Home > Conferences and Events > Calendar of Events > Limerick 2006 > Research Session 6

Exchanging Ideas on Europe 2006
Visions of Europe: Key Problems, New Trajectories
UACES 36th Annual Conference and 11th Research Conference

Research Session 6

UACES reserves the right at all times to make changes to the programme where necessary.

Session 1  |  Session 2  |  Session 3  |  Session 4  |  Session 5  |  Session 6  |  Full Programme

Saturday, 2 September (09:00-10:30)

The panels listed in the table below are followed by the abstracts for each of the papers.

Carter, Caitriona (University of Edinburgh)
Joint paper with Andy Smith
Regulatory Visions: Comparing Two Industries of Fisheries and Wine
The ‘Better Regulation Strategy’ has a specific application in the fisheries and wine sectors. Not only has it fuelled debates on policy instruments’ effectiveness, but also on levels at which decisions are taken – decentralization for fisheries, centralization for wine. From both angles, ‘visions of Europe’ are deployed to improve ‘competitiveness’ and ‘problem solving capacity’.
This paper compares the visions behind these processes as framed by actors within two ‘regionalized’ industries: fisheries (Scotland), wine (Aquitaine). Through the study of ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ regulatory strategies, we identify the role which ideas in general – and representations of ‘territory’, ‘community’ and ‘sector-belonging’ in particular - play in the shaping and taking of regulatory choices. In so doing, we lay emphasis on the multi-actor institutionalized orders within which these decisions are made.
Consequently, the paper seeks to validate a clear theoretical standpoint. Departing from conventional applications of multi-level governance, we develop a specific approach which views changing regulatory processes as premised on a dynamic logic that cannot be reduced to rational choice, cost-benefit calculations or hierarchical imposition. Overall, we argue that the ‘political assignment of authority’ is a process bounded by social representations of contemporary markets, territory in general and ‘visions of Europe’ in particular.

Castro-Conde, Cristina Ares (University of Santiago de Copostela, crisares@usc.es)
The Participation of the Regional Legislative Assemblies in the ‘Early Warning System’: A Broken Toy or a Democratic Plus?
The purpose of this article is to assess the potential role of regional legislative assemblies under the Constitutional Treaty, both in terms of effectiveness and democratic legitimacy. It argues that the operation of the “early warning system” could have a very interesting side-effect in the democratic credentials of the new European politeia in a way that was unintended when it was designed within Working Group I on Subsidiarity at the Convention. This is due to the paradoxical situation that the proper boundaries of the concrete design of the EWS could contribute to narrow the connections between the European Parliament, national parliaments and regional legislative assemblies, making the reality of the European Union much more consistent with the theoretical metaphor proposed by the advocates of multi-level governance. Furthermore, a broad dialogue on subsidiarity as the one that could be opened by the new EWS can be considered as an embryonic tool to involve representative institutions in a process of governance beyond the nation-State with potential effects on fostering public opinion on EU-related issues as well as an emerging European identity. The extension of the principle of subsidiarity to regions in a European multi-level system of governance in which both unity and diversity are considered essential values could be a powerful device to manage the permanent trade-off between centralisation and decentralisation and, indeed, effectiveness and democracy.

de Maillard, Jacques (University of Rouen)
Ambivalent Visions of Regulatory Europe: The Case of Wine in the Bordelais and the Languedoc
This paper analyses the effects of ‘top down’ processes of change in the regulation of the European wine industry. The paper shows how the political impact of European regulation contrasts between two French wine-producing areas - Bordeaux and Languedoc - with emphasis laid on the varying visions  of the ‘EU as a regulatory state’ as constructed by professional leaders in these areas.
In the Languedoc, the perceived de-regulatory content of EU policy sparked violent mobilisations of the profession in the 1970s. Since then, and through investing in processes of negotiation at the European level, some Languedocian professional leaders have become socialised to invest politically in the EU as a level of regulation. As a result, the EU is viewed in more complex and regulatory empowering ways. By contrast, in Bordeaux, although professional leaders initially welcomed the perceived de-regulatory European arena as an alternative to the ‘excessive centralisation’ of French wine policy, changed actor visions of (re-)regulation are now not seen to resonate in EU level discourse.
Deploying the conceptual tool of the EU as a multi-arena (not multi-level) polity, the paper analyses the role of representations in the way actors develop competences to engage in the EU’s decision-making processes.

