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| Theorizing party interaction within EPFs and their effects on the EU policy-making process(*) |
| Erol Kulahci |
| European Integration online Papers (EIoP) Vol. 6
(2002) N° 16; http://eiop.or.at/eiop/texte/2002-016a.htm |
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: 30.9.2002 |
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1
It has been relevant to analyse the European Party Federations (EPFs) both for normative and academic reasons. First, the evolution of EPFs is important for the development of a European wide representative democracy (Beetham and Lord, 1998, p.81). Secondly, it is an under-reaserched area although the literature on EPF has increased this last decade. Indeed, since the 1990s, concern with EPFs is reflected in works by, in particular, Luciano Bardi (1992), David Hanley (1994), Pascal Delwit (1995), Simon Hix (1995), Simon Hix and Christopher Lord (1997), Pascal Delwit and Jean-Michel De Waele (1998), David S. Bell and Christopher Lord (1998), Robert Ladrech (1993, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002), Karl-Magnus Johansson (1999), Mark A. Pollack (2000), Thomas Dietz (2000), Pascal Delwit et al. (2001) and Gerassimos Moschonas (2002).
However, the present paper would like to contribute to the scanty theoretical debate by suggesting a conceptual framework for analysing the EPFs and their impact on the EU policy process in the light of three main reasons – further reasons will be mentioned when reviewing the state of the art.
First, there is a normative reason (Hix, 1995). The European public policy is suffering from a legitimacy deficit. Therefore, there is a normative challenge for EPFs to be part of the answer and the solution to the problem. Indeed, the EU is suffering from a legitimacy deficit. Central to the structuring of this argument is the analytical distinction operated between input and output legitimacy (Scharpf, 1999). In contrast with Scharpf, it is assumed that both input and output legitimacy are relevant dimensions of the EU legitimacy deficit. In that respect, the effect of a policy development on (a certain category of) citizens seems to be one of the most salient aspect of the EU policy-making deficit ( Beetham and Lord, 1998; Crouch, 2000; Falkner, 2000). This is a concern formulated not only by Fritz Scharpf « Regardless of the agreement or disagreement between policy actors, however, the capacity of policy institutions to convey legitimacy needs to be defined in relation to the target population that is supposed to comply with, or suffer the consequences of, the policies thus chosen » (Scharpf, 2001 :4) but also by Alfred Pijpers and Geoffrey Edwards as they claim that « EU’s role has clearly become an ambiguous one – the harbinger of new opportunities or the constraint on traditional policy solutions » in a context characterized by the « few complacent about the prospects of overcoming widespread unemployment and of maintaining the full panoply of the welfare state » (Edwards and Pijpers, 1997, 342).
Secondly, there is a theoretical reason. Indeed, the topic addressed in this paper has not been considered in the theories of European integration while the effects of the EPFs activities on European public policy constitute a challenge to these classical paradigms. The party interaction is not envisaged at all by Helen Wallace in her account of the horizontal pathway literature (Wallace, 2000, 70-80). In addition, when reviewing the 'best' theories to explain EU decision-making (liberal integrovernmentalism, neofunctionalism, new institutionalism and policy network analysis), Elizabeth Bomberg and John Peterson are explicitely sceptic about the role of EPFs quoting in this sense Wolfgang Wessels: “the 'day-to-day role and impact of these federations is …marginal'" (Bomberg and Peterson, 1999, 256).
Thirdly, there is an empirical reason. Indeed, it is salient to investigate the collective effort of the European political families – through the organisation of EPFs – , to affect the EU's policy orientation.
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Therefore, the message of the paper is that a theoretical framework is necessary to analyse such type of activities. The aim is to better describe and explain the EPFs activities and the problematics of their effects on European public policy. Thus, the argument will be developed in four major steps. First, the paper will review the state of the art in order to demonstrate that a 'causal theory' is missing. Secondly, it will make clear the rules guiding the construction of the conceptual framework and consider how the conceptual framework might be empirically tested. Therefore, the paper will progressively present the main analytical elements of the causal theory. Thus, the paper will, thirdly, start by making clear how it approaches the EU. Then, the paper will, fourthly, elaborate on the activities of the EPFs. In this regard, it will assume not only that the main concept encompassing these activities are party interaction, but also that it is necessary to distinguish between the centralised and the decentralised types of party interaction. Therefore, the paper will compare these two types of party interaction before studying each of theme separately. Afterwards, it will, on the one hand, envisage the main descriptive and explanatory hypotheses of the decentralised party interaction. On the other hand, the paper will develop the main set of hypotheses of the centralised type of dynamics.
When considering the academic literature related to the impact of the EPFs on the EU policy process, three main research problems emerge. First, there is the research agenda proper to every author. In this respect, the main problem refers to the lack of consistence in considering the effect of the transnational cooperation. Secondly, there is the issue of investigating relevant hypothesis for this partisan cooperation at the European level. Thirdly, it is believed that the existing information has not been used at its full potential. Therefore, the present paper will develop and further investigate the characteristics of this neglected avenue for research. It will review the literature around four approaches. Then, the paper will make some general comments.
The paper has identified four analytical approaches referring to different academic contributions. First, there is the national party framework, whose proponents are Geoffrey Pridham and Pippa Pridham and Stefano Bartolini. Secondly, the choice was for Michael Newman’s approach, who suggested to contrast the sceptic and transnational positions to analyse EPFs. The third selected framework takes into account the transnational interpretation. This type of analytical venue was proposed by Karl-Magnus Johansson. And finally, there is also to consider the comparative politics approach, whose main advocates are Daniel-Louis Seiler, Simon Hix, Christopher Lord, Robert Ladrech and Andreas Aust.
The national party framework characterises those contributions which focus – almost – exclusively on the member political parties of the EPFs as the main independent variable.
In that respect, in 1981, Geoffrey Pridham and Pippa Pridham have pointed out that the result of transnational partisan cooperation (TPC) depends on the "national party frameworks" (1981, 17). They defined TPC in the EC as: “the term applied to the institutionalised co-ordination and promotion of common policy positions and other forms of European activity by political parties of the same ideological tendency from different member countries within the broad framework of the European Community” (Pridham and Pridham, 1981, 1-2).
Thus, party positions are determined by three factors: the party traditional factor, the political-functional factor and the socio-political factor (Pridham and Pridham, 1981, 17-27).
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First, the party traditional factors relate to the following elements: the attitude of individual member parties; the ideology and the impact of top-down Europeanisation.
