New intergovernmentalism has appeared in the 2010s with the aim to give an alternative explanation about the Post-Maastricht era of the European integration. Christopher Bickerton, Dermot Hodson and Uwe Puetter characterize this period as an integration paradox, since while the basic constitutional features of the EU have not changed, EU activity has expanded to an unprecedented degree, for instance, on the areas of financial supervision, labour market reforms, migration, asylum and border control, police and judicial cooperation as well as the foreign and security policy. In other words, member states preferred integration without supranationalism, avoiding further significant transfer of competencies to supranational institutions, rather to so-called de novo bodies. Even in those cases when legislative competences have been delegated to supranational actors, such as on the area of justice and home affairs, it happened with an important modification of the community method governance, due to the European Council's special oversight power and the Commission's modified right of initiative.[1]
The integration paradox poses a challenge to the traditional theories of European integration such as intergovernmentalism and neo-functionalism which perceive integration as the transfer of competencies to supranational institutions such as to the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Court of Justice of the European Union.[2]
Further claim of intergovernmentalism is that deliberation and consensus-seeking became dominant behavioural norms in the EU which define basically all level and forums of the decision-making. Another characteristic of the decision-making system is that the European Council became a central actor. It does not only define the general direction and
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constitutional framework of the European integration, as it did in the past, but it oversees policy-making and guides the activity of the European Commission as well as the EU Council on the new areas of EU activity.[3]
The first part of the paper aims to give a synthesis of the claims and hypotheses of new intergovernmentalism laid down in 2015 by Christopher Bickerton, Dermot Hodson and Uwe Puetter in their edited volume entitled "The New Intergovernmentalism. States and Supranational Actors in the Post-Maastricht Era", furthermore by works of other scholars enriched the literature of new intergovernmentalism since then. It also aims to review the main critiques of the approach and provide the author's own ones as well. The second part of the paper intends to test the hypotheses of new intergovernmentalism on the area of common security and defence policy (CSDP) based on secondary literature review and the analysis of EU legal acts and official documents.
Bickerton, Hodson, and Puetter set up six hypotheses regarding new intergovernmentalism which were confirmed, specified and criticized by themselves or other scholars in the same volume and in subsequent works as well. The authors themselves pinned it down that they didn't intend to give a new grand theory of the European integration, and neither they provided a finished work regarding the evaluation of the Post-Maastricht period.
This part of the study takes a fling to synthetize the claims and the critiques of new intergovernmentalism providing a general theoretical framework of the subsequent analysis of its applicability on the area of common security and defence policy.
Hypothesis 1 states that deliberation and consensus have become the guiding norms of day-to-day decision making at all levels. Deliberative intergovernmentalism refers to that process in which deliberation and consensus-seeking have uncoupled from supranationalism since 1992 and become a decisive behavioural norm within the new areas of EU activity due to the decentralized decision-making that characterizing these policies.[4]
Puetter highlights especially the role of the European Council in deliberation and consensus, defining it as a centre of new intergovernmentalism, stating that on the one hand, since the beginning of the 1990s, European Council has been working for the expansion of the EU activities, but on the other hand it has been preventing significant expansion of the community method governance on these new policy areas. Consequently, in the PostMaastricht era, the role of European Council has been changed. Until the late 1980s European Council's main role was to define the constitutional issues and the general direction of the European integration providing long-term guidance to the European Commission and to the EU Council. Since the middle of the 1990s European Council has been getting involved into detailed policy decisions and formation via initiation and overseeing implementation in the new domains of EU activity. The European Council also
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gives instructions regularly to the European Commission and to the EU Council regarding concrete policy-making and implementation.[5]
At the same time, deliberation and consensus-seeking aren't constrained only to the working method of the European Council, but characterize in general the day-to-day decision-making of the new areas of EU activity at all level, becoming a basic behavioural norm. Taking the EU Council, we could witness the ever growing dominance of qualified majority voting, at the same time consensus-seeking hasn't been declined significantly within it, since 65 percent of all decisions taken under the qualified majority voting rule, were adopted unanimously between 2009 and 2012.[6] Stéphanie Novak has found that between 1993 and 2011, on average, about 80% of legislative acts coming under the qualified majority voting procedure have been adopted unanimously by the EU Council.[7]
Frank Schimmelfennig has given a comprehensive critique of new intergovernmentalism and one of his remarks refers to, reproaching Bickerton et al. for using the criteria of supranational and intergovernmental inconsistently, that since deliberation and consensus-seeking are originally the working and behavioural methods of supranationalism, basically the new areas of EU activity have not become more intergovernmental, but rather more supranational in the Post-Maastricht period.[8]
