EU INSTITUTIONS

LECTURE 1

LECTURE I: INTRODUCTION

Institutionalism is an approach used to study a discipline by analysing the institutions that

rule that discipline. Inside institutionalism, there are several approaches. The first one is the
rational, which focuses on the legal and formal development of the institutions; the second is
the sociological approach, which focuses on the social relations that occur inside and
between institutions, and the third one is historical institutionalism, which takes the point in
the historical conditions that determine the actuation of the institutions.

There are several EU Institutions which have to be understood, the most important are:

- European Council (Consejo Europeo): The European Council is a collegiate body that
defines the overall political direction of the EU, thus acting as a kind of executive power,
but also sharing the legislative power with the European Parliament. Here the members are
not supposed to represent their nationals interests, but the interest of the EU as a whole.

It exercises powers of appointment, such as appointment of its own President, the High
Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the President of the
European Central Bank. It also proposes, to the European Parliament, a candidate for
President of the European Commission.

The European Council wasn’t formally established until 2009, following the ratification of the
Lisbon Treaty. Before that, the first summits of EU heads of state or government were held in
February and July 1961, nevertheless, these summits weren’t formalized until 1974.

It’s members are the heads of state or government of EU countries, the European
Council President and the European Commission President. Its current president is
Charles Michel. It is convened and chaired by its President, elected by the European Council
itself for a once-renewable two-and-a-half-year term. Among other things, the President
represents the EU to the outside world. It usually meets 4 times a year, but the President
can convene additional meetings to address urgent issues. It generally decides issues by
consensus, but by unanimity or qualified majority in some cases. Only the heads of
state/government can vote.

- European Commission (Comisión Europea): The European Commission is the

executive branch of the European Union, responsible for enforcing EU laws and directing
the union's administrative operations. It also possesses legislative initiative and is
considered the most powerful organ of the EU.
It is composed of the commissioners from 27 EU countries. Together, the 27 are the
Commission's political leadership during a 5-year term; they are assigned responsibility for
specific policy areas by the President. The president is nominated by the Council by
qualified majority, subject to approval of the Parliament. The Commissioners have prior
experience in holding national executives office and being members of a party which is in
government in the respective country at the time of appointment, and also are approved by
the Parliament.

The Commission has a bureaucratic apparatus formed by policy departments, known as

Directorates-General, DGs develop, implement and manage determined areas of policy,
law, and funding programs. There are also service departments that deal with horizontal
functions cutting across policy areas such as budget, translation, and legal service. At last,
we have executive agencies that manage programs set up by the Commission.

Although the European Commission fulfills the functions of an executive power, it also plays
an important role in legislation, EU trade policy, the monitoring of member state’s
compliance with EU law and provides political impulses for European integration.

It originated in 1951 as the High Authority in the European Coal and Steel Community, the
commission has undergone numerous changes in power and composition under various
presidents, involving three Communities. In 1967, these three institutions merged into the
Commission of the European Communities. Finally, in 2009, following the ratification of the
Lisbon Treaty it took its current name.

- European Parliament (Parlamento Europeo): The European Parliament is one of three

legislative branches of the EU, for it adopts legislation with the Council of the European
Union, commonly on the proposal of the European Commission.

The main function of the parliament is the legislative function, which works this way: the
Commission presents a proposal to Parliament and the Council which can only
become law if both agree on that text. In its first reading, Parliament may send
amendments to the Council which can either adopt the text with those amendments or send
back a "common position". That position may either be approved by Parliament, or it may
reject the text by absolute majority causing it to fail, or it may adopt further amendments,
also by an absolute majority. If the Council does not approve these, then a "Conciliation
Committee" is formed, composed of the Council members plus an equal number of MEPs
who seek to agree a compromise. Once a position is agreed, it has to be approved by
Parliament, by a simple majority.

Nevertheless, it also has budgetary powers, like approving the annual EU budget;
supervisory powers, for instance the EP has the power to set up a Committee of Inquiry,
call other institutions to answer questions and take them to court if they break EU law or
treaties; and control of the executive, for the president of the European Commission,
which is proposed by the Council, has to be approved by the Parliament, following it, the
members of the Commission are proposed by the President and then, as a body, approved
or rejected by the Parliament. The Parliament also has the power to censure the
Commission if they have a two-thirds majority which will force the resignation of the entire
Commission.

