UACES Sponsored Conference 0437

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Does Size Matter? The Size of States and their Behaviour in the European Union

Manchester, Friday 5 November 2004

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The colloquium will examine the importance of size in shaping the behaviour of states in the EU and in determining the influence they wield. The sessions will be designed to enable both general and comparative aspects and country-specific perspectives to be brought to bear on the issue of size of states within the EU.

Contact: Clive Archer, Manchester Metropolitan University (c.archer@mmu.ac.uk)


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Conference Report

This conference was run by the Centre for European Integration, Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), sponsored by UACES and assisted by grants from the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence, Manchester, the Manchester European Research Institute (MERI) at MMU. The aim was to examine the importance, or otherwise, of the notion of size of the members states of the EU in shaping their behaviour and influence in the EU.

Baldur Thorhallsson of the Centre for the Study of Small States, University of Iceland, dealt with the theories and concepts, examining the variables affecting states in the international system and the traditional measurements of the size of states. His conceptual framework covered six categories involving size, looking at how these may affect action. He enumerated the four traditional variables that defined the size of states as population, territory, GDP and military expenditure. The size of a small state had differed according to authors, with Vital choosing a population of up to 10-15 million for developed countries, while Handel and the World Bank chose an upper limit of 40 million.

Dr Thorhallsson advanced 6 categories with regard to the size of states: fixed size (population and geographical resources); sovereignty (whether the state can maintain effective sovereignty on its territory; the ability to maintain a minimal states structure and presence at an international level); political size (military and administrative capacity); economic size; perceptual aspects (how does the elite consider the state?); preference size (how ambitious is it? What ideas has it about the international system?).

Michael Lake, from a practitioner’s viewpoint, questioned whether size mattered as much as is thought but added that, by belonging to the EU, member states, both large and small, are able to ‘punch above their weight’ in the international arena. He outlined the importance of political weight, and described the balances in the Constitutional Treaty. However, he stressed that more than 85% of decisions in the Council of Ministers are taken by consensus with the weighting of member states’ votes having little relevance. The days of the Franco-German alliance seeming to determine matters is probably over, with alliances being formed from issue to issue. Any future membership of the EU by Turkey would bring some interesting variations to the issue, as it is a country with a large and growing population, but with a varied economic position. Nevertheless its position adjacent to the Middle East and its ability to provide deployable military forces would provide it with political weight. He concluded that size mattered to a limited extent, but together with factors such as location.

Teija Tiilikainen, the Centre for European Studies at the University of Helsinki, said of Finland that the important question was less that of absolute criteria of size but more whether these had been transferred to political identity. Finland’s political identity had been formed by its state-centricism arising from its Lutheran political culture and Hegelian nationalism; its small-states nature that encouraged a policy of compliance; and its border-area position. Finland joined the EU as a result of both identity politics – where it wanted to belong – and security politics – its wish to strengthen its security. Membership was decided on, then the details were covered. Furthermore public opinion has been affected by the views of the elites. The country has displayed within the EU a pronounced small state identity, whereby the importance of rules, norms and institutions matter and it has supported the ‘Community method’. It has opposed directoires, unequal structures and closed cores of states. On the whole it has cooperated with other member states on the basis of issues, though in the IGCs and the Convention, Finland cooperated with, and led, small states. In its 1999 presidency it showed some ability to conciliate between positions and gained credibility. Nevertheless, as long as Finland is situated in a border area, it still has to think about power.

Roderick Pace of the European Documentation and Research Centre of the University of Malta, said that Malta is often regarded as a micro-state, but it is one that had never resigned itself to smallness. Malta has used its smallness successfully to argue for differentiated treatment such as in fishing zones, agriculture, purchase of property and free movement of labour. The country is conscious that it is the smallest member of the EU and in the Convention and subsequent IGC it took a ‘small state’ approach on such matters as European Parliament seats and support of the Community method. It has not favoured a multi-speed or variable geometry not open to all. As a member state it has shown concerns about institutional issues common to other small states and has been willing to build coalitions with others. However, it maintains good relationship particularly with the UK and Italy. Indeed, Malta does not normally seek to ally with other small states but has regarded the Commission as a good friend. Other factors that determine policy apart from size are Malta’s ethnic and cultural homogeneity, a polarized democratic system, its insularity, its Catholic culture and its strategic position. Its smallness means that it has a very open economy which has helped its development but also is a cause of vulnerability. It also needs security guarantees which the EU provides, and is a strong believer in multilateralism. The country is actively ‘Europeanizing' its foreign policy. During the negotiations for membership, Malta managed to safeguard key elements connected with national identity such as its language, the law on abortion and neutrality.

José Magone, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Hull, described Spain as being ‘middle-sized with ambitions’. He traced the movement of Spain towards membership after the Franco era, and how Spain had had to make sacrifices to become a member. Once the country had joined, governments worked to improve its negotiating position by taking a tough stand on issues of national interest at all the key negotiations. It has managed to improve its standing in institutional terms and in the CAP, fisheries and structural funds. The indicators show that Spain is by no means unambiguously a middle-sized country and in many ways it is closer to the four larger states than the smaller ones. Nevertheless its natural allies are in southern Europe, as they are all on the economic semi-periphery. Spanish governments have realised the importance of the Franco-German axis within the EU, but support has been for tactical reasons. Spain has been interested in the way power is used by the EU internationally and has stressed the quality of life and humanitarian issues. While the dominant position in the population backs cooperation, there is also a strong nationalist minority. In terms of policies, Spain has been a major player within the EU in the cases of cohesion policy, the Euro-Mediterranean partnership and Latin American policy. More recently there has been an interest in cooperation over immigration and international terrorism within the EU. All in all, Spain has been influential within the EU despite its middle size. This can be seen in the negotiations for the Nice treaty where Spain fared well. However, the negotiations for the Constitutional treaty led to Spain and Poland holding out on the issue of double-majority, with a solution only coming after a change of governments in both states. The success of Spain is however challenged by the problems with the EU budget deficit and by enlargement. Spain will try to maintain its position as the state that can tip the balance of power within the EU.