Hypothesis 2 claims that supranational institutions such as the European Commission, the Court of Justice and the European Parliament are not hard-wired to seek ever closer union any more, but they are rather "complicit" in the expansion of the decentralized modes of decision-making and the ever-growing role of the European Council on the new areas of EU activity.[9] Puetter also argues that the Commission basically took a pragmatic stance towards the expanding powers of the European Council which, on the one hand, derives from the composition of the latter, namely that the President of the Commission is the member of the European Council and the High Representative, who is one of the Vice-Presidents of the Commission, takes part in its work as well. On the other hand, competencies and the relationship between the European Commission and the European Council are clearly defined by the treaties regarding the new areas of EU activity, so there is little chance to rivalry.[10]
At the same time, John Peterson came to the conclusion that this assumption of new intergovernmentalism cannot be unambiguously endorsed in the case of the European Commission. He also admits that the European Commission's ambition to be an engine of
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the integration has been diminished since the Treaty of Maastricht and this phenomenon is mostly due to the fact, that the European Commission has adjusted to the new political reality of the integration, but this doesn't mean that the European Commission wouldn't be committed for an ever closer union any more.[11]
Regarding the role of the European Parliament (EP) in the Post-Maastricht era, Johannes Pollak and Peter Slominski stress that the introduction and the expansion of the co-decision procedure, renamed by the Treaty of Lisbon to ordinary legislative procedure, are contrary to the hypothesis 1 of new intergovernmentalism, even if it has happened mostly on those areas which belonged already to the community method governance. At the same time, the way how the European Parliament takes part in the co-decision confirms hypothesis 2, namely that the EP is not necessarily hard-wired to seek ever closer union via supranational decision-making. They refer to the informalization of the legislation under the rules of co-decision procedure by the Treaty of Amsterdam introducing the possibility of adopting a legal act at the first parliamentary reading. As a consequence, firs-reading decisions have been increased, as well as the preliminary tripartite negotiations among the EP, the European Commission, and the EU Council[12]. Inter-institutional negotiations have become standard practice for the adoption of EU legislation.[13] In other words, deliberation and consensus are decisive working methods not only within, but also among the EU institutions, especially in case of the ordinary legislative procedure. At the same time, informalization causes less deliberation within the European Parliament since only limited number of MEPs are involved in the trilogues, and less transparency as well.[14]
Another observation regarding the European Parliament, especially on those narrow new areas of EU activity where it acquired co-decision rights, is that it behaves "responsibly", and seeks for consensus with the EU Council at all costs. Lopatin draws on the example of migration and asylum, when the EP has given up large part of its previous liberal immigration policy and moved towards the restrictive position of the EU Council.[15]
Last but not least, we have to mention the EP's stealthy approach on those new areas of EU activity where its formal rights are missing or weak, namely that it uses its formal legislative, budgetary or appointment/dismissal powers to obtain informal influence.[16]
Hypothesis 3 states that where competence-delegation occurs, member states prefer the creation and empowerment of "de novo bodies" and supranational institutions are mostly supportive, or as Bickerton et al. phrase it "complicit", in this process. They conceive de
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novo bodies as "newly created bodies that often enjoy considerable autonomy by way of executive or legislative power and have a degree of control over their own resources".[17]
Peterson argues that the creation of de novo institutions is not inevitably contrary to the interest of the European Commission, since many of these institutions have achieved closer policy cooperation than previously existed, and in those areas where the European Commission's powers were week[18]. Renaud Dehousse came to the same conclusion when he claims that "More often than not, the powers entrusted to European agencies were previously held by national authorities rather than by the Commission".[19]
It is highly contested in the literature that who is the main actor behind the mushrooming of de novo bodies in the post-Maastricht era. Puetter stresses that the European Council is the pivotal political force behind the proliferation of de novo bodies. He draws on the examples of European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and European Stability Mechanism (ESM), de novo bodies have been set up to handle the sovereign debt crisis,[20] but we have to mention, that these institutions are based on intergovernmental agreements and not on EU law. When creation of de novo bodies occurs in the framework of the EU, based on EU law, the situation is quite different since besides the European Council, the EU Council, the European Commission and the European Parliament are involved in the process as well. In practice, based on deliberation and consensus in the European Council, the European Commission makes a proposal to establish a de novo body and then the EU Council, due to co-decision, together with the European Parliament, adopts the necessary secondary legislative act.