Dierx , Adriaan (European Commission, adriaan.dierx@cec.eu.int)
Joint paper with Fabienne Ilzkovitz
The Internal Market and the Innovative Performance of the European Economy
The Internal Market project, which was initiated in the mid-1980s with the publication of the White Paper on the Single Market Programme, signalled the end of a period of euro-pessimism associated with the political, economic and monetary crises of the 1970s and early 1980s. It opened up perspectives for restoring confidence, increasing competition and improving the competitiveness of European enterprises. Expected gains from increased trade and cross-border investment combined with economies of scale in production have been realised to a significant extent, even if market integration in the services sector is yet incomplete and barriers continue to hinder cross-border activities. However, these gains have been mostly static in nature, resulting in a one-off increase in living standards. Dynamic gains from the Internal Market have been more difficult to achieve. Such gains had been expected to result from the increased competitive pressures in the Internal Market, which would provide incentives for firms to invest in research and innovation. While this transmission mechanism appears to work for firms close to the technology frontier, it is inactive for a majority of enterprises. This paper reviews the different incentives for firms to engage in innovative activities and explores ways in which a re-defined Internal Market strategy might influence such incentives in order to increase the dynamism of the European economy.

Gerlach, Carina (Loughborough University, c.gerlach@lboro.ac.uk)
The EU and the GATS: Decreasing Returns on Power Investments
This paper focuses on the question of ‘how does the EU govern trade in services within the global political economy?’ and places it within two central conceptual spaces: power in international organizations and multilateral governance of trade through the WTO.
The lack of governance in the “new trade issues” in the GPE, such as international trade in services, creates a window of opportunity for actors to shape the respective regimes. The necessary precondition for an actor to do so is the possession of structural power and the capability to operationalise this power on the multilateral, the interregional and the bilateral level.
The EU has postulated the WTO as the core forum for the pursuit of its multilateral trade policy and for establishing frameworks for trade in services. Hence, the paper examines how far and in what ways the EU has been able to mobilise its structural power in the WTO in order to shape the regime according to its own model and according to its own material and normative interests.
It will be argued that the power shift in the WTO (which became visible in the 1999 Seattle Ministerial) has rendered the WTO into an institution where the EU has increasing difficulties in pursuing its agenda with regard to trade in services. As other levels of governance promise increasing returns on “power investment”, EU policy might shift.

Häge, Frank (Leiden University, fhaege@fsw.leidenuniv.nl)
Bureaucratic Discretion in the Council of the European Union: Decision-Making by Diplomats and National Officials
Much of the research on EU decision-making still treats member states as unitary actors and focuses exclusively on the impact of formal institutional provisions. Most works abstract from the fact that the Council takes legislative decisions on different hierarchical levels and that the majority of these decisions are not taken by ministers but by diplomats and national officials. This paper examines the conditions under which legislative decisions are made by bureaucrats rather than ministers in the Council. Precise theories about the role of bureaucrats in Council negotiations and empirical tests based on a large number of cases are still missing. In both respects, this paper makes a contribution. First, a theoretical model of Council decision-making and bureaucratic discretion is developed. The main implications are that bureaucratic discretion is influenced by the workload of ministers, the interest ministers have in the issue in question, and, indirectly, the number of member states. In the second part, these hypotheses are scrutinized through a statistical analysis with ‘Council decision-making level’ as the dependent variable. This analysis is based on a random sample of legislative proposals transmitted to the Council between January 2000 and December 2004.