Secondly, they identified four types of political-functional factors: the primacy of national policies on European policies; the role of party-in-government and party-in-opposition; the domestic political alliances; and the power structure within the national party.
Last but not least, Pridham and Pridham proposed three kind of socio-political factors: the relation between the political parties and public opinion; the structural changes in the party system and the national feelings of Member States towards other Member States.
Pridham and Pridham gave an extensive overview on most of the possible aspects that might be of interest with regard to the analysis of member party positions. However, they did not clearly explain or established give a priority between their three type of concepts. Moreover, they did not clarify the relation between the various values of the different independent variables. In addition, there is no further reflexion on how this transnational cooperation relates to the EU policy-making process although it has to be said that this has not been the 'direct' intention of Pridham and Pridham.
A second contribution came in line with the previous analysis by developing one particular aspect of Pridham and Pridham’s conceptualisation : the political-functional factor. Therefore, Stefano Bartolini pointed out exclusively the attitudes of the party in governments towards the TPC. Accordingly, within « each Euro-party family, national party delegations with a privileged access to national governments have an option between exercising their influence through the intergovernmental institutions and circuits versus engaging in strengthening the role and cooperation in the supranational Euro-parties and parliament » (Bartolini, 1999 : 34). Thus, one of the most important challenges facing he EPFs and their role in the EU policy process has been qualified by Stefano Bartolini as a horizontal within family cooperation problem. However, Bartolini did not present analytical tools to investigate the cooperation problem within the EPFs nor empirical examples.
Having analysed the first selected approach, the paper moves to Michael Newman who, drawing to a certain extent on the national party framework, proposed another analytical pathway.
In 1996, Michael Newman suggested to oppose the sceptic and the transnational approaches. According to Newman, the sceptics, such as Luciano Bardi and James May, assume that the EPFs’ programs and declarations have only a declaratory value. Opposing this interpretation, the transnationalists, like Robert Ladrech, advocate for the necessity of TPC since the EU becomes more and more significant.
For doing so, he mainly illustrated his analytical contribution by the case of the Party of European Socialists (PES). In this sense, he distinguished facilitating conditions of transnational partisan cooperation from blocking factors. Therefore, he presented three facilitating conditions of co-operation.
First he outlined the ideological similarity between the member parties and a common attitude towards the European integration. Secondly, he recommended to focus on the parties’ common objective. And thirdly, he pointed out the recognition of the reality of power detained by the national member party.
However, he equally presented the two 'constraints' or blocking factors impeding on the development of the PES: the relationship between the EPF and its political group in the European Parliament; and the relationship between member parties and the PES (Newman, 1996).
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The main objection regarding this research proposal relates to the following aspect. It is observed that there is no conceptual tools to investigate the link between the cooperation within the EPFs and the EU policy-making. Moreover, there is no use of internal documents.
Turning to Karl-Magnus Johansson, it is worth noting that his research focussed mainly on the transnational interpretation – one of the main analytical pathway of international relations. Additionally, there are one more aspect that needs to be mentionned. At the transnational level, Johansson focussed not only on political aprties but also on other actors such as trade unions.
In this sense, in 1999, Karl-Magnus Johansson proposed to use the transnational perspective in order to analyse the contribution of transnational coalitions in setting the EU agenda. He focussed on the strategy of transnational-coalition building between different actors and different levels: trade-unions, political parties, EPFs and EU institutions. He applied this frame to the employment title in the Amsterdam treaty. He mainly used public documents, interviews and secondary sources (Johansson, 1999).
However, Johansson did not focus on the party interactions within EPFs. Indeed, the EPFs are not the main independent variable. In addition, there is also no reference to internal documents.
In contrast with the international relations school of thought, the comparative politics approach emerged as the dominant paradigm of the 1990s.
The comparative politics approach proposes to use analytical tools developed mainly at national level for analysing the case of EPFs.
Daniel-Louis Seiler was one of the first pioneer. In his 1984 contribution, he applied Stein Rokkan's paradigm to make sense of the project of Euro-parties. In this context, he considered that there are "possibly" three cleavages: the socio-economic cleavage, the centre-periphery cleavage and the urban-rural cleavage. In addition, he pointed out the scenario of alliances between EPFs. However, Seiler was sceptic regarding the existence of a EU party system for two reasons. First, he argued that Europe was a matter for governments and technocrats while citizens were excluded. Secondly, European elections were absent for a long period from the EU politics (Seiler, 1984, 472-476).
Nevertheless, Seiler did not explain the problematics he addressed on the basis of the EPFs activities. In addition, he did not use internal documents although he referred to public data collected from EPFs.
One had to wait almost ten years to witness the re-emergence of the comparative politics venue, its main advocate being Simon Hix. In contrast with Seiler, Hix seems to be more optimist in using comparative politics approach. He depicted the positions of political parties on two axes: the libertarian-authoritarian axis and the dirigist-laissez-faire axis in order to depict the ideological positions of EPFs. Therefore, he based his research mainly on the EPFs manifestos and the leaders’ declarations.
Moreover, he was of the opinion that the EPFs are constrained by the EU institutional structure and the dominance of the national and territorial interests. Then, he envisaged how the EPFs could contribute to increase the legitimacy of EU governance. Thus, he presented two requirements for the EPFs to increase the legitimacy of the EU governance. First, the EPFs need to present specific feasible socio-economic programs. Secondly, they should establish organisational links with the governmental actors and the electorates (Hix, 1995).
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Hix continued on this path of research proposing another angle of approach. He suggested in 1996, to refer to Pappi for analysing the triangular alliances between the EPFs during the IGC process. He argued that the EPFs were aligned around three issues: issues of democracy and citizenship; corporatist issues and market issues. He even identified coalitions between the EPFs. Nevertheless, he pointed out that there were two obstacles to the development of these alliances: the EU institutional framework and the very importance of national party systems. However, the EPFs might enjoy a certain degree of autonomy due to the institutionalisation of the leaders’ meetings and the embryonic emergence of the European party system (Hix, 1996).
Giving further reflection to the topic, in 1997, the duo between Simon Hix and Christopher Lord developed four points of analysis, which deserve attention. First, they classified the EPFs according to two axes: the left-right axis and the sovereignty- supranational axis.
Secondly, they suggested distinguishing three phases in order to analyse the EPF policy-making: the development phase; the adoption phase and the connection phase to legislative behaviour (1997, 67-74).