Aleks Szczerbiak, of the Sussex European Institute, University of Sussex, considered that a mixture of size and distance from the EU norms had helped to determine the policies of Poland. In what became a common theme, he stressed size combined with other factors as being important. Again there were problems in defining Poland in terms of size. Using the indicator of population, it is medium to large; but using GDP, it was behind Denmark. Relations with the EU were structured more by a combination of size with distance from EU norms. In the negotiations at the IGC and for membership, size did matter for some issues, though it interacted with other factors. For Poland, its size was of importance in the membership negotiations and allowed it to extract concessions on the sale of land to foreigners and on transfers of resources from the structural funds to subsidies. In five out of the eight main issues – such as agriculture, free movement of labour and regional aid – Poland’s size was of relevance. In the case of the Constitutional treaty, Poland had four ‘red-line’ issues, two of which were size related, namely the question of having a Commissioner and that of voting weight in the Council of Ministers. Other factors of importance were the nature of relations with France and Germany and the weakness of the Polish government.

Helen Drake, Department of Politics, International and European Studies at the University of Loughborough, covered France . The country had traditionally taken for granted its prestige, consisting of rank and grandeur, and thus its dominant position within the EU. However, its presence and influence no longer went unchallenged. This founder member had come to understand that its position came down to a question of size and what the country did with it. Its political, administrative and linguistic influence in the EU were all being challenged and France had been fighting rearguard actions on the questions of Strasbourg and the French language. Four factors had influenced France’s position: 1. The numbers game, with the dilution of influence with the new members; 2. The Franco-German relationship had become too much for some but had not been powerful enough in the Convention; 3. French was becoming an ‘also-ran’ language, with Anglo-Saxon concepts such as flexibility also being brought in; 4. there was a certain amount of self-inflicted damage in, for example, France’s low transposition rates, and its action over the Stability Pact. France’s aims now were to rebuild bridges with Germany, encourage the entente cordiale with the UK, and to remain at the intergovernmental end of the spectrum. Its ‘red-lines’ were the language and culture and the Continental socio-economic model. However, a new culture of influence and partnership was needed. France regarded Europe as a world power based on shared values and identity, but Europe must resemble France.

Simon Bulmer, Department of Government in the University of Manchester, dealt with Germany in a joint paper with William Paterson of the Institute of German Studies, University of Birmingham. Germany had changed from the days when it was an economic giant but a political dwarf. It had been affected by the shadow of the past until the 1970s and since then had tried to defend its terrain though not in a unilateralist way. The literature in the 1990s had suggested that Germany post-unification would become the hegemon in Europe, with the export of the Bundesbank model to the Maastricht treaty demonstrating this dominance within the EU. However, the debilitating cost of unification had led to resource problems.

Size could impact on the EU at four policy stages: design, negotiation, legitimation and implementation. For Germany, size is a factor in policy design, but also the Franco-German relationship and Germany’s wish to avoid unilateralism. However, Germany had now fallen behind as a policy-designer, with the UK as the neo-liberal pioneer. In negotiations, Germany was often in the minority because of poor coordination of policy with multiple ministries. Legitimation was helped by elite agreement but faced problems with the centre-länder relations. In implementation, any bad transposition record adversely affected Germany’s EU standing. Germany still had political and economic weight and also persuasive ideas. It was hard to say what were Germany’s ‘red-lines’ and the country’s credibility and consistency was being affected by shifting traditions internally.

A number of common elements came out in the papers. Size matters – to an extent. In particular it is of importance in two ways in the EU. First, it could be potent when combined with other elements, such as political tradition or distance from Brussels. Secondly, it helped to constitute identity and was perceived to be part of the identity of a number of states. This coincided closely with the perceptual aspects mentioned by Dr Thorhallsson. What became important was less any ‘objective’ measurement of a state, more the factors that were considered important by decision-makers within the country and those who dealt with it. However, the ‘objective’ factors of size become well known and become part of any understanding of a state and its position, and to that extent they are not irrelevant. Finally, other factors, such as strategic position or domestic politics, can trump size. Malta may be mini-state but it is no Andorra or San Marino, to a great extent because of its geo-strategic position. Internal political changes in both Spain and Poland ended their attempts to form a ‘middle powers’ bloc in the negotiation for the Constitutional treaty. Finally, the whole issue of size as seen in institutional and political terms will have to be revisited if and when Turkey joins the EU.

The organizers, Clive Archer and Neill Nugent, both from MMU, will be editing a special edition in 2005 of the Journal of European Integration which will include a number of revised papers from the conference.

Clive Archer (c.archer@mmu.ac.uk)
Neill Nugent(n.nugent@mmu.ac.uk)