Holden, Patrick (University of Plymouth, patrick.holden@plymouth.ac.uk)
In Search of Structural Power: The European Union’s Efforts to Forge a Euro-Mediterranean Space
The concepts of civilian power and normative power are most commonly applied to the EU’s external relations, which has also been described as a form of ‘structural foreign policy’.  However, it is posited here that many of the EU’s external activities can be usefully understood as an effort to develop its structural power. While not excluding normative considerations, it is argued that many policy instruments, from aid and trade agreements to institutional cooperation, are attempting to shape global politics in terms favourable to European commercial and strategic interests. The Mediterranean is a case in point where, although inspired mainly by security concerns, EU policy is geared towards bringing the EU’s neighbours into its orbit and its rule system. This is most obvious in terms of the European Neighbourhood Policy. It is, of course, not at all clear that the EU has the wherewithal to accomplish its goals. In particular, reforming the economic and political institutions is a formidable challenge. Nevertheless, if one postulates the objective of structural power, rather than more normative objectives, the EU’s policies may be more cohesive and effective than meets the eye. This paper tests this hypothesis through a holistic evaluation of the EU’s role in the Mediterranean.

Itçaina, Xabier
Joint paper with Stéphane Cadiou
Sectoral Issues and Environmental Causes: French Basque Fishermen, The Prestige and a Double-edged Perception of Europe
This paper analyzes the mobilization of French Basque fishermen following the wreck of The Prestige off the coast of Spain in 2002. This environmental crisis triggered extensive political action and ‘bottom-up’ mobilization in the French Basque region, with the local territory providing fertile ground for political protest against local, national and EU political actors and institutions.
This paper considers the impact this crisis had on the fisheries sector, which since the 1990s has undergone significant transformation, a trend partly attributed to the rules of the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy. The Prestige crisis thus brought about the mobilization of a profession already undergoing a structural crisis and re-opened debates on regulation. Two competing perceptions of future Europeanization as revealed by this crisis are considered: an industry awareness of the European dimension of environmental issues vs. that of a strong regulatory European framework for the fish industry.
The case-study takes as its focus the representation by the profession of the EU as a source of regulation and the participation of professional actors in the multi-level governance of the sector. In so doing, the paper analyses processes of multi-level governance through the (re)situation of collective action and public policy in a professional milieu.

Lazowski, Adam (University of Westminster, a.lazowski@wmin.ac.uk)
European Economic Area: Disappearing Hybrid or Sustainable Enterprise?
The European Economic Area was tailored in order to establish a common economic space between the 12 Member States of the European Communities and 7 EFTA countries. Although its creation was preceded by numerous drawbacks, including rejection of the Agreement by one of its signatories, the EEA has proved during its first decade to be a well functioning hybrid.
It is argued that in the course of last decade the European Economic Area has successfully played a double role. For some EFTA countries it has served as an anti-chamber on their way to the EU membership. Complex sets of political and economic motives had pushed Sweden, Finland and Austria to the EU in 1995. For the other EFTA EEA countries this framework has proved to be a long term solution without, at the same time, formally excluding their potential future accession to the European Union. Their decision to remain outside the European Union is driven by a combination of political and economic factors. This is especially the case with Norway and Iceland where anti EU-movements are benefiting from public support. In case of the latter not the electorates themselves but rather political elites are considered to be very Euro-sceptic. One should not forget that Norwegians have already twice rejected in nationwide referenda the membership of the European Communities/European Union. At the same time Iceland has never expressed a desire to accede. In economic terms the fisheries policy and the energy resources are the decisive factors. Also, the ‘loss of sovereignty’ argumentation plays a considerable role in the public debate. It is particularly astonishing as with the EU accession both countries will gain access to decision-making machinery while within the EEA framework they are technically obliged to swallow majority of the EC acquis without a real participation in its adoption. The key question is whether the EEA is a sustainable enterprise or the EFTA countries would be more beneficial from Swiss model arrangements based on a series of bilateral treaties. There are definitely numerous arguments supporting both scenarios. Moreover, EEA is slowly emerging as a potential model for EU relations with its close neighbourhood. So the question is whether European Economic Area is a hybrid, which days are counted or rather developing project with some potential ahead.