Thirdly, they have also applied the concept of democratic party to the EPFs. They pointed out the differences and common points between the democratic party and the EPFs. Thus, they elaborated the condition to 'move' from the Europe des nations to the Europe des partis (1997, 198-220).
Undoubtedly, Hix and Lord merit is to open the avenue for the study of the policy process within the EPFs. However, this was in an embryonic stage, as they did not express explicit descriptive and explanatory hypotheses. In addition, there is too much reliance on public leaders’ declarations while this kind of practice has been abandoned by the EPFs such as the PES since 1995. Moreover, they did not make any reference to the internal documents within the transnational partisan cooperation.
Additionally, the two authors elaborated their research suggesting to explore three ex-ante hypotheses for the EPF to have an influence: the degree of congruence of the member party preferences; the EU context and the values within EPFs (1998, 98-101). However, there is no case study to test the proposed independent variables.
Drawing upon and elaborating Van Waarden’s concept of policy network, Robert Ladrech enriched the comparative politics approach by presenting his concept of party network and its impact on the EU agenda. In his interpretation, the influence of the EPF depends on two factors: external and internal factors. However, the EPFs are limited because of three elements: the EU institutional structure, the focus of their electoral function and the institutional environment. He mainly based his research on the leaders’ declarations and interviews (Ladrech, 1998).
However, Robert Ladrech’s rich contribution is problematic for the following reasons. First, he has not been concrete on key dependent variable such as the 'EU agenda'. Therefore, he did not conceptualise the possible vairation. Secondly, he did not express concretely a set of causal and descriptive hypotheses. Thirdly, he did not consider the activities within the EPFs while the analysis of the EPFs internal activities reveals so much about the complex reality of the EPFs.
Another contribution in this domain of research came from Andreas Aust, who, in 2000, explored the extent of change within the PES from Eurokeynesianism to the Third Way. Implicitly, he pushed the research-agenda towards an inward ideological evolution within the EPFs. In this sense, he made reference to the Hirschman’s distinction in terms of exit, voice and adaptation to identify the political parties’ strategic orientations. Proceeding in his analysis, he mainly used public documents (Aust, 2000).
Nevertheless, he neglected the partisan interaction within the PES. Actually, the party interaction analysis would have revealed nuanced ideological party positions on the basis of internal party documents.
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Responding to this school of thought, Pascal Delwit et al. have used comparative politics to point out its limits in analysing the EPFs within the EU policy-making process. They applied different definitions of political parties, different typologies and the classical functions performed by political parties in the domestic arena, drawing two conclusions. First, the comparative politics approach proves to be interesting and useful for pointing out the differences between national parties and the EPFs. However, secondly, without diminishing the importance of this analytical aspect, they suggest to approach the EPFs as an autonomous field of research (Delwit et al., 2000).
In order to demonstrate that the EPFs impact has been neglected and that there is a need for a new causal theory, the present paper reviewed the selected academic literature in the light of the research agenda, the hypotheses and the related data. The contributions presented and summed up above are varied and based on different assumptions as to investigate if the EPFs have or could have an impact on the EU policy-making process.
Drawing upon this analysis, the following conclusive ideas emerge from this concise state of the art. On the one hand, they suggest to follow one very important track. Indeed, Pridham and Pridham, Seiler, Newman, Hix and Lord, Ladrech and Aust considered very rightly to depict ideological positions. However, the author of this paper will rather refer to the analytical distinction suggested by Fritz Scharpf as it proves to be more precise. He expressed, on the one hand, the divide « regarding the proper role of public policy vis-à-vis market forces" and, on the other hand, the variation of positions " regarding the role of European policy vis-à-vis the nation state » (Scharpf, 1999: 78). In addition, the paper would suggest to take also into consideration the "role" of regional and international policy vis-à-vis the nation state.
On the other hand, there are severe neglection. First, the paper pointed out that the reviewed contribution did not focus on the party interaction within EPFs and its effects on the EU institutional modes. Therefore and secondly, it results that there is an unsatisfactory conceptualisation. Thirdly, the selected authors did not use at full potential their sources. They rightly based their research and analysis on interviews, expert evaluations, EPFs’ manifestos or leaders’ declarations. However, no mention has been made of internal documents proper to the EPFs.
Therefore, these three shortcomings encourage the author of this paper to move beyond this analytical lacuna and to construct a relevant causal theory.
The present paper has decided to face this theoretical challenge by choosing, among the different types of theories, the conceptual framework because, on the one hand, it goes "further than a model in providing interpretations of relationship between variables" and, on the other hand, it achieves a greater depth and breadth in its attempt to explain reality (Stoker, 17-8).
Then, the paper will make explicit the rules guiding the construction of the causal theory. In doing so, the paper will follow the 5 rules of constructing causal theories according to King, Keohane and Verba (1994 : 99-114). First, regarding the rule on building theories that are internally consistent, this paper is vigilant in its determination to avoid internal contradiction.
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The second rule is about selecting dependent variables carefully. This is not to say that the independent variables are not important. It seems even much more important according to King, Keohane and Verba to select the independent variables:
"Selecting observations for inclusion in a study according to the categories of the key causal explanatory variable causes no inference problems. The reason is that our selection procedure does not predetermine the outcome of our study, since we have not restricted the degree of possible variation in the dependent variable" (King et al., 1994, 137; see also Wallace, 2000, 67).
Maximizing concreteness is the third rule. In the paper, there is a systematic effort to be as precise and concrete as possible about the main concepts structuring the different phenomena and the different explanatory proposals. Therefore, clarifying dependent and independent variables is a key task. Indeed and as stated by Helen Wallace
"Too many of the studies of the EU bury their assumptions in the commentary. A core objective of theory is to clarify explanatory concepts, and to separate out the 'dependent variable' to be explained from the 'independent variables' that may be relevant" (Wallace, 2000, 67).
Fourthly, King et al. suggest it is best to state theories in a very encompassing way. This is also expressed by Carl Hempel who precisely suggests that the aim of explanatory theory is to increase the analysis of a given problem (Hempel, 1991, 109-113) . Although the analysis undertaken in this article is mainly based on the scanty contribution of the literature and the author’s previous case studies of the Party of European Socialists, the conceptual framework has been stated to encompass also other EPFs.
