Does the EU represent a move from state-centric to multi-level governance?

Résumé du document

Assess the claim that the EU represents a move from state-centric to multi-level governance.

Extraits

[...] Assess the claim that the EU represents a move from state-centric to multi- level governance The former French President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors, once stated that the European Union was an “unidentified political object”. This phrase highlights the complexity of the EU polity, which various theories have tried to capture and which has sparked controversy among the students of European integration. Among those theories, two models emerged between the late eighties and the early nineties, focusing on the relationship between supranational, national and subnational institutions, drawing opposite conclusions on the role of these actors in EU policy making. [...]

[...] The EU has also its own jurisdiction, with the European Court of Justice, whose competence is mandatory for member states, unlike that of the International Court of Justice. Member states are in principle bound by its rulings. Case law sustains this interpretation of the EU as an independent polity: in the case Costa v. ENEL (1964), the European Court of Justice asserted the supremacy of EC law over national law, and in the case Parti écologiste les Verts (1986), it said that the Treaty establishing a European Community was a “constitutional charter”. [...]

[...] Historically, the development of a European regional policy dates back to the seventies, with the creation of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the main financial instrument, in 1975. Other instruments have both regional and non-regional aspects: the European Social Fund and the European Agricultural Guarantee and Guidance Fund (EAGGF). Since 1988, the ERDF, ESF and EAGGF have been known collectively as the structural funds. In 1993, the Financial Instrument of Fisheries Guidance (FIFG) was added to the structural funds. [...]

[...] The Commission's role was limited to approving the budget submitted by national governments. However, the Commission has tried over the years to assert its role, and to make progress towards a supranational regional policy. Therefore, following the Single European Act, a reform of the structural funds was introduced in 1988, which gave more powers to subnational actors at the expense of national governments, through the principle of partnership, which stated that funds would be administered as partnerships between national governments, subnational authorities and other relevant actors[5]. [...]

[...] Conversely, in the UK, some regions with a greater tradition of autonomy, such as Scotland, have proved more assertive during the implementation process, whereas England and Wales have been submitted to greater national government control[9]. The multi-level governance theory also points at an unprecedented mobilization of subnational actors at the European level, which are lobbying not only the representations of the member states but also the Commission, the Parliament and the Court of Justice, and at the creation of the Committee of the Regions by the Treaty of Maastricht, which must be consulted by the Council and by the Commission when a decision is to be taken regarding regional policy. [...]