During designing a new agency or body legislators confront two potential problems: bureaucratic drift and political drift. Bureaucratic drift occurs if a de novo body pursues a policy differing from that of its political principals, basically the institutions are involved in the creation of the de novo body in question. In case of political drift one of the political principals makes an effort to capture the agency. As a result, principals aim to use ex ante, ongoing and ex post control mechanisms to prevent either bureaucratic drift or political drift[21]. While initially, the design of EU agencies or de novo bodies fell under the exclusive competence of the EU Council, due to co-decision, the European Parliament's role in the institutional design and the control mechanisms has increased.[22]
Marco Scipioni denies the assumption that the creation and diffusion of agencies represent the confirmation of a predominantly intergovernmental EU. Examining the Frontex transformation into the European Border and Coast Guard and the reform of the European Asylum Support Office, he came to the conclusion that the main force behind the reform and additional empowerment of these agencies was the Commission, while such a broad empowerment of these institutions was challenged by some Member States on
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subsidiarity grounds, for instance regarding the European Border and Coast Guard's ability to intervene in a particular Member State out of its own initiative.[23]
Regarding de novo bodies Schimmelpfennig points out that these institutions "display a wide variation of intergovernmental and supranational features, which makes this term meaningless for an analysis of intergovernmentalism vs. supranationalism"[24] Simon Bulmer questions that the increased creation of de novo bodies is an attribute of new intergovernmentalism, rather he connects it to global trends in governance.[25]
According to hypothesis 4 problems in domestic preference formation and political representation have become stand-alone inputs into the integration process and give explanation of the integration paradox. Starting with a broader approach, Bickerton and his co-authors trace back the enhanced integration in the Post-Maastricht era to the changing political economy in Europe in the early 1980s, stating that the post-war economic consensus between business and labour has been disappeared due to the economic pressures of the 1970s and that a convergence of the member states' preferences appeared. Realizing the limits of national strategies and solutions, member states' elites have turned towards European framework which aims to achieve collective goals while taking into consideration national differences.[26]
Besides the changing political economy of Europe, other circumstances have pushed as well the political elite of the member states towards more integration, namely the end of the permissive consensus, furthermore the crisis of preference formation and political representation. While the early decades of the integration could be characterized by the so-called permissive consensus, a state, conceived by Leon Lindberg and Stuart Scheingold, in which the project of European integration is largely an elite affair, and the European population does not take much interest in European politics, but supports the broad goals of the integration project,[27] in the post-Maastricht period permissive consensus has disappeared due to the growing Euroscepticism and populism.[28]
Difficulties in preference formation and political representation refer to that phenomenon that the links between interests of the society and the representative organisations has been loosened.[29] Anger, frustration and concerns about representative democracy have put a challenge to national elites, whose authority and legitimacy have weakened as a consequence. The uncoupling of governments and national elites in general from societies has led the formers to look to the EU not only as a more effective forum to handle the changing political economy mentioned above, but as a site of legitimation and
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authority. At the same time, the declining permissive consensus of the society on the EU makes European elites reluctant to delegate powers to supranational institutions.[30]
Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks came a different conclusion regarding the consequence of the decline of the permissive consensus, namely that it hasn't resulted more, but indeed less integration comparing to the past.[31]
