that a company is in dominant position when it has a huge market share.

Microsoft is historical considered to be in dominant position for the electronically market since

Apple appeared. The difference between being in dominant position and being abusing of this

dominant position lies on the fat that the abusing one is preventing any new company to acquire

this dominant position in the market. To be in dominant position doesn’t mean to abuse of this

position. They are trying to prevent this abuse of position. A company with more of a 40% of

market share is in a dominant position. Up to this limit the European Competition authorities don’t

care about this situation.

The third focus of the European competition policy authorities is: MERGERS. In this aspect makes

reference when a company is bought by their competition or when two competing companies

decide to start up a new business. (IBERIA and BRITISH AIRWAYS) This merger was not allowed

by the european competition authorities since two companies were allowed by the european court

of justice. This a good example to appreciate how the european authorities approach the european

integration process through the threats of the consumers and protect their rights since there is no

transfer of political capacities in terms of electoral capacities, citizenships capacities and since the

member states are very reluctant to this possibility.

The fourth focus is: PUBLIC AID. The european competition authorities assume that public

financial help given to specific economic actors could potentially affect the european single market.

The director Generals are the equivalent to the general ministries. Administratively speaking they

can be consider as the equivalent. The most relevant idea is that after the regulation the director

general on competition has became the most outstanding competition ruler around the world. The

competences that the director general has assume are much wider that the equivalent

competences of the US institutions. The competences that has been assume in the US which is

assumed to be the most regulated market in the world in terms of competitions are divided into two

different bodies: The Federal Competition Commission and the Anti-Trust Division of the

Department of Justice. The director general of competition has traditional been considered as a

policeman, arbitrator, judge, jury and jury officer. We have everybody in the same administrative

body.

- in charge of looking for and pursuing the companies that potentially behave against the

competition in the European Union. Once this companies are denounced, the DG also assumes

the investigation of the case.

23

- is responsible for both, defending the european interest by acting as the european prosecutor

and he is also in charge of judging the case, all among the same service.

This policy is very different to the single market policy. The European Court of Justice is not that

important because more times the Director General, the same body who drafts the European

norms is also responsible for judging the ones attempting the European Competition norms. That’s

important in terms of competition policies. Independently of the interest, all lobbies in Brussels try

to lobby (group of interest) on the DG of competition. They try to influence in the public institutions,

while this institution bind institutions according to their private interest. If we have all this

competences in the same body, this body becomes the target of all the lobbies in Brussels.

Since the competition competences are assumed by this regular general, this empirical situation

show advantages and disadvantages:

advantages: this political body has become a very strong one and he verifies the whole process,

from drafting the norm to judge the companies that behave against the norms.

disadvantages: this huge body is the perfect objective for the lobbies which have a clear reference

to try to influence to. Since all particular competences are concentrated in a singular body, this

body has to response to everything.

TOPIC: THE EU TRADE POLICY

The DG regarding the competition policy has more competences than the rest of General Director.

This trade policy is important for many reasons.

Trade policy is a good example of transfer of decision making capacity.

Trade policy affects everyone.

The core ideas of the EU trade policy:

- trade benefits all (both consumers and producers) reinforcing trade you reinforce the whole

integration process. The EU consider that trade policy, not as an isolated policy but deeply

interrelated with other policies of the EU.

- trade is closely linked to other policy fields, works hand in hand with the environmental one, the

neighboring.

- liberalization contributes to economic development in all countries.

- in accordance to that, the EU has been historically willing to open its markets, and in so doing

has permitted a social dialogue and transparent policy-making.

Hard power: refers to those states that mainly use hard capacities (military capacities) to interact

with the rest of the world. For example, Russia or the US.

Soft power: based on economics and trade. The EU tries to convince the rest of the world on the

benefits of the regional integration process, the democratic system, the rule of law “Estat de dret”

by doing so, the EU doesn’t use military forces.

24

The Treaty of Function of the European Union also show us the importance of trade for the

integration process. The trade policy has to be considered totally, fully and transferred policy

sector. It means, dealing with international trade agreements, the member states have no longer

capacity to decide on the national interest because the european union is speaking on behalf of the

rest of the member states. The European member states do not participate in the meetings, this

participation is given to the commissioner of trade.