Last but not least, one has to construct falsifiable theories. Then, the "question is less wether, in some general sense, a theory is false or not – virtually every interesting social science theory has at least one observable implication that appears wrong – than how much of the world the theory can help us explain" (King, Keohane and Verba, 1994, 101). Our conceptual frameworks is in severe competition with classical theories of European integration (for an overview of these theories, see Rosamond, 2000). Hence, these well established theories are not relevant for the analysis of party interaction within EPFs and its effect on EU policy-making.
Having explicitely expressed the rules guiding the construction of the causal theory, the paper will briefly make clear how this conceptual framework may be empirically tested.
First, each descriptive and explanatory hypothesis is explicitly expressed in order to test the observable implications (Hempel, 1991, 70-77; King et al.).
Secondly, the paper suggests focusing on the « transnational contribution » of the political parties at all different elite levels. It is indicated by its contribution to the debate in terms of produced document and oral presentation. These transnational contributions are crucial sources to analyse variations in the explanatory variables and their effect on the dependent variables. In that respect, it is advised to refer to the documents – which are really difficult to collect – and, then, crosscheck the information with interviews. During the interview, people will generally ask for being anonymous. In addition, it is necessary to refer to secondary sources. Moreover, the use of case studies – and the comparison of case studies whenever possible – is also strongly appropriate.
After having clarified the main rules guiding the construction of our causal theory and how the conceptual framework could be tested, it is now appropriate to present the main analytical elements of the conceptual framework. Thus, the paper will start by expressing clearly how it does approach the EU before analysing the effects of party interactions.
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Drawing upon Rosamond’s distinction between four types of approaching the EU: (1) an international organisation, (2) an instance of regionalism and (3) a sui generis phenomenon and (4) a location of policy-making dynamics (Rosamond, 2000, 14-18), the paper defines the European Union as a location of policy-making dynamics since the EU policy-making is the dependent variable.
In so doing, the paper seeks to locate its investigations in the fourth broad approach of the study of EU/European integration, as identified by Rosamond, which « aims to treat the EU as useful location for the study of policy-making dynamics » (Rosamond, 2000 : 15). Therefore, Rosamond recommends to focus on a number of points:
« From this vantage point, the development of the EU afford an exciting opportunity to consider policy networks and the role of institutions in conditions where (old) national and (new) supranational politics overlap » (Rosamond, 2000 : 15).
It is mainly one of this exciting opportunity's dimensions that this paper aims to analyse, namely, the interpartisan interaction within EPFs and its effects on EU institutional modes. In other words, the contribution of this paper is embedded in the "horizontal pathway analysis" of EU policy-making described by Helen Wallace in the following terms: "(it) consists of studies that emphasize transnational groupings of policy influential and efforts to mobilize opinion" (Wallace, 2000, 79). Therefore, two implications should be made clear. On the one hand, the paper is inspired by Scharpf’s distinction of four types of EU institutional modes: the intergovernmental, the hierarchichal/supranational, the joint-decision mode and the open method of coordination (Scharpf, 2001, 4-9).
On the other hand, the paper recommends also to take into account the impact of the EU institutional modes on the EPFs when analysing the EPFs impact on EU policy-making. For example, the PES Busquin working group on fiscality supported the report of the Commissioner Monti on harmful tax competition(1).
Accordingly, the present paper will focus on the party interaction within the EPFs. In this regard, it will distinguish between the decentralised and the centralised interactions. It is argued that this central distinction could help to better explain the European party federations’ activities and their effect on the EU policy-making. Additionally, four phases of analysis are identified in connection with these two types of interactions : the initiation phase, the elaboration stage, the decision and the implementation phases.
Furthermore, before developing each of these concepts, it is necessary to make some preliminary remarks of a comparative nature.
First, the decentralised interaction usually characterises the internal life of the EPFs, while the centralised policy process is just occasionally animating the relations between the member parties.
The second difference relates to the components. In the decentralised framework the main actors are the leaders and the ministers. In opposition, their representatives are the players in the centralised party interaction. For instance, the PES' working group are characterised by the centralised process. In contrast, the PES' leaders meetings or sectoral ministers meetings (PES-EcoFin) represent the decentralised model.
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The third aspect that needs to be mentioned is the hierarchical relation between the two policy processes: the decentralised structure dominates the centralised policy framework in two respects. On the one hand, the leaders or ministers establish the agenda of the working groups. On the other hand, they detain the power to confer legitimacy to the programmes and reports of the working groups. In other words, the decentralised structure has the first and the last word. For instance, the Busquin report has not been adopted by the PES-EcoFin. In contrast, the Larson and Guterres reports for employment have been accepted by the PES' leaders.
Having pointed out these differences, the present paper strongly recommends to map out the party position and/or the EPFs' positions regarding the role of public policy vis-à-vis market forces and the role of European (but also, international and regional) policies vis-à-vis the nation state. This analysis is strongly suggested in the forthcoming development of decentralised and centralised party interaction.
The decentralised partisan interaction gives a prominent role for the presidency to set up the agenda. However, there is a great autonomy, not to say independence, between the member parties in the elaboration, decisional and implementation phases. In particular, it is this structure which opens the avenue to the "ad hoc" centralised structure (section V.B ). Thus, the paper will present its main set of descriptive and causal hypotheses regarding the decentralised party interaction. They are organised around four phases: initiation, elaboration, decision and implementation.
The starting point of the party interaction is the initiation phase. During this phase, the role of the party which detains the presidency is crucial. Indeed, the 'party-presidency' – not the president of the EPF – determines the agenda. The distribution of the presidency between member parties is determined by the country which holds the EU presidency.
In the framework of this initiation phase, it has to be said that the leaders and/or the ministers generally initiate the process. In this sense, it may be relevant to identify the persons taking the initiative (Descriptive hypotheses 1.1). Within this process, they might choose to debate on two types of issues (Descriptive hypotheses 1.2).
On the one hand, they could discuss 'EU proposals' (Descriptive hypotheses 1.2.1). For example, the leaders of the European Popular Party (EPP) decided to discuss the timetable and the agenda of the 1990-92 IGC. Moreover, each 'party-presidency' of the PES put high on the agenda the employment chapter during the Intergovernmental Conference of 1996-7(2). For instance, on June 1998 during the UK presidency of the EU, Tony Blair put the theme of the Cardiff process of economic liberalisation on the agenda of the PES' leaders meeting.
On the other hand, they could also discuss 'important issues or reports of working groups' (Descriptive hypotheses 1.2.2). For instance, the PES-EcoFin discussed the Busquin report which was against harmful tax competition.