Lianos, Paraschos (University of Leicester, pl50@le.ac.uk)
ESDP and Strategic Culture; A Study on the Feasibility of a European Strategic Mono-culture
A holistic approach in the study of the emergence of a European strategic culture represents major dilemmas. First, the EU is not a clearly defined actor in terms of security policy-making; it is not a state in the Westphalia sense and so far has pursued military policies usually pursued by international organisations. In addition, the study on the feasibility of a homogenous European strategic culture should aim to address the fact that the EU and the institutional underpinnings of ESDP are based on a clash of intergovernmental and federal pursuits. As such, I will pursue my study based on the hypothesis that the EU is a single state and I will try to explore the different strands of strategic culture that could have been represented for such a state. Following the scenario that the pursuit and implementation of ESDP has been successful, and with the EU acting as a federal state I will employ the Booth-Macmillan framework, created to analyse the strategic culture for single states and amend variables where necessary to apply it to the EU as a case-study. The aim of the paper will not focus on a conclusive analysis of future developments but rather as an insight on the processes and development of a European strategic culture.

Marchi, Ludovica (University of Reading, lmbr4@compuserve.com)
Stepping Towards an FPA Model
This paper draws together a few recent analytical frameworks set up by foreign policy analysts to explore member states' national foreign policy in the EU. The question of how to examine the latter is central to our understanding of the role of states within the political structures in Europe because national foreign policy is not a priori seen as a residue left by the EU foreign policy system or a result of adaptation, but as an analytical level in its own right with its own dynamics. Insights into definitions of foreign policy, variables underpinning foreign policy models, and the contributions of Larsen (2005), White (2001), Tonra (2001) and Manners and Whitman (2000) to this area of study constitute the body of this paper. Seeking to standardise methodological enquiries into EU states' foreign policy in the Union is an important task. However the paper argues that each case of national foreign policy's relations with the EU/CFSP and the EC/EPC is a typical one, and that an FPA framework which questions the ties at the European level of member state's foreign policy to the point that it can explain the distinctiveness and uniqueness of that state's policy is hard to put in place.

Margaras, Vasilis (Loughborough University, v.margaras@lboro.ac.uk)
From Amorphous Networks to Integrated Communities? An Analysis of the
Development of ESDP
The paper provides an account of pre- and post ESDP formation by using the framework of communities and networks. It is argued that a cohesive historic study of the post Cold War period is necessary in order to explain the basic motivation forces behind the emergence of ESDP. However, most historic studies have focused on important historic decisions thus neglecting the continuous interaction between members of various groups such as epistemic communities and policy networks. The paper addresses this problem by providing a framework of ESDP development. The study framework covers the period ranging from 1990 to 2004.  I suggest that policy networks and epistemic communities have been empowered by the creation of ESDP institutions as they have both benefited from the creation of ‘stable spaces of interaction’. However, epistemic communities and policy networks have also been affected by the ‘endogenous’ forces of ESDP and have been internally transformed into more cohesive ‘tightly coupled’ networks.

May, Justin (University of Michigan, jbmay@umich.edu)
Trade and Migration in an Enlarged European Union: A Spatial Analysis
One of the most prominent features in the evolution of the European Union has been its geographical expansion. Since its beginning as a six-country, three-good common market, the European Union has grown into a customs union and common market spanning 25 countries, more than 450 million citizens, and countless goods and services. Using a dynamic computable general equilibrium approach, this paper seeks to quantify the long-run effects of the most recent expansion and likely further expansions on both inter- and intra-national flows of trade and labor.
Underlying the simulations is a spatial model of the European Union that incorporates heterogeneous firms, trade in differentiated products, iceberg trade costs, and many potential locations. Locations are populated by a large number of potential firms and these firms employ labor that varies across countries in its relative skill. The dynamics of the model are such that unprofitable firms are forced to exit in the long run, and workers have the opportunity to migrate in response to gradients in real compensation. A novel feature of the data set used here is that locations are defined in a very precise way, and the simulations take as their starting point the actual distribution of economic activity across the European landmass. Because of the precision with which locations are defined, I am able to draw conclusions about the impact of enlargement at a very disaggregated level. The model is calibrated to match both the macroeconomic results of the 1995 enlargement as well as microeconomic evidence on exporter size and productivity.