Nevertheless, decline of permissive consensus and its effect on the European integration is not a stable point of new intergovernmentalism. As it is pointed out by Achim Hurrelmann, permissive consensus still performs well which is underpinned, among others, by the Eurobarometer data which show, on EU average, considerable amount of trust in EU institutions, especially comparing to the trust in national institutions.[32] Data of Standard Eurobarometer 90 underpin Hurrelmann conclusions as well, since on the one hand, trust in the EU comparing to national institutions (national parliament and government) was constantly considerably higher between 2004 and 2018, and on the other hand distrust in EU was significantly lower comparing both to national parliaments and governments in the same period.[33] In autumn 2018 a clear majority of Europeans (56 percent) wanted more decisions to be taken at EU level, while 34 percent opposed it and 10 percent didn't know. Regarding the future of the EU 58 percent of the respondents were optimistic, 37 percent pessimistic and 5 percent didn't know.[34]
Hypothesis 5 claims that the difference between high and low politics have been blurred in the post-Maastricht era. Bickerton et al. stress that nowadays "EU policy-making rarely triggers threats of ultimate withdrawal from European integration or serious attempts to fully isolate a given domain of domestic decision-making from EU-influence" Still, member states tend to monitor closely EU decision-making and are wary of the supranational institutions' activity on sensitive domains of national policy-making.[35]
However, we have witnessed several examples of the opposite, such as the Brexit, or the heated debate over the relocation mechanism between the EU and Hungary as well as Slovakia and Poland, and most recently the Hungarian and Polish political veto regarding the multiannual financial framework 2021-2027 and the Next Generation EU recovery programme. In the case of the relocation mechanism, Hungarian, Slovakian and Polish governments not only argued against the mechanism, but openly denied implementing the relocation decisions, even after the dismissal decision of the Court of Justice, stating that only member states should decide over who they are letting into their territories. In the debate over the new rule of law conditionality mechanism which connects EU financial issues to rule of law, Hungarian and Polish governments have referred to, among others, the
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different national legal identities to be protected. As a result, the European Council conclusion which has put an end on the debate and political stalemate finally, claims that the regulation on a general regime of conditionality for the protection of the Union budget "is to be applied in full respect of Article 4(2) TEU, notably the national identities of Member States inherent in their fundamental political and constitutional structures".[36]
Last but not least, hypothesis 6 stresses that post-Maastricht EU is in a state of disequilibrium which refers to the unstable combination of socio-economic transformation and political development described in hypothesis 4. The successive crises of the EU raise the questions why the EU is so prone to crises, and whether it can survive in the future without finding ways to address the concerns over its legitimacy and effectiveness.[37] For the proponents of new intergovernmentalism Treaty of Maastricht is both a response to, and a contributory factor to the legitimacy deficit of the EU which is considered to be the main factor of its disequilibrium. Both policy-coordination, as the main way of the cooperation among member states on the new areas of the integration managed mostly in informal and not public sessions of intergovernmental institutions and bodies at several levels, as well as the co-decision procedure, which results early agreements via inter-institutional agreements, undermine deliberation and transparency in decision-making.[38]
Bulmer tends to accept that the European integration is in disequilibrium which is the source of successive crises, but he seems to be more optimistic, stating that it is surprising how resilient the integration has been being since its creation especially in the shadow of the World War II, and in the course of the Cold War serving as a structure of political opportunities that have been being able to offer to the member states' governments "solutions to the dilemma of managing international independence while responding to pressures from domestic politics."[39]
One of the new areas of EU activity after the Treaty of Maastricht is the common security and defence policy (CSDP) created in the framework of the common foreign and security policy (CFSP) in the end of 1990s. As being in the heart of state sovereignty, this policy is still strictly under intergovernmental cooperation, however, member states are seeking for more and more cooperation on this policy field, taking just as an example the recent years' defence initiatives such as the permanent structured cooperation (PESCO), the European
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Defence Fund (EDF) or the Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD). Consequently, it is interesting to examine how the hypotheses of new intergovernmentalism are applicable to this policy.