Having exposed the descriptive hypothesis and its examples, it is appropriate to investigate the motivations and the reasoning behind these initiatives (Causal hypotheses 1). First it is advocated that a leader or a minister decides to initiate a project in accordance with the importance and priority he/she attaches to the matter (Causal hypotheses 1.1). For example, one issue of great salience within the PES is the employment policy, while an issue of low importance is the environment(3). One effect of issue-salience could result in the creation of a working group composed of representatives of leaders and ministers. In the case of the PES, it ended up with the creation of four working groups on employment: the Fuchs group (1993), the Larsson group (1994), the Delvaux-Stehres and Goebbels group (1997) and the Guterres group (1999).
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The second explanatory factor is linked with the initiator’s intention to persuade the other members of the relevance of the issue and the necessity to solve it in order to mobilise the collective party family action and, then, to influence the EU policy process (Causal hypotheses 1.2). For instance, one can quote Ewald Nowotny, former SPÖ representative, the co-chair of the PES-EcoFin during the Austrian presidency, second semester of 1998, with regard to the Busquin report:
"One of the explicit goals of the Autrian presidency has been to be active in the fight against tax competition (…) The idea has been to prepare a consensus in this field because it was quite clear that the first step to achieve results, it has to be together and in a consensus with the social-democratic family and only if you reach consensus there, then, you can ask a consensus in general"(4).
Thus, if there is a general strong conviction that the matter deserves further developments, the issue in question moves to the elaboration phase. For example, persuaded by the primacy of the unemployment problems, the European Socialists’ leaders elaborated on this socio-economic subject rather than on environment.
Within the elaboration phase, it is believed that the EPFs constitute an important forum of expression (Descriptive hypotheses 2). Thus, it is argued that the EPFs represent a transnational ground for expressing various interests and policy lines, while establishing as a statutory objective the search for a consensus. Taking an example, in the PES, the president gives the floor to each leader during the elaboration phase. In his/her task, the President is assisted by the secretary general when discussing working group reports, EU proposals and other important issues. There are rarely conclusions of the debates(5).
In general, the EPFs do foster the competition of ideas between the leaders and ministers (Descriptive hypotheses 2.1)(6). For instance, the PES-EcoFin was a forum where social-democrat finance ministers were in competition regarding the role of the state in 1998. In that respect, while Gordon Brown advocated the Third Way, the Austrians Edlinger and Nowotny (SPÖ) insisted on a more interventionist role for the state.
However, there is rarely congruence of ideas (Descriptive hypotheses 2.2)(7). One of the rare example is the willingness of the EPP leaders to push for the calendar and the agenda of the 1990-2 IGC to avoid the British conservative obstacle (Hix, 1995, 545).
Furthermore, it is necessary to explain this general competition of ideas and this rare congruence (Causal hypotheses 2). Thus, it is more than relevant to investigate national party positions (Causal hypotheses 2.1). Leaders or ministers express generally their policy objectives, sometimes the instruments and rarely their motivations. For instance, in the PES-EcoFin, the Gordon Brown team was only in favour of harmonising the private pension systems because the City of London was extremely interested in. In contrast, the SPÖ and the SPD were in favour of the Busquin report because it promoted fiscal harmonisation in order to secure the intervention of the social state(8).
Having analysed the elaboration phase, the paper will proceed by exploring the decision-taking stage.
In analysing this segment of the decentralised party interaction, the paper proposes the following hypothesis. The elaboration phase often results in non-decision and rarely in decisions such as manifesto, policy declaration, adoption of a working group report, ect… (Descriptive hypotheses 3). Therefore, it is important at this stage of research to describe and illustrate our descriptive hypotheses.
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First, there are non-decisions (or the lack of decision) which could be easily detected due to the divergences between member parties (Descriptive hypotheses 3.1). For instance, the European Liberal and Democrat Reform Party (ELDR) did not take a decision regarding the Haider dossier. In that respect, the Danish Liberal Party and the president of the ELDR Uffe Elleman-Jensen was against sanctions while the Belgian Liberal Parties (VLD and PRL) were clearly in favour of sanctions (Kulahci and Van De Walle, 2002)(9).
The second type of outcome is related to the successful decision-making process resulting with the adoption of draft of manifestos, working group’s reports and informal decisions. However, it is pertinent to note that these decisions have different values, which need to be depicted. It is important to illustrate these distinctions in order to have a better grasp of the varying effect of the decentralised party interaction on the EU policy-making. Thus, one can distinguish between three types of decisions depending on the relevant number of member parties needed to reach a consensus within the EPFs (Descriptive hypotheses 3.2).
First, the "unanimous decision" is manifest when all the member parties of a EPF are supporting an initiative (Descriptive hypotheses 3.2.1). It is required to influence the intergovernmental mode. There are two kinds of unanimous decision. On the one hand, it consists in supporting on EU proposal (Descriptive hypotheses 3.2.1.1). One of the most relevant example is the explicit support of the PES' leaders for the employment chapter during the 1996-7 Intergovernmental Conference (IGC)(10). On the other hand, there is the programmatic decision : it is about adopting a working group report (Descriptive hypotheses 3.2.1.2). For instance, the Milan Congress of the PES adopted the Guterres report for a European employment pact.
Secondly, the "institutional decision" is manifest when the member parties in the EPFs are supporting an EU initiative or proposal on the basis of a strong presence and influence over the EU institutional structure (Descriptive hypotheses 3.2.2). Therefore, one can imagine that if a given EPF has a potential qualified majority voting or a potential minority blocking vote, it might try to use it in the Council of Ministers. In order to substantiate this type of decision, one example is borrowed from Simon Hix as regards the proposal of the European Popular Party (EPP) in terms of agenda and timetable for the 1990-1992 IGC (Hix, 1995, 545).
Thirdly, the "ad hoc decision" is required when, at least, two member parties in government of a given EPF are divided around one issue and finish by settling the terms of a framework agreement. Thus, this type of decision could be translated through the adoption of a general framework of agreement, leaving the concrete details for further elaboration (Descriptive hypotheses 3.2.3). For instance, Guterres and Schröder agreed on finding an answer to the issue of financial redistribution between the North and the South. In that respect, it has been settled that the Commissioner of Regional Policy, Monika Wolf-Mathies, will be in charge of finding the actual terms of the compromise(11).
Resulting in a decision, the third phase marks the transition to implement the agreement. Then, the decentralised party interaction faces a new challenge. In other words, would it be a nominal or a genuine decision?