It is the only directly elected institution of the EU, with 705 MEPs and its members are
not grouped by nationality, but by IDEOLOGY. The main political groups in the European
Parliament are the following:

- European People's Party,

- Progressive Alliance of Socialist and Democrats
- Renew Europe
- Greens/European Free Alliance
- Identity and Democracy
- Party of the European Left
- European Conservatives and Reformists.

It began as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community (1952), but it
was not elected directly neither did it have actual legislative powers. Later, in 1958 it
renamed itself the European Parliamentary Assembly and to European Parliament in 1962. It
was directly elected in 1979 for the first time and since then it has been gaining more power.

- Council of the European Union (Consejo de la Unión Europea): It is also referred to

simply as the Council or Council of Ministers. It is one of three legislative bodies and
together with the European Parliament serves to amend and approve the proposals of the
European Commission, which holds legislative initiative. Jointly with the Parliament, the
Council holds the budgetary power of the Union and has greater control than the
Parliament over the more intergovernmental areas of the EU, such as foreign policy and
macroeconomic co-ordination.

The Council meets in different configurations of 27 national ministers, one per state. The
precise membership of these configurations varies according to the TOPIC under
consideration; for example, when discussing agricultural policy, the Council is formed by the
27 national agricultural ministers. Its decisions are made by qualified majority in most areas,
unanimity in others, or just simple majority for procedural issues.

The Council first appeared in 1952 as the "Special Council of Ministers", set up to
counterbalance the High Authority (the supranational executive, now the Commission). In
1957, the Treaties of Rome established two new communities, and with them two new
Councils: the Council of the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC) and the Council of
the European Economic Community (EEC). In 1967, the ECSC's Special Council of
Ministers and the Council of the EAEC merged into the Council of the European
Communities, which would act as a single Council for all three institutions and in 1993, the
Council adopted the name 'Council of the European Union'.
- Court of Justice of the European Union: Its role is ensuring EU law is applied in every
EU country and settles legal disputes between national governments and EU
institutions. It was established in 1952, located in Luxembourg. It has 1 judge from each
EU country, plus 11 advocates general. It also has a General Court formed by 2 judges
from each EU country.

The CJEU gives rulings on cases brought before it. The most common types of case are:

➔ Interpreting the law: if a national court is in doubt about the interpretation or

validity of an EU law, it can ask the Court for clarification.
➔ Enforcing the law
➔ Annulling EU legal acts (actions for annulment)
➔ Sanctioning EU institutions (actions for damages)

- European Central Bank: This institution makes the monetary policy for the EU,
administers the foreign exchange reserve of EU member states, engages in foreign
exchange operations, and defines the intermediate monetary objectives of the EU.
Most importantly, the ECB has the exclusive right to authorize the issuance of euro
banknotes.

The ECB was established by the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1999 with the purpose of
guaranteeing and maintaining price stability and in 2009, the Treaty of Lisbon became
effective and the bank gained the official status of an EU Institution.

- Court of Auditors: The ECA has no jurisdictional functions, for it is rather a professional
investigatory audit agency whose primary role of the ECA is to externally check if the EU
budget has been implemented correctly and that EU funds have been spent legally and
with sound management.

The ECA was created by the 1975 Budgetary Treaty, but it did not have a defined legal
status until the Treaty of Maastricht, when it was made the fifth institution.

LECTURE 2. EUROPEAN COUNCIL AND COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

EUROPEAN COUNCIL (EC)

COUNCIL OF EUROPEAN UNION (CEU)

As we have seen before, the European Council and the Council of the European Union, are
two of the most important institutions of the European Union. Both the Council of the
European Union and the European Council are the only EU institutions that are explicitly
intergovernmental, that is, forums whose attendees express and represent the position
of their member state's executive.

The members of the Commission don’t represent national interests (in my country / in the
country I know the best).
In contrast, the national interest in European Council is essential, it is their legal duty since
they got the mandate from their nation (his / her position is planned previously at their
country).