Regarding deliberation and consensus-seeking, we have to note that because of the intergovernmental nature of this policy, decisions in the EU Council and in the European Council have to be made unanimously only with a few exceptions. At the same time, these exceptions of qualified majority voting cannot be applied to decisions having military or defence implications.[40] In other words, member states are constrained by the decisionmaking system itself, if they intend to have an effective and responsive security and defence policy. For that reason, since the beginning of the 2000s many forums have been created for deliberation, both regarding military and civil dimensions of security and defence.
For the majority of scholars Political and Security Committee (PSC) is the central policy-shaper, the "linchpin"[41] or the "script writer"[42] of CSDP, in which deliberation and consensus-seeking have unambiguously become behavioural norms. Despite PSC is situated in the Council institutional pyramid, and devoted to represent member states' interests, this consensus-generating nature of the body makes it a case study of "supranational intergovernmentalism" as it phrased by Jolyon Howorth.[43] There are many factors which are conducive to deliberation and consensus-generation in the PSC. Christoph Meyer emphasizes the "club atmosphere" which emerged within the PSC based on the high level of personal trust among its members and their common commitment to "pioneer cooperation in a new, labour-intensive and particularly sensitive policy-field".[44] As Howorth points it out, based on interviews he conducted with ambassadors of the PSC, this personal mutual trust refers to the belief that whatever compromise is possible they will find it, since all members of the PSC will bend any effort to achieve it. As a contrast "it is often sufficient for one of the group to be replaced by his or her deputy for the trust-based group dynamics to break down and for consensus to be more difficult to achieve".[45]
Another contributing factor is the frequency of PSC sessions. "It meets twice a week, and more often if necessary,"[46] so ambassadors can discuss and deliberate security and defence related issues continually. It worthy to stress that PSC has intensive communication and relations to other actors involved into the CSDP decision-making as well.[47]
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Timing and the confidentiality of the PSC sessions help as well brokering a compromise among the member states. Since the sessions of PSC precedes the Foreign Affairs Council meetings, ambassadors can inform foreign or defence ministers in advance what seems to be the consensual option for the decision avoiding the situation in which ministers, usually as a response to the question from journalists, declare about the support for another option, making it difficult later to switch to the consensual option without loss of face.[48]
Due to this consensus-generating capacity, vast majority of the issues are decided in the PSC, and it is quite rare that because of dissensus among the ambassadors, a case is forwarded to the Permanent Representatives (COREPER) or to the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC). Ana Juncos and Christopher Reynolds came to the conclusion, that PSC became so influential in the shaping of the national interest that they phrased its activity as "governing in the shadow".[49]
At the same time, as a result of the reforms of the Lisbon Treaty, Heidi Maurer and Nicholas Wright point it out that the PSC's agenda setting capacity is getting to be more and more constrained by the activism of the High Representative (HR) and the European External Action Service (EEAS). Furthermore, by the emergence of the European Council in the day-to day decision-making, its "script writer" role has been declining as well. However, their conclusion is that PSC remains a central actor in the CSDP structure, since "it is gaining alternative relevance through an emerging oversight role, which has implications for member states' EU foreign policy engagement".[50]
Puetter emphasizes the expanding activity of the European Council on the area of foreign, security and defence policy as well, stating that it is involved regularly into deciding concrete policy issues. Recent crises in general and regarding foreign and security issues too have contributed to the increasing number of the European Council sessions and its involvement into day-to-day policy-making. Foreign, security and defence policies belong to the core of member states' sovereignty, so policy coordination on the highest political level ensures the most authority to discuss differences and make a final decision.[51] Examining the European Council agenda between June 1992 and June 2012, Puetter has found that issues relating to the new areas of EU activity such as economic governance, CFSP and CSDP, employment and social policy coordination, justice and home affairs accounted for more than 65% of the total number of agenda items. Behind economic governance, foreign and security policy was the second most popular agenda item.[52]
Regarding the claims of hypothesis 2 that supranational institutions are not hard-wired to seek ever closer union, but they are rather "complicit" in the expansion of the decentralized
