E Pluribus Confusio.

• Author: Oudenaren, John Van

Living with the EU's Structural Incoherence.

PRESIDENT BUSH's recent journeys to Europe were bittersweet reminders, if any were needed, of the continued centrality of transatlantic relations for U.S. interests. Even as the new administration grapples with the shift of world economic and political weight to Asia and turns its attention to issues such as trade in the Americas or the problems of Africa, cooperation with Europe remains the cornerstone of U.S. international engagement. Nowhere is the United States enmeshed in a thicker web of institutional and cultural ties than it is in continental Europe and the British isles. Whether one speaks of economic stakes, scientific and technological cooperation, or the bonds of common history and philosophies of government, it is clear that nothing can diminish Atlantic relations to a second order concern. In a practical vein, too, it is difficult to see how the United States can accomplish any of its international goals--even in Asia--in the absence of cooperative relations with Europe.

At the same time, however, reactions to Bush by European leaders, the press and the general public confirm the degree to which Europe, freed of its Cold War dependence on Washington, feels that it can and must assert itself in relations with the United States. "Superpower"--a term rarely used in this context even two years ago--has become commonplace in discussions of the European Union's economic and political (if not military) ambitions vis-a-vis Washington. While political leaders on both sides of the Atlantic affirm the continued importance of NATO, the Europeans clearly attach greater long-term significance to the EU, and they suspect Washington of trying to use the alliance and its enlargement to bolster American influence on the continent and undercut the relative importance of the Union.

A central challenge for the United States in coming years will be to preserve the existing network of transatlantic economic, political, security and institutional ties even as it adjusts to an enlarged and more assertive EU. Among other tasks, this will require managing a complex U.S.-EU economic relationship in which the sheer weight of cooperative links across the Atlantic intersects with differing visions of capitalism and approaches to globalization.

Less well recognized, it will also require U.S. policymakers to deal with the often jarring contrast between the EU's assertive external posture and its persistent internal divisions. Such divisions are apparent in the intensifying debate among European politicians about the "finality" of the integration process, in the Irish electorate's rejection of the Treaty of Nice, and indeed in the violent anti-EU demonstrations that increasingly mar the very summits at which European leaders seek to affirm the continent's unity and resolve toward the rest of the world. Indeed, it is not too much to say that the future of U.S.-EU relations depends more on the vicissitudes of Europe's internal dilemmas than on anything else.

Europe's Internal Dilemmas

IN THE FIFTY years since Jean Monnet began the process leading to today's EU, Europe generally has avoided divisive debate over the finality of the integration project. The operating principle has been to sidestep discussion of ultimate goals and to place trust in process--in building "an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe." For the most part, however, European leaders shared certain key assumptions. Although the 1957 Treaty of Rome specified that all European countries were eligible for membership, the division of Europe set geographic limits to expansion. The same division meant that NATO would remain the preeminent security organization in Western Europe. There was also general agreement about the path that Europe would take toward union. Although Monnet overestimated the readiness of national governments to cede powers to Brussels, there was broad support for his "Community method" in which powers would be transferred gradually to Brussels. With the passing of the Gaullist challenge under Mitt errand, only the recalcitrant British and the obstinate Danes seemed to oppose as a matter of principle the creation of a federal Europe.

Today, all of these assumptions are invalid. Geographic limits to expansion have all but disappeared. Thirteen countries are formal candidates for membership, a number that is certain to grow if Croatia, Serbia and other Balkan states complete their transitions to democracy. Other countries that have been mentioned as potential candidates include Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and even Israel. [1]

Second, the role of NATO has been transformed. While Europeans continue to emphasize NATO's enduring role in collective defense, the Cold War context that made NATO a vital part of European integration is gone. The alliance can be expanded and modernized as it has been in recent years, but it never again can be the institutional embodiment of a benign American presence watching over the building of a civilian Europe.

Finally, there is no longer basic agreement about the road to "closer union." For the last fifteen years, Europe has been engaged in an almost constant process of institutional debate and reform--one that is set to continue as the member states ratify the Treaty of Nice (a process complicated by the vote in Ireland) and prepare for an intergovernmental conference in 2004 that is supposed to establish a delineation of Union, national and regional powers. Federalists such as Commission President Romano Prodi continue to call for strengthening the EU's central institutions and eliminating the national veto. But the member states, not least France, have largely rejected this approach. They are looking to arrangements that deliver the benefits of integration, including greater global influence, while preserving the nation-state and its autonomy.

The reassertion of member-state autonomy in an enlarging Union is likely to mean the persistence of two deep-seated structural factors that characterize the present EU: an extremely uneven political and legal order that complicates decision making; and a systemic weakness in turning agreed Union decisions into concrete policies that are effective in the member-states.

The distinguishing feature of integration as envisioned by Monnet was simplicity. The hallmark of today's EU is complexity. Different decision-making processes are used for trade, monetary affairs, defense, immigration and other policy areas. Differentiation among member states, initially introduced to circumvent British obstructionism, has become a permanent feature of the constitutional order. Twelve member states have adopted the euro, three have not. Twelve EU countries participate in the Schengen immigration arrangements (along with two non-members), three EU members do not. Eleven EU countries are members of NATO, four are not. Constant tinkering with the EU institutional order, such as occurred with the Maastricht, Amsterdam, and Nice treaties, has expanded the scope of EU policy responsibilities without resolving such fundamental questions as the sources of EU law or nature of the relationship between the Union and the citizen.

Moreover, even in those policy areas in which the EU is able to take clear-cut decisions, it has had increasing difficulty in ensuring that those decisions are implemented, consistently and evenly, with respect to the citizens (consumers, businessmen, taxpayers) that European integration purports to serve. EU legislation generally is passed in the form of directives addressed to the member states, which then are required to transpose these directives into national law. If a member fails to transpose a directive, does so improperly, or neglects to enforce EU-mandated national law, the Commission is supposed to begin an enforcement process that can culminate in a case being brought to the Court of Justice and the imposition of fines. In many cases this multi-stage process does not work, as can be seen in reports about lags in the completion of the single market, illegal state aid to industry, and continued segmentation of national markets. The Commission lacks the resources to monitor enforcement of EU law and is in any case often intimidated from doing so by powerful member-state interests.

In some cases, difficulties with implementing EU law arise because member states lack the administrative capacity and bureaucratic traditions needed to enforce the thousands of pages of regulations in the Union's acquis communautaire. (Indeed, traditionally Euroskeptic countries such as Britain and Denmark resist expanding EU involvement in new policy areas not only out of abstract concern for national sovereignty, but also because they know that EU regulations are enforced unevenly across the Union and fear that regulations may in practice apply more stringently to their own firms than to those of competitors.) In other cases, implementation problems are the result of outright defiance of EU authority by national governments and parliaments, usually in deference to domestic political pressures. This has been the case, for example, with nationally-legislated bans on genetically-modified organisms that fragment the EU's single market and with national attempts to block takeovers of domestic firms by investors from other EU countries.

The EU's problems both with decision-making and implementation are almost certain to get worse with enlargement. The Treaty of Nice sets out new procedures for taking decisions in a Union of 27 or more member states, but there is little reason for confidence that these complex reforms will succeed. With regard to implementation, new member states will be granted long transition periods that will exacerbate the complexity of the legal...