Mineshima-Lowe, Dale (dalemineshima@yahoo.com)
Parliamentary Scrutiny of EU Criminal Law in Britain
It is widely acknowledged that involvement of national parliaments in legislative activities of the European Union is of great importance for ensuring democratic legitimacy and compatibility at the member state level.  In practice, involvement by member states has varied dependent on interests and impact, amongst other reasons.  At a general level, members of the British Parliament have acknowledged the necessity for further scrutiny and debate on EU legislation at an earlier stage, but has this been the norm in practice?
In the area of criminal law, member states have seen recent moves made by the European Union towards developing itself within this sphere.  This paper focuses upon the criminal law area, as it has traditionally been considered to be tied to national sovereignty.  It considers Westminster’s performance and role in scrutinising third pillar measures such as those decisions on the European Arrest Warrant and on combating terrorism.  The paper examines the operations and parliamentary procedures through which European Union criminal law measures are incorporated into British law and the extent to which scrutiny of such measures are done at the national level prior to agreement upon them at the JHA Council level.

Moore, Carolyn (University of Birmingham, c.s.moore@bham.ac.uk)
Advertising Space? Polish and Czech Regional Representations in Brussels
Regional representation in Brussels is a burgeoning phenomenon. A regional office in Brussels now the norm for any sub-national unit of an EU member state. Even prior to enlargement, regional actors from candidate countries have been motivated to mobilise in Brussels, establishing a permanent base or representation. Whilst the emergence of regions as functional units of territorial self-governance in Central and Eastern Europe was catalysed largely by the requirements of EU regional policies, this paper provides substantive evidence regarding the engagement of these regions with broader European policy issues.
A model of regional representation from “old” member states only emerged over time, with a funds-seeking role gradually being superseded by a sharp focus on policy issues. Regions from new member states have adopted and deployed this model in its optimum form; through learning from best practice, strategic networking and partnership-building efforts, regions from new member states have emerged as some of the euro-savviest players within the regional office network in Brussels, deploying resources to maximum effect. More than just profile-raising offices for their home regions, these offices engage in and influence broad policy debates, over and beyond those connected to the structural funds.

O’Mahony, Jane (University of Kent, j.a.o'mahony@kent.ac.uk)  
Joint paper with Brigid Laffan
Managing Europe: Critical Junctures and the Increasing Formalisation of the Irish Core Executive
This paper analyses the management of European Union (EU) business by the Irish core executive.  More specifically, it investigates the demands placed by EU membership on the Irish system of public administration and how the system has responded to these demands.  Employing an institutionalist analytical framework, the paper maps the formal and informal organisational and procedural devices or structures used to manage EU affairs in Ireland, as well as dissecting the key relationships that govern this management process and the role of the domestic agents actively involved in the EU’s governance structure, the cadre or boundary managers.  The paper also explores in a dynamic way the development of the capacity for the management of EU affairs in Ireland over time. Using the concepts of path dependency and critical junctures, we illuminate how key system-management decisions became locked-in over time and we isolate the triggers for significant adaptational change, be they domestic or external.  In the empirical analysis, we learn that EU business in Ireland has been managed with strong ministerial autonomy, a coordinating role for the foreign ministry and traditionally weak processes of interdepartmental coordination and communication.  Adaptation, when it occurred, was path-dependent and consisted of gradual incremental adjustment.  This system of flexible adaptation generally served Ireland well as the EU’s policy regime expanded and evolved, but in response to the shock rejection of the Nice Treaty by the electorate in 2001, significant formalisation of the Irish system occurred with the establishment of new processes and rules for managing relations between the core executive and the EU.

Ozer, Yonca (Marmara University, oncaozer@marmara.edu.tr)
Normative Power Europe and the Relations with Turkey
The EU is an unusual kind of actor not only in its own institutional structure, but also in its external relations. It does not primarily rely on military means to influence international relations, and does not seem to follow first and foremost geopolitical interests in its external policy. Instead, it pursues policies leading to the spread of particular norms and the promotion of values with a view to securing a democratic and peaceful environment in which it acts. The EU’s enlargement policy is an external policy field in which the mechanism of conditionality is frequently used to persuade the governments of candidate countries to pursue policies that promote and protect democracy and human rights. The EU’s relations with Turkey as a candidate country constitute the most striking example in this respect. The paper looks at the ‘normative power Europe’ discourse from the perspective of EU-Turkey relations in order to demonstrate whether and to what extent the EU is ‘normative power’. The aim of the paper is to analyse both the impact of the EU conditionality on the ongoing political reform process in Turkey and the role that the EU’s relations with Turkey play in the ‘normative power Europe’ discourse.