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modes of decision-making and the ever-growing role of the European Council on the new areas of EU activity, many scholars have found that the European Commission, despite of its marginalized formal competencies regarding CSDP, has managed to influence this policy area beyond its delegated powers.[53] Chantal Lavalleé claims that on the one hand, constitutional background of CSDP remained stable since its creation preserving the intergovernmental decision-making regime, but on the other hand transgovernmental processes among diplomats and military personnel are shaping the policy, in which the European Commission serves as a meeting point, playing a coordinating role. Another contributing factor to the Commission's involvement into defence and security issues is the interdependence among EU external policies which constrains reluctant member states to increase the interaction and cooperation with the European Commission.[54] As an empirical pillar of the examination, she studied the role of the European Commission in the creation of the European Security Research Programme and the Instrument for Stability, as well as in the regulation of European defence procurement.[55]
Marianne Riddervold uses three hypotheses, examined through two case studies namely the naval CSDP operation Atalanta and the EU maritime security strategy (EUMSS), to examine how the European Commission exactly influences CSDP issues. The first hypothesis, rational institutionalist perspective assumes, that the Commission seeks to "maximize its own interests by using whatever bargaining tools it has at its disposal". The second hypothesis builds on the communicative action theory and suggests that the European Commission tends to influence via justifying its proposals by expert arguments, while the third hypothesis stresses that the European Commission "circumvents" the formally intergovernmental decision-making of the CSDP co-operating "directly with national bureaucrats to hereby indirectly influence the Member States' positions", and influencing "decision-making outcomes by co-operating with other EU institutions such as EEAS".[56] Riddervold finds that the European Commission was strongly involved both in the Atalanta and EUMSS decision-making, in the first case mostly drawing on its expertise, while in the second case it used bargaining tools, expert argumentation and circumventing as well.[57]
Pierre Haroche gives a strongly neofunctionalist critique of new intergovernmentalism regarding the role of the European Commission in the course of the examination of its role in the creation and the governance of the European Defence Found (EDF). Haroche, in contrast to the assumption that the European Commission has given up with the concept of ever closer union and proposes only those plans which are highly likely to be accepted by
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the member states, points it out that in the case of EDF the Juncker Commission was insisting on the old plan of the Commission about financing defence research and procurement via EU budget including those which has military dimension, and has surprised the member states by its supranational initiative.[58] From Haroche point of view EDF is the example of "offensive functional spill-over",[59] when supranational institutions take advantage of the dysfunctionality of the intergovernmental governance method on a non-or less integrated area such as CSDP, and introducing supranational elements of governance to achieve more easily the policy goals. He concludes that "contrary to new intergovernmentalism expectation, this mechanism implies delegation in favour of supranational institutions at the expense of intergovernmental procedures and agencies."[60] In the case of EDF the Commission took the advantage of the deficiencies of the activity of the European Defence Agency, an intergovernmental de novo body in financing defence research and development projects. While EDA relies on voluntary national contributions to finance its projects, in the framework of EDF the Commission "reversed the logic of defence industrial cooperation: instead of looking for money to finance a project, it is about looking for projects to be financed by a given budget."[61]
Pollak and Slominski emphasized that since the Treaty of Lisbon the European Parliament has managed to gain considerable ability to influence the formally still strictly intergovernmental domain of CFSP/CSDP via its budgetary power, its role in the appointment of the HR, and the indirect effects its already existing co-decision power in other domains. They are taking the example of the establishment of the European External Actions Service (EEAS). While initially the EP had preferred that the EEAS should be incorporated within the European Commission, since this scenario would have guaranteed "clean mandate" to the EP to use its co-decision and budgetary powers, later it choose a pragmatic strategy to be able to influence the most the creation and operation of this de novo body, after it became clear that member states are reluctant to empower the European Commission. As the creation of the EEAS required amendments concerning the staff regulations of the EU and financial regulations, and both of this issues fall under co-decision, the EP insisted on handling all of the issues related to the creation of the EEAS as a single package. As a consequence, while formally the EU had only consultative rights in the adoption of the Council decision on the EEAS, in practice the process was resembled rather to co-decision due to the level of involvement of the EP.[62]