Policy making in the European Policy, it is an administrative aspect of this policy. It is a technical

issue. When dealing with the trade agreements of third parties in the world, the EU usually take 3

steps process: the negotiations mandate which is the previous stage, the negotiations and finally,

the signing of the agreement, the ratification and the implementation. The key institution involve in

the whole process is the Commission. Since the trade policy is a transfer policy since the very

beginning of the European process, the institution in charge of pushing the process forward is the

Commission, mainly the General Director on Trade. It also involves environment, development,

energy and all this kind of policies. The leading position is hold by the Commission. It is this

General Director who establishes the criteria and who assumes the analysis of what the trade

relationship of the European Union might be in the future. The General Direction is deeply

connected to the member states. The actors who trade are the member states, not the union. In

order to fix the priorities, are constantly with the respective national ministers.

Once those priorities are established and the potential partners are putted in the hot spot, the DG

decides on one physical person for those decisions. One public server and the people working with

him of the commission assume personally the whole dossier, called the Chief Negotiators, to push

forward the Trade Agreement.

Once this Chief Negotiators and the potential trade partners came into first agreement, appears the

Committee 133 composed by national members, national public servers directly send to Brussels

from their capital cities because this committee is responsible for assuring that the national interest

is defended and it is responsible to look after the national interest which could potentially be in

conflict either between them or between the national interest and the european one.

Before the final signature, this committee is involved in the process. IMPORTANTE.

Once the Committee 133 (all can belong to this committee) has been involved in the process and

have given the permission the Chief Negotiators holds on the process and finally assumes the final

draft to be signed by the different partners. Once both parts sign the agreement, this agreement

since it is an international agreement has to be ratified by both sides. This official document goes

first to Brussels and from Brussels go to all the member states to ratify it. If there is one single

member state that doesn’t sign it the agreement doesn’t take into force because at the end of the

day we are dealing with international processes. Once the document is ratified, this agreement

comes into force and it is immediately implemented. The member states are obliged to ratify it.

25

When analyzing the different ways that the european union came into an international agreement

with potential partners we should distinguish two things:

- bilateral agreements: is an agreement on trade which only involves two parts. We also have the

bilateral trading frameworks.

- multilateral agreements: is an international trade agreement involving more than two parts. The

most important multilateral framework of international agreements is the World Trade

Organization (international member states considered as international traders assist to this

meeting in order to fix the general framework for the trading of goods and services around the

world. The main goal is the liberalization of World Trade by introducing many legal mechanisms

between the trading parts)

And also distinguish between:

- preferential agreements: those agreements that because of political, strategic, economic,

cultural or any other reason, accord to the trading partner a preferential access to the european

trading market. Preferential access either by needs of quotas (quantitative) or by needs of tariffs

reductions (qualitative) or in terms of access.

- not-preferential agreements

MULTILATERALISM VS BILATERALISM

Three different kinds of agreements that the EU implements to tight the trading partners at the EU

way of doing things. The EU introduces multilateralism when a part of what’s going on, we are

focus on the trade part of the EU and any other partner. When the EU finds itself in a higher

hierarchical position with the potential trading partner, it introduces bilateral agreements because it

is the best way possible to keep this hierarchy on the move. When this hierarchical position is not

assured the EU opens to multilateralism.

The EU exclusively uses preferential agreements when dealing with non develop countries, with

poor countries. Preferential and non-preferential does not mean that the EU has preferences under

this countries. The non-preferential agreement with develop countries. Under a preferential

agreement, the goods produced in the trading partners acts in the european market with

preference, even quantitative or qualitative, either with preferential quotas or with preferential

types.

The EU policies deal with everything except agriculture because of huge national interest within

countries. The EU’s economic actor has traditionally reserved the internal market because the

26

ministers of the countries respond as political representatives of a particular govern. Any

preferential agreement with a third party will never include agriculture goods.

Free trade agreements include a partnership between the EU and a third country and involve some

kind of preferential tariff involving goods and services.

Bilateral agreements of the EU and regional powers (Japan,Mexico, Brazil, South Africa) the EU

treats those 3rd parties as equals. They want to eliminate trade and tariffs (international world free

trade). Therefore, they signed preferential agreements. The bilateral agreements have different

levels of preferentially. Total elimination of tariffs and quotas.