From the very beginning, EU was a technocratic organization; there were two places:
- FAC or GAERC (meetings of foreign ministers)
- Intergovernmental Conference (IGC): occasional meetings of the top politicians of EU
States. MIDDELAAR libro

The last big change happened with the Lisbon Treaty that made the European Council a
formal institution, with formal rules that before didn’t exist. If the rules were too constrained
for politicians they have a way out: IEC.
Apart from that, there is an “Informal European Council”, which has the same composition
and functions that the formal one, but its rules are much lighter in order to allow the reach of
accords. In fact, it was the Informal European Council the one in charge to negotiate the
Brexit process (with the absence of the UK representatives).
Brexit art. 50 EC. Meetings without Britain.
Bratislava Summit
IGC = intergovernmental conferences

EUROPEAN COUNCIL. WOLFANG WELLSSELF BOOK

The European Council is composed of the Heads of State of Heads and Government (1M
/ Presi) of every member state. The decision is up to the State, it depends on who is the
stronger / have more political power (not monarchs). F.E In France the President goes
there, but in the CR the Prime Minister is the one who goes.
Ej. The only constitution of EU that express it is the Finland one.

In Czech Republic the Prime Minister goes. But in the Constitution there is strong potential
for conflict, if the President says that he wants to go there he would have the arguments to
do it relying on the Constitution (no le gustaría a este hombre).

The President of the European Commission and the permanent president of the
European Council are also attending. Thus, the meetings of the European Council are
relatively closed in comparison with other institutions’ meetings; the European Council
meetings are small meetings (close doors, no cameras…). The Prime Minister can have one
advisor which usually is one of his / her Ministers, someone who knows the agenda.

In Treatys there are strategy, political leadership. There are some issues that are too difficult
and this strategics things are expressed.
The most typical outcome of this are the CONCLUSIONS of the EC. In Czech Republic,
Copenhagen Criteria …
The European Council can produce legal decisions in specific situations enumerated in the
Treaty: about the seats of the European Union, nominations, appointing the ..

Procedures with Bulgaria and Hungary. The European Council can put SANCTIONS if there
are serious violations of the European values.

What EC can not do is expressed in the Treaty. They can instruct but directly they cannot do
laws.

Big changes in the Treaty by intergubernamental conference.

Therefore, the European Council holds important functions such as:

- Political leadership and the setting of a strategy of the union.
- The second function is CRISIS MANAGER. Every crisis is an opportunity to enforce
European integration, but more integration is not a solution for everything. Its
functions is not to solve the crisis but to COORDINATE the rest of institutions. F.e:
covid - 19, Afghanistan crisis.
- COMMUNICATOR between member states. The number of journalists is quite
impressive, if it creates any kind of pressure, something has to be made. Someone
has said that there will have to be more meetings to dedramatize them or eliminate
expectations.

The outcomes of the work of the European Council are:

- The most typical outcome of this work are the conclusions, which are documents of
political nature that marks the tendency of action of the EU, nevertheless they’ve no judicial
value so the EU is not obliged to enforce them, the only thing it’s obliged to enforce are the
treaties. One example of these conclusions are the Copenhagen Criteria, which are the
criteria for joining the EU, such as democracy, free market… but they’re not in the treaties.

- It can also dictate legal binding acts, like appointing the president of the European
Commission and the chairman of the European Council, however, they only can dictate them
in a narrow range of situations.

- Another possible outcome are sanctions adopted against member states by unanimity
(except for the country that is being sanctioned).

- The final outcome of the European council are the changes in treaties.

As we have seen, one thing they cannot do is to dictate legislative norms.

COUNCIL OF THE EU

Below the European Council, there is another institution called Council of the EU, Council of
Ministers or just Council. The Council of the EU has a more continuous outcome (more
work, more days…). Every week usually 3 meetings.
It is formed by ministers from every single EU country representing their national
interests, plus the Presiding member and someone from the Commission (normally the
responsible for the particular agenda). There is no unique and permanent minister
representing each country, for the Council is a sectorial body, which means that the
minister represents each country. The Presidency of the Council is not a single post, but is
held by a member state's government. Every six months the presidency rotates among the
states, in an order predefined by the Council's members, allowing each state to preside over
the body.
You have records, meetings, cameras going on so we can watch it online.

There are different sectoral meetings. We have 10 council formations. Different ministers
can go on at different times depending on the agenda.
They can be there but they can’t vote. On the other hand, you can ask another Minister to
vote for you.