In order to determine the various effects of the EPFs on the EU policy-making, the paper distinguishes, at the implementation level, between three types of outcome (Descriptive hypotheses 4).
First, the EPFs are defined in terms of potential program-makers in the EU intergovernmental mode (Descriptive hypotheses 4.1). The EPFs have the capacity to elaborate a program. However, no EPFs has been able to promote these programs and make such a change in the EU policy-making process. Nevertheless, there have been attempts as the PES adopted the Guterres report (99) which proposed an ambitious employment policy(12).
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Secondly, the EPFs play rarely a role in the EU intergovernmental or joint-decision modes. Nevertheless, the second type of outcome envisages the EPFs as consensus-builder actors to the extent that they contributed to the construction of consensus between member parties on EU proposals helping thus to secure outcomes (Descriptive hypotheses 4.2). Therefore, the paper will elaborate on this hypotheses by paying attention to the implementation of the three type of EPFs decision previously identified : the unanimous decision, the institutional decision and the ad hoc decision.
To begin with, there is the implementation of the unanimous decision (Descriptive hypotheses 4.2.1). One successful example of such an implementationis the support of the PES leaders for the employment chapter in the 1996-7 IGC(13).
Moreover, there is the implementation of an institutional decision (Descriptive hypotheses 4.2.2). In this respect, it is worth quoting in length one example from Simon Hix:
"Prior to the first Rome summit, which was to set the timetable and agenda for the IGCs, the Christian Democrat leaders, six of whom were EC heads of government, sought a united stance primarily to maximize their defence against the opposition of the British government, which had been articulated in the preceding weeks. The use of qualifed majority voting at the Rome subsequently meant that the EPP proposals were accepted almost in their entirety, which left the British prime minister feeling that she had been 'ambushed'. Margaret Tatcher have been unprepared for this show of solidarity by the Christian Democrats because her advisers had underestimated the importance of the party federation meeting" (Hix, 1995, 545).
Finally, there is the implementation of the "ad hoc" decision (Descriptive hypotheses 4.2.3). Having reconciled diverging positions of the member parties (in particular, member parties-in-government) under the auspice of the EPF, the member parties in government will implement the "ad hoc" consensus. For instance, it has been the case regarding the implementation of the "ad hoc decision" between Guterres and Schröder. Therefore, Guterres invited the Commissioner Wolf-Mathies to Lisbon. Within this context, they elaborated a project of compromise using combined criterias of national and regional incomes to redistribute EU financial regional aid(14).
The third type of outcome reveals the EPFs as absent actors. It is indicated by the non-implementation of the decision. For instance, the European Federation of Green Parties illustrates this case.
Bearing in mind these distinctions proposed for measuring the implementation of EPFs’ decisions, it is assumed that the EPFs have potentially been program-makers, rarely « consensus-builders » and usually absent actors. Accordingly, for further elaborating this analysis, it has to be explained why the implementation of the EPFs’ decisions is so problematic. For doing so, it is suggested to explore two independent variables explaining this process (Causal hypotheses 4).
First, it has to be taken into account the divide between the EPF logic versus the national (or even European) logics. This independent variable might have two values. On the one hand, the national logic could prevail impeding on the implementation of the European party federations’ decisions. Therefore, there is this interesting paradox to note. The leaders of the EPFs will sign a program in the decision phase. However, they will not implement it. For instance, it has been the case with the Larsson and the Guterres report(15). This is the most serious obstacle to the implementation of EPFs’ decisions. On the other hand, the EPFs’ logic or the transnational partisan socialisation might prevail on the national logic. For example, there is the promotion of the employment chapter by the PES in the 1996-7 IGC(16).
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The second independent variable is the EPFs’ presence in the EU institutions. This presence takes different values according to the number of representatives in a given EU institutional mode. The more members it has in key policy-making organs of the institutional modes(17) (intergovernmental mode, joint-decision mode and open method of coordination), the more potential power it will have. However, there is an exception to this : the hierarchical/supranational mode. Indeed, it might be more appropriate to influence the intergovernmental mode than the ECB or the ECJ because the monetary policy is treaty based and the ECJ case law has quasi-constitutional value.
In sum, the dialectical relation between the EPF logic and the national logic, on the one hand, and the EPF « presence » within the institutional modes, on the other hand, constitute the main explanatory proposals that should be explored in any analysis of the implementation phase.
After having analysed the decentralised framework, it is now appropriate to pass to the analysis of the centralised process. The latter in contrast with the former assures a prominent role for the presidency, which sets up the agenda and controls the elaboration and the decision phases. Therefore, following the main analytical scheme, the paper will analyse the three selected phases, starting with the initiation stage.
Within this pace, the working group has to discuss a set of problems according to the mandate that it received from the Congress and/or leaders.
However, the president of the working group and his/her assistants have an autonomy to raise and choose between different themes since the mandate proves to be rather flexible (Descriptive hypotheses 1).
Therefore, the paper proposes to consider two explanatory proposals in order to explain the choice for the particular issues (Causal hypotheses 1). On the one hand, there is the importance of the issue – or set of issues (Causal hypotheses 1.1). For instance, in 1997, Philippe Busquin and his collaborator prepared a very detailed questionnaire on "harmfull tax competition" to the attention of the leaders' representatives (Kulahci, 2002). On the other hand, the president might want to persuade the participants in order to influence the EU policy process (Causal hypotheses 1.2.). For instance, Philippe Busquin had such an intention in the working group on fiscality
During the elaboration phase, the member parties discuss the issue in depth. However, the main descriptive assumption to explore is the evolution of the intellectual orientation of the debate on the basis of the different and successive drafts produced (Descriptive hypotheses 2). For instance, the Busquin working group developed successive ideas to fight off 'harmful tax competition.
Moreover, the paper suggests to focus on the choices of the presidential team in order to explain the intellectual evolution during the elaboration phase. Thus, it is argued that this “presidential variable” could have the three following values (Causal Hypotheses 2).
The first value of the presidential variable relates to the President’s capacity to involve the other participants. Therefore, the President disposes of a range of means to make the participants engage actively in the debate (Causal Hypotheses 2.1). Allan Larsson’s example is very illustrative in this context. In the PES working group on employment, he introduced the “homework system”, according to which most of the leaders’ representatives were supposed to make a contribution regarding the problematic of investment linked to employment(18).