THE EU EXTERNAL ACTION

It is the complement of the trade policy. The trade policy is one among many other mechanisms of

the european external action. What the EU does in order to be consider a key player in the external

world? When analyzing the single market we were looking at the inside part of the box and we

were assuming the EU as an arena. When analyzing the external policy we assume the EU as an

actor.

Besides the trade policy, the EU has many other strategies to build up the European External

Action. The EU always tries to enhance this four goals: support political stability around the world

(wars, natural disasters that could put in danger the stability), human rights and democracy by any

means, promote prosperity and welfare and to assure the rule of law and good practices of the

government. In order to assure the achievement of this goals, the EU uses its trade policy and

other policies.

All under the director general of external affaires the EU also focus its external action on the

different actors and on the different spaces locus on the EU can work in.

Different tools:

- sectorial approach: the different sectors where we can weakness the external action either in the

protection of human rights or on the cyber security strategy. We are approaching the external

action to a sector.

- geographical approach: region or the country where the EU is focusing on.

- intentional approach:

Is not the same intensity that they put in each tool: for example in Ukraine or the respect in human

rights in Malaysia.

The external action depends on trade and foreign policy and also in the geographical approach.

27

The EU uses the neighborhood policy uses it as the first step of accession to the EU. Any

independent state in Europe willing to joint in the future the EU, it first, must deal with the European

Neighborhood policy. (Montenegro)

We could have a more centralized and hard power in Brussels than we have now. A part from

managing the external action by means of the trade policy, the humanitarian aid policy, the

developing and cooperation policy, the EU have already tried to create a European Army. To have

a strong army matters in the international scenario. Independently from our critical evaluation we

can assume that this fact matters.

After many reforms in this security and defense policy in the EU, after the Treaty of Amsterdam in

1997, the European member states came up with the Petersberg Mission. They all agree to create

a common european army only exclusively to react to this three kinds of situations which are:

- humanitarian and rescue missions

- peace-maintaining missions

- missions in which combat forces get involved only for crisis management, including missions to

restore peace.

We don’t have a European single army, now the member states share either groups or

technological facilities and this Petersberg groups (European) are a mix of each state.

When analyzing the Security and Defense policy of the EU, the most outstanding instrument of any

external action, the EU introduces the idea of respect of human rights.

Neighboring policy

There’s a block on the north-east part, on the south and on Caucus. The neighboring policy doesn’t

include Mali but includes Morocco. The criteria to choose countries: it is addressed to this countries

that have common borders with the EU. To understand this blocks that the EU has chosen we

should focus on the European needs: economic, social.

ACTION PLANS: to maintain macroeconomic’s stability, financial assistance, administrative

support to create standard modern states and trade. We face a EU policy which is transversal to

many economic sectors in the same way as the competition policy (it was fixing the rules for any of

the sectorial policies that we could imagine). We have a policy goal, political will (protect external

borders) and to achieve these goals the EU uses plenty of policies organized around the

neighboring countries. It is more supranational.

The supranational policy: are seeing the common interest of the whole integration process. All

supranational policies are also trying to get as much national benefit as they can.

Intergovernmental policy: fixing the balance of power between the national interests from all the

countries.

28

Morocco receive preferentially in many products produced that want to join the EU market, that’s

why a lot of industries from Sabadell, Terrassa, etc., are produced in Morocco. However, Sweden

or Finland have not a preferential interest in Morocco. The neighboring policy has to be understood

as a supranational, not a intergovernmental policy.

The EU commission has a representative who speaks in voice of everyone. This political

representative has to attend the demands from the committee 133 that are defending de national

interests. Although each one has a own interest, the representative speaks with a single voice, and

this is the most evident supranational policy example. If the EU is approaching a particular situation

under a intergovernmental approach we have 28 voices.

Why Turkey is not included in the neighboring policy? It has a direct border with Burglary and

Greece, but Turkey is not benefitting from this policy because they want to become a member of

the EU. Turkey asked to be in the EU earlier than 1962 and they are still trying it. We only have

candidate members/states in Island, Turkey and the Balkans countries that receive a particular

treatment which is the same as neighboring policy but more personalized because both the

enlargement policy and the neighboring policy want to make them familiar with the rules from the

EU. They have this treatment because they want to enter in the EU.

What set the fire in the Ukrainian case? There was a proposal of an association agreement

between the EU and the formal president issued from the orange revolution 5 years ago. Russia

with Ukraine is an imperi but with out Russia it’s like another country.

29