COREPER. Formed by the ambassador of the UE States to the EU. They meet before
every meeting of the Council of Ministers and they go through the agenda and negotiate.
It may also take some procedural decisions.
If the Minister can’t get conclussion they sent there because they don’t have time. 90% of
the agenda was agreed here, so ambassadors have the most senior people and they are
100% dedicated to it.
There are different COREPER with different agenda (COREPER I, COREPER II…).

FAC (Foreign Affairs). The most senior council and has a narrow cooperation with EC.
They have special format, chaired by the High Representative, rather than the Presidency; it
manages the external, security, trade and development cooperation.

GAC (General Affairs). Institutional things (garbage council). Foreign Minister and
Secretary of European Affairs. General affairs coordinates the work of the Council,
prepares for European Council meetings and deals with issues crossing various council
formations.

ECOFIN (Economic and Financial Affairs). About money, emerge and/or gained power
during the crisis. Can adopt legislation. Composed of economics and finance ministers of the
member states. It includes budgetary and eurozone matters via an informal group composed
only of eurozone member ministers (EUROGROUP).

-AGRIFISH (Agriculture and Fisheries): Composed of the agriculture and fisheries

ministers of the member states. It considers matters concerning the Common Agricultural
Policy, the Common Fisheries Policy, forestry, organic farming, food and feed safety…

- JHA (Justice and Home Affairs): This configuration brings together Justice ministers and
Interior Ministers of the Member States. Includes civil protection.
- EPSCO (Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs): Composed of
employment, social protection, consumer protection, health and equal opportunities
ministers.

- COMPET (Competitiveness): Created in 2002 through the merging of three previous

configurations (Internal Market, Industry and Research). Depending on the items on the
agenda, this formation is composed of ministers responsible for areas such as European
affairs, industry, tourism and scientific research. With the entry into force of the Lisbon
Treaty, the EU acquired competence in space matters and this has been attributed to the
Competitiveness Council.

- TTE (Transport, Telecommunications and Energy): Created in June 2002, through the
merging of three policies under one configuration, and with a composition varying according
to the specific items on its agenda.

- ENV (Environment): Composed of environment ministers, who meet about four times a
year.

- EYC (Education, Youth, Culture and Sport): Composed of education, culture, youth,
communications and sport ministers, who meet around three or four times a year. It also
treats audiovisual issues.

EUROGROUP. Didn’t understand the difference.

CORPEDITH. Competitiveness and industry.

SECRETARIAT. Helps. It is a group of juridical assessors to each level of the Council. There
is a Secretary General on it, very influential.

LECTURE 3. EUROPEAN COMMISSION

European Commission: New Political Leadership or Business as usual?

- Two commissions: college of commissioners vs. EU civil servants

- All commissioners are equal but some are more equal than others ? Internal structure
of the college under J.C.Juncker and U.v.d.Leyen

- Commission as quardian of the treaties...and beyond

- Commission as gate-keeper of the EU legislation

- Commission as diplomat of the EU. Even after EEAS?

- Commission and Visegrad states

 1. Two commissions: college of commissioners vs. EU civil servants

There are actually two commissions.

The commission has 27 commissioners. But we have 20.000 plus members actually. Full
time people/ civil servants not receiving instructions from a member state.

We have a Secretariat of the commission but it is from the whole apparatus.

The 27 members are electible by a political process which is repeated every 5 years with
clear involvement of the Council and EP, deciding who is going to seat there. It consists of
the following: “The President of the Commission is first proposed by the European Council,
following a Qualified Majority Vote and taking into account the latest Parliamentary elections;
that candidate then has to be approved by the European Parliament. If the European
Parliament fails to elect the candidate, the European Council shall propose another within
one month.

The 20.000 shouldn’t be based on politics but by merits based competition (EPSO). Every
5 years but is for unlimited years (you tend to be there for long time).