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Secondly, the president may have two type of attitudes towards the other party policy positions (Causal Hypotheses 2.2). On the one side, he/she might display a certain degree of openness (Causal Hypotheses 2.2.1). On the other side, however, the President could also resort to an opposite position. He may chose to stick to the terms of the proposed policy line, without taking into account the other members’ opinions (Causal Hypotheses 2.2.2). In order to analyse these two type of attitudes, it is recommended to study the extremely important and various expression of documented party positions. The party delegations describe quite often their positions and they sometimes explain or justify it. This analysis will lead to the evaluation of the president’s behaviour towards the opinion of the leaders’ representatives.
Therefore, in the light of this analysis of party positions, it is possible therefore to depict three types of coalitions. On the one hand, there is the 'presidential coalition', which means that the president has its policy sponsors supporting his/her policy orientation. For instance, Ewald Nowotny (SPÖ) sustained Busquin’s policy orientation(19) and Stefan Collignon (SPD) was in favour of the Guterres report(20). On the other hand, there is also the existence of an 'alternative coalition' to the presidential one. For instance, the British Labour Party and the Irish Labour Party were against the idea to fight harmful tax competition as it was elaborated within the Busquin working group(21). Additionally, the PvdA and the British Labour Party were against an ambitious macro-economic policy in the Guterres working group(22). The third type of coalition supports one or another coalition, but makes some reserves: the 'in-between coalition'. For instance, the Nordic members, in particular the Danish Social-Democrats, were in favour of the Busquin coalition. However, they made some reserves regarding the financing of social security proposed by the presidential coalition(23).
Therefore, the presidential variable could take a third value regarding the attitude of the president towards coalitions (Causal hypotheses 2.3). On the one hand, the president might not take into account the demands of other coalitions (Causal hypotheses 2.3.1). The Busquin coalition was not ready to compromise with the alternative coalition. On the other hand, there might be “trade-offs” between coalitions initiated and realised by the president (Causal hypotheses 2.3.2). For instance, in the PES working group on environmental protection, Svend Auken, the chair and the Danish environment minister, took into consideration the demands of the Southern member parties. Indeed, he balanced the Nordic member parties 'strong' preferences with the expectations of the Spanish PSOE and Italian PDS regarding specific Mediterranean problems(24).
Having presented the different values of the presidential variable, the present paper turns now to the analysis of the decisional phase of the centralised process.
In the centralised party interaction, the decision phase results rarely on a 'non-decision' and often on a program, whose intellectual orientation has to be analysed in order to make sense of the centralised party interaction outcome (Descriptive hypotheses 3). For instance, the Auken report was clearly for the environmental protection although there was a slight attempt to link it with employment.
Within this phase, the presidential variable represents the independent variable. The report will be "easily adopted" by the working group because the president of the working group controls the outcome of the group. In other words, it has the last word (Causal hypotheses 3). Nevertheless, there might be some explicit opposition. For instance, The BLP and the ILP were against the Busquin report(25).
Once the report is “adopted” by the working group, it has to go through the decentralised party interaction (section V.A) !
15
The aim of this essay has been to suggest a conceptual framework in order to investigate the party interaction within EPFs and their effects on EU policy-making. To begin with, three reasons have been pointed out. First, there is a normative challenge for the EPFs to be part of the solution to increase the legitimacy of EU governance. Secondly, the main figures of European integration theories have been rather explicitely or implicitely sceptic in analysing or even considering this "horizontal pathway". Thirdly, it is salient to investigate empirically the collective effort within the EPFs to affect EU policy-making.
In addition, further reasons emerged when reviewing the state of the art. The paper has identified four established literature : the national party framework; the contrast between the sceptic and the transnational positions, the use of transnational approach; and the comparative politics approach. The paper addressed three general types of comments. First, all the contributions did not focus on the problematics that we addressed. Therefore and secondly, there are important gap in terms of conceptualisation. Thirdly, internal documents have not been used at their potential. In turn, this might explain, on the one hand, why this problematics has not been considered and, on the other hand, why there is a poor conceptualisation.
On the basis of these four reasons – normative, theoretical, empirical and state of the art –, the paper, therefore, considered to construct and present a conceptual framework by referring to King et al.'s 5 rules: consistence, carefull selection of variables, concreteness, encompassing and falsifiable theories. Regarding the empirical test, the paper recommended to explore the extent to which the descriptive and explanatory inferences are true or wrong by using and cross-checking data such as EPFs and EU documents (mainly internal documents), elite interviews, press release, newspapers and secondary sources.
Thus, the paper went on by characterising the EU as a location of policy-making dynamics. Two implications derived from this. On the one hand, the paper referred to Fritz Scharpf for his four main distinction of EU policy modes: intergovernmental, supranational/hierarchical, joint-decision and open method of coordination. On the other hand, the paper proposed to focus mainly on the partisan interaction within the EPFs and their effects on the EU institutional modes.
Therefore, it has argued to distinguish two types of interaction : the centralised versus the decentralised interactions. To begin with, the paper compared these two processes. Three differences emerged in terms of occurrence, composition and hierarchy. Regarding the occurrence, the decentralised interaction is usual while the centralised phenomena is occasional. Thus, as far as composition is concerned, leaders/ministers are the main players of the decentralised system while their representatives constitutes the main actors of the centralised frame. Considering the relation between these two types of interaction, the decentralised mode dominates the centralised one. Beside these differences, the present paper strongly recommended to analyse the party position and/or the EPF positions by describing their preferences regarding, on the one hand, the role of public policy vis-à-vis market forces and, on the other hand, the role of European (but also, international and regional) policies vis-à-vis the nation state.
Thus, the paper turned on investigating each of these two types of interaction by making clear the descriptive and explanatory assumptions around four general phases : initiation, elaboration, decision and implementation.
Considering the decentralised party interaction, the paper started by identifiying the policy entrepreneur which holds the agenda in the initiation phase (descriptive hypotheses 1). Therefore, it suggested to consider two explanatory proposals : the importance of the issue (or set of issues) and the fact that the president wants to persuade the participants in order to influence the EU policy process (Causal hypotheses 1).
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Once the issue moves to the elaboration phase, the paper proposed to analyse the general competition of ideas and the rare congruence of ideas (descriptive hypotheses 1). Thus, it claimed to explore the following proposals to explain the dynamics of the interaction between these ideas. First, the positions of member political parties constitute the main explanation (causal hypotheses 2.1). On this basis, coalitions might emerge. Then, trade-off might occur between coalitions (causal hypotheses 2.2.). However, these types of trade-offs are quite rare.