Claims of new intergovernmentalism about the increasing number and role of de novo bodies and the supranational institutions' eventually supportive attitude in this process can be confirmed with some reservations regarding CSDP. First of all, we have witnessed high
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level of agencification on the area of European security and defence policy. Although European Defence Agency (EDA) and European External Action Service (EEAS) are the best known examples, other de novo bodies were established as well, such as the European Union Institute for Security Studies or the European Union Satellite Centre, not to mention those so-called CSDP-structures which were established to implement the civil and military dimensions of this policy. As Michael E. Smith points it out "EU member states found enough consensus to create the CSDP mechanism and embed it within the EU's body of treaty law", but delegation to the European Commission was not an option.[63]
However, the level of autonomy of this de novo bodies and the scope of competence delegation vary on a wide spectrum. While the EDA falls under the authority of the EU Council and it is to support the "Council and the Member States in their effort to improve the Union's defence capabilities,"[64] EEAS is functionally autonomous body separated both from the EU Council and the European Commission with the aim to "support the High Representative in fulfilling his/her mandates and assist the President of the European Council, the President of the Commission, and the Commission in the exercise of their respective functions in the area of external relations."[65]
Regarding "complicity" of the supranational institutions in the creation of agencies we can speak about pragmatism rather than complicity. As Daniel Fiott pointed it out in connection with the EDA, the European Commission believed in 1996, in the absence of any kind of defence agency at that time, that it could function as a defence industrial cooperation platform at EU level. At the same time, member states, especially Great Britain, emphasized that any future agency would be intergovernmental in its nature. As a consequence, the European Commission changed its position fearing that "that the Member States would further steer defence-industrial co-operation away from the EU altogether", and it started to encourage the establishment of an EU defence agency.[66]
Taking hypothesis 4 which is supposed to explain the integration paradox in the postMaastricht era, we have found another weak point of new intergovernmentalism, since permissive consensus towards this policy exists as Eurobarometer data show. Since 2004 more than 70 percent of the respondents are in favour of "a common defence and security policy among EU Member States", since autumn 2016 it is constantly 75 percent. The proportion of opponents varies between 13 and 20 percent, while those who don't know are between 6 and 11 percent. Only one policy was supported more than CSDP among those nine encompassed by the survey, the free movement of EU citizens, which was supported by 82 percent by the respondents in the spring 2018. Interestingly, the support for a common foreign policy, which serves as a framework for the CSDP, is considerably lower, 66 percent in the spring 2018, while the proportion of the opponents were 25 percent and those who
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don't know 9 percent. Expectedly, there is a significant difference among the member states regarding the support of CSDP, the highest in Cyprus (90%), Latvia (87%) and Germany (86%) and the lowest in Austria (57%), Sweden and the United Kingdom (both 63%)[67]
Kaija Schilde, Stephanie Anderson and Andrew Garner went further in their analysis contesting the concept of permissive consensus, stating that actually the European public has coherent preferences over the use of force and the common security and defence policy at the European level. Consequently, they argue, the slow progress and integration without supranationalism in this area are due to the reluctance of the political elites and not to the decline of permissive consensus as new intergovernmentalism interprets.[68]
According to hypothesis 5, the difference between high and low politics has been blurred in the post-Maastricht era, and it is rare that member states intend "to fully isolate a given domain of domestic decision-making from EU-influence."[69] At the same time, CSDP is still fully under intergovernmental regime demonstrating the reluctance of the member states to give up the very core of their national sovereignty, even if public opinion supports a real common defence and security policy. Elements of new intergovernmentalism such as deliberation and policy coordination, or delegation certain remits to de novo bodies mean a shift from the mechanisms of old intergovernmentalism such as hard bargaining, threatening with veto or insisting on national interest, but still it guarantees the control of member states and making all efforts to keep away supranational institutions and decision-making from this policy domain, although these efforts fail sometimes.
Hypothesis 6 about the state of disequilibrium seems to be valid on the area of CSDP, although one of its sources, the lack of permissive consensus can be questioned based on the public opinion polls data as we have seen above. Contrary, rather member states those are still reluctant to move towards supranational integration on this area because of sovereignty concerns.