Palmer, Rosanne (Cardiff University, palmerr@cardiff.ac.uk)
A Role for Regional Parliaments in EU Policy-Making? A Comparative Perspective
The objective of the proposed paper is to consider the impact of European integration upon ‘regional’ legislatures in EU Member States.  In a number of federal or decentralised Member States, regional parliaments have, or have developed, significant legislative powers.  The exercise of such powers has, inevitably, been affected by the European integration process.  Drawing upon material from Austria, Germany and the UK, this paper aims to explore the implications of European integration for the core functions of regional legislatures and the constraints that these parliaments and assemblies face in seeking to engage with the EU decision-making process and in scrutinising the EU-related activities of their respective executives.  The paper will build upon an analytical framework drawn from the experiences of national parliaments in the EU in the expectation that concerns about parliamentary engagement at state level will also resonate at the regional level.  The concerns faced by national parliaments are potentially multiplied for regional legislatures when their position in the European policy process is considered, given that they are considered “actors of the second order”.

Petrov, Peter (University of Manchester, pietro_bg@yahoo.com)
The Governance of the European Security and Defence Policy: Governance Capability and Policy Effectiveness
This research paper analyses the institutionalisation of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) and particularly the performance of its governance machinery during the phase of policy implementation. ESDP emerged as one of the EU common policies after the Treaty of Maastricht, which put into force the Common Foreign and Security Policy and stipulated the gradual framing of a European Defence Policy. The practical steps towards its institutionalisation were taken only after the Franco-British bilateral summit in St. Malo (1998). Yet the institutional knowledge and ideas, which were put into practice, did not appear in 1998 but came from a wider tradition of European foreign and security policy cooperation. The paper aims at analysing the performance of the ESDP regime of governance and more specifically the governance capability of its institutional arrangements in the context of the first two completed EU-led military operations: ‘Artemis’ in Congo and ‘Concordia’ in Macedonia. In explaining the development of the ESDP regime of governance the research is underpinned theoretically by the analytical toolkit of the historical institutionalist approach. Additionally in assessing the ESDP governance capability the research draws upon and applies methods derived from the public policy and especially on policy implementation and government capability.

Sepos, Angelos (University of Cyprus, asepos@gmail.com)
Differentiated Integration: A Motor or Brake for European Integration?
The paper examines the relationship between Europeanization and Differentiated Integration. In an enlarged Union, forms of differentiated integration are increasingly becoming more popular as they provide the tools for willing and able Member States to integrate further in areas of their choice. Yet, such initiatives have also alarmed a large number of Member States who fear that such actions may not only marginalize them, but also lead up to a transformation or even disintegration of the European Union.
In light of these developments, the paper will address the following questions:
What is the relationship between Europeanization, European integration, political unification and differentiated integration? Has Europeanization contributed to the emergence of differentiated integration in the EU? Is Europeanization in harmony or in contradiction with the notion of differentiated integration? Is differentiated integration a result of a conscious strategy from Member States or of random pressures and events in the integration process? Is differentiated integration a brake in the integration process or a tool for furthering that process? Can differentiated integration be the political solution to the EU’s dilemma between deepening and widening? Which form of differentiated integration can be a motor for integration? What is the impact of differentiated integration on the new/old, small/large Member States in an enlarged Union? Are there any alternatives to differentiated integration, as a means to manage diversity within the Union?

Tavornmas, Ajaree (Loughborough University, a.tavornmas@lboro.ac.uk)
The EU’s Commercial and Business Engagement Strategies towards Asia: A Multi-Level Approach
This paper examines the EU’s commercial relations with Asia (in this case, South East Asia and North East Asia), with a particular focus on the the formation and implementation of the EU’s commercial strategies at three different levels – transregional (Asia-Europe Meeting - ASEM), interregional (EU-Association of Southeast Asian Nations - ASEAN) relations and bilateral (EU-Thailand) relations. It argues that since the mid-1990s the pursuit of business engagement has emerged as part of the broad framework of the EU’s commercial diplomacy towards Asia, and illustrates the ways in which this has been pursued at the three levels.
The paper aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the strategies pursued, instruments used and roles played by the EU in Asia. It concludes that significant variations in the patterns of the EU commercial engagement in Asia can be observed and that the EU has different strategies and instruments, performs different roles, and attempts to engage different commercial stakeholders at these three distinctive but interconnected levels. This raises questions relating to the effective management of such multi-level relationships.

