Personal Diplomacy in the EU

Political Leadership and Critical Junctures of European Integration

Roland Vogt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317229599
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: European Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

At a time when the economic troubles and bailouts of Greece and other European economies are casting significant doubt on the future viability of the Eurozone and the EU, it is crucial to examine the origins of the political will and leadership that is necessary to move the integration process forward. This book makes a significant conceptual and empirical contribution by elucidating the extent to which the integration process hinges not on institutions and norms, but on the relations among leaders. Vogt conducts a comparative diplomatic history of three critical junctures in the process of European integration: the creation of the Common Market (1955–1957), British accession (1969–1973), and the introduction of the Euro (1989–1993). He illustrates how personal diplomacy, leadership constellations, and the dynamics among leaders enable breakthroughs or inhibit accords. He also reveals how the EU's system of top-level decision-making that privileges institutionalised summitry has operated in the past and suggests – in a separate chapter – why it has come to atrophy and prove more dysfunctional of late.

Part I
Leadership as a conceptual framework

1
Making sense of critical junctures in European integration

After 1945, the case for some form of cooperation among West European states was strengthened by two developments: the Cold War and increasing economic interdependence among the major industrialised economies of the West. With the benefit of hindsight it is easier (albeit not necessarily more accurate) to see European integration as a response to these circumstances. Yet to the decision-makers at the time it remained unclear how European cooperation could be achieved, what institutional shape it would take, and what objectives it should serve. The political, strategic, and economic environment did not provide leaders with clear choices or guidance. Martin Hillenbrand points to the ‘peculiar mixture of idealism and economic hardheadedness’ that characterised the early supporters of European unity, as well as their ‘realistic adaptability in the face of reverses.’¹ Throughout the six-decade quest for ever-closer union, national decision-makers have responded to their environment but also attempted to change it – often times unsuccessfully – according to their preferences. The task for the scholar and analyst is thus to ‘reconstruct the structure of choices and dilemmas actors faced,’² in order to elucidate how the major milestones in European integration came about.

To give an example: throughout the 1960s, the integration process was heavily influenced by the persona of Charles de Gaulle. The French president not only sought to limit the degree of supranationalism in the European Commission, but also twice blocked British membership in the Common Market. He claimed to have done so in France’s national interest, wanting to share neither French sovereignty with a supranational institution nor France’s privileged position with another powerful European state.³ In contrast, his successor Georges Pompidou (who shared de Gaulle’s distrust of supranationalism as well as many of his ideological inclinations) nonetheless proposed to safeguard, enlarge, and strengthen the Common Market. His interventions were indeed instrumental in arranging British membership in the Common Market, as will be seen in Chapter 4. Pompidou not only accepted its institutional make-up, but also came to regard it as an extension of (rather than a threat to) French influence.⁴ It was Pompidou who – together with West German Chancellor Willy Brandt – put British membership in the Common Market on the European political agenda in December 1969.⁵ Pompidou also claimed to act in France’s best interest, yet his actions and strategies were almost diametrically opposed to de Gaulle’s.

The example of de Gaulle and Pompidou underlines the idea that ‘states do not always know what they want.’⁶ Both de Gaulle and Pompidou occupied the highest office of state, had similar access to and command of resources and power, and faced similar strategic, economic, and political conditions; yet they contributed very differently to European integration. How can this difference be understood if it is assumed that the behaviour of leaders derives from exogenous national interests, economic necessities, and the characteristics of an anarchic international system?

By concentrating on the leaders themselves and by illustrating the contexts of their decision-making, a fuller picture can be gained of the complexities of European politics. How did leaders think about Europe? How did they understand their role, interests, and objectives? When did they perceive opportunities for exercising leadership and what kind of pressures were they under? The assumption that leaders’ interests are given, rationally defined, and effectively pursued needs to be challenged.

Beyond structuralism and institutionalism

The extensive and diverse scholarship on the evolution of the EU is characterised by an important dichotomy when it comes to making sense of major changes in the integration process. On the one hand of the debate on European integration are what I would call structural accounts of integration, which are inspired by – certain variations notwithstanding – a deterministic understanding of the international system and the global economy. From this point of view, European integration is by and large a geopolitical project which is driven by states, reflects their core national interests, and advances their projection of power.⁷ Integration is seen to result from ‘responses to impulses from beyond Europe, or “exogenous shocks.”’⁸ This scholarship highlights the effects of external systemic trends on integration, as well as states’ reactions to them. It casts doubt on the notion – often alluded to in the EU’s political rhetoric – that the root of the integration process is an idea or vision of a united Europe. Instead, as John Mearsheimer has continuously argued since the early 1990s, European integration primarily continues to serve and advance core and self-centred state interests.⁹ Its momentum stems neither from idealism nor popular rejection of the nation-state, but from the pursuit of state interests through cooperative means, as Alan Milward has suggested:

[I]ntegration was not the supersession of the nation-state by another form of governance as the nation-state became incapable, but was the creation of the European nation-states themselves for their own purposes, an act of national will.¹⁰

This approach to the study of European integration is clearly manifested in the following paragraph from Andrew Moravcsik’s acclaimed book The Choice for Europe:

European integration resulted from a series of rational choices made by national leaders who consistently pursued economic interests … that evolved slowly in response to structural incentives in the global economy … The primary motivation of those who chose to integrate was not to prevent another Franco-German war, bolster global prestige and power, or balance against the superpowers. Nor – as numerous historians, political scientists, and members of the European movement continue to maintain – does integration represent a victory over nationalistic opposition by proponents of a widely shared, idealistic vision of a united Europe … To be sure, technocratic imperatives, geopolitical concerns, and European idealism each played a role at the margin, but none has consistently been the decisive force behind major decisions … Governments cooperated when induced or constrained to do so by economic self-interest, relative power, and strategically imposed commitments … The dominant motivations for governments … reflected not geopolitical threats or ideals but pressures to coordinate policy responses to rising opportunities for profitable economic exchange.¹¹

While this narrative about the evolution of the EU does not preclude the view that leadership could have mattered in some circumstances, it nonetheless assumes that the necessities of national security and political economy ultimately shape what heads of government do. The behaviour and preferences of state leaders is subservient to ‘trade flows, competitiveness, inflation rates, and other basic data [which] predict what the economic preferences of societal actors – and therefore governments – should be.’¹²

Some observers note that strategic security imperatives, rather than economic factors, set up the framework for economic integration.¹³ Others suggest that integration came about as a response to the strategic security threats posed by the Soviet bloc as well as fear of a revival in German power. From this point of view, ‘economic integration was the means, peace was the end’ of the integration process.¹⁴ European outcomes not only reflect state interests, but also the relative power of Europe’s most influential states. By default, this means that the influence of other actors (supranational entrepreneurs, institutions) is expected to ‘exert little or no causal influence.’¹⁵

Moreover, assumptions about both the nature and the content of leaders’ interests are derived from theory rather than empirical observation and documentary evidence. Broadly speaking, the claim is that leaders and governments seek to protect and advance the national interest. Leadership becomes equivalent to statecraft. From this vantage point, it does not matter whether the national interest is framed in terms of prosperity, security, or power, and little is said about how leaders perceive, judge, frame, and pursue diverging interests.¹⁶

Accounts of European integration, such as Mearsheimer’s, that are informed by neorealism and related theoretical schools regard the interests of European states to be determined by security concerns emanating from the international strategic context. As such, leaders’ objectives derive from the demands of power politics and the relative power resources at their disposal. The proposition is that the integration process reflects ‘high politics’: state interests such as security and geopolitical and strategic gains.¹⁷

Alternative, more liberal-intergovernmentalist, accounts of integration, such as Moravcsik’s, deviate from neorealism in two ways. On the one hand, national preferences are assumed ‘to be domestically generated and not derived from a state’s security concerns’ and, on the other, the bargaining power of a given state is seen to be ‘determined by the relative intensity of preferences and not by military or other material power capabilities.’¹⁸ Liberal-intergovernmentalism holds that it is ‘low politics’ state interests such as trade, commercial advantage, and prosperity that guide European negotiations.¹⁹ A ‘sequential model of preference formation,’²⁰ in which the interests of domestic constituencies are wedded to the demands of intergovernmental bargaining processes, is marshalled to explain the interests and behaviour of governments in EU negotiations.

Yet as Stanley Hoffmann, John Gillingham and others have indicated, both neorealist and liberal-intergovernmentalist explanations need to be questioned for their ‘most obvious’ neglect of ‘the role of leadership’ in the complex web of diplomatic interactions that is so characteristic of the EU.²¹ Thus I maintain that it is necessary to explore leadership and personal diplomacy in more empirical and historical detail.

Institutionalism

On the other hand of the scholar...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• PART I Leadership as a conceptual framework
• PART II Leadership and critical junctures of European integration
• Conclusion
• Glossary and abbreviations
• Bibliography
• Index