Growing interdependence on defence issues, and the subsequent crises such as budgetary restrictions after the economic and financial crisis, the Brexit, mass migration inflow, as well as Russian expansive foreign policy made it necessary for the member states to seek opportunities for closer defence cooperation. This has resulted in the defence initiatives, namely the coordinated annual review on defence (CARD), the permanent structured cooperation (PESCO) and the European Defence Fund (EDF). At the same time, only in case of EDF we can witness the growing role of the European Commission and the stealth of supranationalism. CARD is a voluntary mechanism for the member states under the coordination of the EDA, while PESCO, embodying policy coordination, establishes legal commitments for the participating member states, but it is hardly likely that non-compliance would have any consequences. As Sven Biscop stresses there is a "culture of non-compliance in CSDP which affects PESCO as well"[70] As the EU Council has pointed
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it out in its conclusions on the PESCO strategic review in which it assessed the initial phase of PESCO (2018-2020), participating member states (PMS) should respect the collective benchmarks for defence spending, especially in the shadow of the financial consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, use better PESCO projects, strengthen the Union's operational effectiveness, develop capabilities in line with the EU Capability Development Priorities[71] These deficiencies in the fulfilment of PESCO commitments coupled with the fact that out of the 47 PESCO projects only 12 have delivered concrete results or reached their initial operational capability show the limited efficiency of the defence initiatives so far. Taking into consideration that it's only the initial phase of the implementation of these defence tools many scholars agree that mechanism of new intergovernmentalism is one of the sources of inefficiency and consequently disequilibrium in post-Maastricht era[72]
After the overview of the theoretical framework of new intergovernmentalism we can find some weak points in general, such as the decline of permissive consensus or the "complicity2 of supranational institutions in the growing role of European Council and the creation of de novo bodies, as well as their non-commitment to an ever closer union.
These weak points exist in connection with CSDP as well. The most important observation here is, that according to the public opinion polls, against the growing Eurosceptic forces and atmosphere, permissive consensus is still exists, and in case of CSDP, public support for common European security and defence policy is consistently and significantly high, which undermines the main assumption of new intergovernmentalism regarding decreasing permissive consensus. Rather, member states are still reluctant to give up the core part of their sovereignty including defence and security matters, which is contrary to an another hypothesis of new intergovernmentalism, namely the blurring differences between low and high politics.
Nevertheless, majority of the observations and assumptions of new intergovernmentalism seem to be valid regarding the security and defence policy at EU level, such as the growing dominance of the European Council, the increasing number and role of de novo bodies, or the process and nature of policy coordination. It is still a big question if new intergovernmentalism means really a separate phase of the European integration as its proponents assume or it is rather an interim phase in which supranational actors can find the way to "get their feet in the door" and stealth into the domain of core state powers such as defence and security. It is important issue from the efficiency and transparency point of view as well, since as we have seen above in the case of EDA and PESCO the mechanisms and elements of new intergovernmentalism may have counterproductive results.
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A tanulmány egyrészről az integrációelméletek egy új irányzatának, az új kormányköziség állításainak és hipotéziseinek, valamint az elméletet ért kritikáknak a szintézisét kívánja nyújtani, másrészt az új kormányköziség hipotéziseinek érvényesülését vizsgálja az Európai Unió közös biztonság- és védelempolitikája területén. A témával kapcsolatos szakirodalmi áttekintés és elemzés alapján azt találjuk, hogy bár az új kormányköziség hipotéziseinek többsége általánosságban és a közös biztonság- és védelempolitika vonatkozásában is megerősíthető, ugyanakkor vannak vitatható pontjai is a megközelítésnek, mint például a megengedő konszenzus csökkenésére vonatkozó megállapítások, illetve azok, amelyek a szupranacionális intézményeknek az egyre szorosabb unió iránti elkötelezettsége csökkenésére figyelmeztetnek. ■
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Lábjegyzetek:
[1] The author is assistant professor, University of Szeged Faculty of Law.
Visszaugrás