Thus, the strong competition of ideas in the decentralised framework leads often to non-decisions and rarely to decisions. Additionally, it might lead to the unanimous decision, the institutional decision and the ad hoc decisions (Descriptive hypotheses 3).
The implementation phase constitutes the last challenge once the EPFs reached a decision. However, the EPFs have a potential program-maker role in the intergovernmental mode and a rare consensus-builder role in the intergovernmental and joint-decision modes. This implies that they are often absent in these two EU modes and always absent in the supranational/hierarchichal mode, the open method of coordination and the community method (descriptive hypotheses 4.1). Moreover, two explanatory variables are identified. On the one hand, the EPFs presence in the different EU policy modes is a crucial variable (Causal hypotheses 4.1). On the other hand, it is more important to consider the lack of resistance of the EPFs logic to the national and European logics (Causal hypotheses 4.2).
Having summed up the main analytical elements of the decentralised partisan interactions, the paper turns now to the centralised party interaction. Regarding the initiation phase, the paper displays the same descriptive and causal hypotheses than in the decentralised framework although the mandate of the president is circumscribed by the mandate of the leaders/ministers.
In contrast with the decentralised partisan interaction during the elaboration phase, the 'formal' intellectual orientation is generally characterised by the successive evolution and aggregation of ideas (descriptive hypotheses 2). This orientation is explained by the presidential variable which might take the following different values (explanatory hypotheses 2). This independent variable might take the three following values. First, there is the president's praxis to involve the representatives of leaders/ministers (explanatory hypotheses 2.1). Thus, the openness of the president to alternative, complementary positions is the most important value of the presidential variable (explanatory hypotheses 2.2). Given the expression of very substantial party positions, this might lead to the emergence of coalitions. Thirdly, there might be trade-off between three types of coalitions : the presidential, the alternative and the “reserved” coalitions (explanatory hypotheses 2.3).
The elaboration phase leads often to a programmatic decision and rarely to a non-decision. The content of the decision is determined more importantly by the president of the working group (explanatory hypotheses 3). Thus, it is necessary to analytically describe the political orientation of the programmatic decision ( descriptive hypotheses 3). Once, a programmatic decision is adopted in a working group, it has to go through the decentralised partisan interaction.
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(*) A previous version of this paper was presented at the workshop co-organised by the Comparative European Politics Specialist Group of the PSA and the UACES graduate group on the European Parliament and its Parties, University of Wolverhampton, April 2002. Many thanks are due to all those who have commented on it and suggested amendments or improvements, and particularly to the workshop participants, the members of the Centre d’étude de la vie politique-Institut d’études européennes-Université libre de Bruxelles (CEVIPOL-IEE-ULB), Ana M.Dobre, Geoffrey Edwards, Gerassimos Moschonas, Michael Nentwich and, specially, two EIoP anonymous referees.
(1) Interview of the Belgian ex-Parti socialiste (PS) leader Philippe Busquin, Brussels, 21 August 2002.
(2) Written answers to my questions by the Irish Labour Party (ILP) leader Ruairi Quinn, Dublin, 4 July 2002. This information was confirmed by the interview of the Portuguese ex-Prime Minister an ex-Partido Socialista (PS) leader Antonio Guterres, Lisbon, 19 July 2002 and by the interview of Philippe Busquin.
(3) Interview of the ex-president of the PES Willy Claes, Hasselt (Belgium), 4 September 2000.
(4) Interview of the Austrian ex-Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs (SPÖ) representative Ewald Nowotny, Luxembourg, 26 juin 2002.
(5) Interview of Jean-François Vallin and interview of the Spanish ex- Partido Socialista Obrero Espagnol (PSOE) leader Joacquin Almunia, Madrid, 16 September 2002.
(6) Interviews of Antonio Guterres, Philippe Busquin and Joacquin Almunia.
(7) Interviews of Antonio Guterres, Philippe Busquin and Joacquin Almunia.
(8) Interview of the ex-policy adviser of the PES Bernard Tuytens, Brussels, 28 may 2002 confirmed by Ewald Nowotny.
(9) Interview of Willy de Clerk, honorary president of the European Liberal Democrat Reform Party (ELDR), Brussels, 25 April 2002 and Lex Corijn, General Secretary of the ELDR, Brussels, 27 June 2000.
(10) Interview of Ruairi Quinn, Antonio Guterres and Philippe Busquin.
(11) Interview of Antonio Guterres.
(12) Interviews of Antonio Guterres, Philippe Busquin and interview by phone of the German ex-Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) representative Stefan Collignon, Brussels-London, 10 September 2002.
(13) Interview of Ruairi Quinn, Antonio Guterres and Philippe Busquin.
(14) Interview of Antonio Guterres.
(15) Such scepticism have been expressed by Joacquin Almunia.
(16) Interview of Ruairi Quinn, Antonio Guterres and Philippe Busquin.
(17) Fritz Scharpf distinguishes mainly between four types of EU policy modes: the intergovernmental mode, the joint-decision mode, the open method of coordination and the supranational/hierarchichal mode. See Fritz Scharpf, What Have we Learned? Problem-Solving Capacity of the Multilevel European Polity, Max-Planck Institute For The Studies of Societies, Working paper 01/4, July 2001 <http://www.mpi-fg-koeln.mpg.de/pu/workpap/wp01-4/wp01-4.html>.
(18) Interview of Bernard Tuytens, Brussels, 12 June 2002 confirmed by the interviews of Joacquin Almunia and of the Swedish ex-Socialdemokratiska Arbetareparti (SAP) representative Allan Larsson, Brussels, 12 September 2002.
(19) Interview of Ewald Nowotny.
(20) Interview by phone of Stefan Collignon, Brussels-London, 10 September 2002.
(21) Interviews of Bernard Tuytens, Ewald Nowotny, Philippe Busquin and interview of Chancellor Gordon Brown's Chief Economic Advisor Edward Balls, London, 24 July 2002.
(22) Interview of Antonio Guterres.
(23) Interviews of Bernard Tuytens, Ewald Nowotny and Philippe Busquin.
(24) Interview of the Danish ex-Socialdemokratiet (SD) environment minister Svend Auken, Copenhagen, 19 August 2002.
(25) Interview of Bernard Tuytens, Philippe Busquin, Ewald Nowotny and Edward Balls.