Trouille, Jean-Marc (University of Bradford, j.m.l.trouille@bradford.ac.uk)
Creating Industrial ‘Champions’ in Europe? An Analysis of Franco-German Inter-Firm Linkages
Over the last three years, numerous discussions have taken place between Berlin and Paris about speeding up Franco-German industrial cooperation and intensifying the amalgamation of businesses between the two countries, with a view to creating the ‘Airbuses of tomorrow’, i.e. European champions able to compete on an equal footing with American and Asian giants.
However, this approach is not always compatible with EU competition and industrial policies, which want European champions to constitute themselves without state interference. Moreover, the Sanofi-Aventis affair, the recapitalisation of Alstom without involving Siemens, and the recent Franco-German power struggle within EADS have highlighted an industrial nationalism which favours national champions rather than European ones and is hardly compatible with EU policies.
This paper focuses on the two EU Member states which have retained the largest manufacturing base. After considering the main divergences between Brussels, Paris and Berlin with regard to creating European champions, this paper examines an extensive recent research on all inter-firm linkages established across the Rhine since 1990. It then assesses the impact of state interventions among these linkages and argues that cross-national industrial alliances are more likely to be successful when these respond to a business logic rather than to government-led political strategies.

Tsoukala, Katerina (University of Sussex, a.tsoukala@sussex.ac.uk)
Joint paper with Aris Georgopoulos
European Armament Policy: Difficulties and Alternatives
The relationship between the European Armaments Policy and the credibility of the European Security and Defence Policy is undeniable. It suffices to remember that the establishment of the latter (or at the very least its timing) was linked directly with the European embarrassment during the Kosovo intervention, where the huge capabilities gap between the US and Europe was revealed.
The purpose of this paper is twofold.
Firstly it examines the inherent factors that render the establishment of a European Armaments Policy a challenging exercise. These factors include the occasional divergence (actual or perceived) of security concerns between Member States, the absence of an open European defence procurement market, the differences in defence industrial capacities among Member States (“Big” v “Small”) and the issue of protectionism in its various forms (lack of market access and offsets-juste retour).
Secondly it attempts a preliminary assessment of the recent developments in the area such as the establishment of the intergovernmental European Defence Agency and the adoption of the Code of Conduct for European Defence Procurement which constitutes a soft law instrument. In this respect the paper examines the possibilities for alternative methods of Governance in an area so inextricably linked with security and defence.

Vichitsorasatra, Natee (Loughborough University, n.vichitsorasatra@lboro.ac.uk)
Bilateralism and Multilateralism: A Balancing Act for Material and Ideational ‘Cooperation’ between the EU and East Asia
This paper contends that rise and decline in the EU-East Asia trade cooperation process is identifiable by the manner in which a bilateral or multilateral mode of cooperation arises. Rational choice, social constructivism, and Robert Axelrod’s work on the evolution of cooperation is drawn upon to indicate how the mode of cooperation may depend largely on the partners’ preference for material and ideational values. Both material and ideational factors involved in bilateralism or multilateralism appear to have determined how the partners “cooperate” or “defect”.
A comparative study of the EU’s trade relationship with Japan, Korea, and China is used to illustrate how both material and ideational values influence the bilateral and multilateral modes of cooperation. There is evidence that the relationships contain elements of both material and ideational values as well as policy choice in shifting between bilateralism and multilateralism.
These studies will draw from institutional policy-making choices, trade data, historical highlights, and key European Commission strategic documents to identify the values involved in the relationship and to analyse how this may have affected the bilateralism and multilateralism. The paper finally draws conclusions on how cooperation may have “evolved” in each of the EU-East Asian relationships.

Last modified: Monday, 21 August 2006
idD410601ProgrammeR6  +16Feb2006  ©UACES 2006