CR adopted a new strategy for promoting the careers of czech people in EU institutions

Following the selection of the President and the appointment of the High Representative by
the European Council, each Commissioner is nominated by their member state (except for
those states who provided the President and High Representative) in consultation with the
Commission President. The President's proposed College of Commissioners is then subject
to hearings at the European Parliament which will vote on them as a whole. If the European
Parliament submits a negative opinion of a candidate, the President must either reshuffle
them or request a new candidate from the member state to avoid the College's outright
rejection by the European Parliament. Once the College is approved by parliament, it is
formally appointed following a QMV vote by the European Council.
.
The 27 member body technically decides everything. Officially, there are EP elections and in
6 months it is used for negotiating the new commission.
Technically, the European Council by qualified majority nominates the CHAIRMAN of the
Commission and it should take in consideration the results of the EP election.
Then, the European Parliament votes the new CHAIRMAN of the European Commission
and together with the European Council agrees with the others based on nominations of
individual states.
It’s a ping pong between the ECouncil and the Parliament with the country states throwing
balls with the state.
It’s a politized process. Countries have no rules in nominating. Obviously, they have to follow
some rules (non euro sceptic persons…).The countries tend to nominate someone politically
close to them (Foreign Ministers).
In CR, for instance the first one was a negotiator for the entry into the EU. Then, a minister
for Social Affairs. Every single one of them has a POLITICAL BACKGROUND. So, we have
a general mix of people with different ideologies (liberals, socio democrats…) and those
people have to cooperate.

Following the College's appointment, the President appoints a number of Vice-Presidents

(the High Representative is mandated to be one of them) from among the commissioners.
For the most part, the position grants little extra power to Vice-Presidents, except the first
Vice-President who stands in for the President when he or she is away”.

For this reason there is a duality inside of the Commission between the political and the
technical proposal that it has to make.

Technically, the European Council by qualified majority nominates the President of the
Commission and it should take in consideration the results of the EP election. Then, the
European Parliament votes for the new President of the European Commission and together
with the European Council agrees with the others based on nominations of individual states.
It’s a ping pong between the European Council and the European Parliament with the states.
It’s also a politicized process where countries have no rules in nominating, but obviously,
they have to follow some co-written rules, such as not sending non euro sceptic persons, or
the tendency to nominate someone close politicians, usually acting or former foreign
ministers.
In CR, for instance the first one was a negotiator for the entry into the EU. Then, a minister
for Social Affairs. Every single one of them has a political background similar to that of the
government that sent them. So, we have a general mix of people with different ideologies
(liberals, socio democrats…) and those people have to cooperate inside of the same College
of Commissioners.

➔ Internal structure of the Commission.

For a long time, it has been a collegial body. Each commissioner had his own vote,
decisions were made by simple majority and you could repeal a commissioner if he has a
mental or physical capacity to commit duties.

1995 - 1999. Jacques Santer was the chairman. He has no formal power to kick other
commissioners out, so when he disliked a member but she didn’t want to leave. So it started
a mocion of the whole Commission because simply of one member.
Now, we have more power to get rid of someone. The only person kicked out was because
he was irresponsible with public health… It is still difficult, they tend to be there the whole 5
years.

The more interesting thing (he likes it) is that they have portfolios and Juncker said that he
would have 6 VICE PRESIDENTS and each of them would have some broad topic to deal
with (Global Europe, Competitive Europe…) and normal commissioners they should ask
or inform vice presidents. Is like a three level system that Juncker has ‘’invented’’.

Another important thing Juncker made was giving agenda / portfolio Juncker appointed vice
presidents of small countries.
Ursula von der Leyen created two categories of vice presidents with their own portfolios. The
ordinary vice presidents sometimes have no agenda on their own ??

In 2007 the Commission got bigger because of the inclusion of Bulgaria and Armenia.
Due to this discretion of the President of the Commission, vice-presidents and
commissioners do no have the same power and are not equal in a practical sense.

Any document that gets out of the Commission has to have the approval of the legal
services and the DG.

In the Commission there is a Secretariat formed by members of the European Civil

Service. This Secretariat is a service department of the European Commission that supports
the whole of the Commission. The head of the Secretariat is the Secretary-General of the
European Commission, so it is a very influential figure. The SG, under the remit of the
President, has a high degree of importance in the Commission, among its functions, we
have:
- It organises meetings, controls the agenda and is responsible for the minutes.
- Any document that gets out of the Commission has to have the approval of the legal
services and the DG.
- Attends the requirements of the overall College and Services, and helps the President and
Vicepresidents particularly.
- Supervises the coherence of the commission’s policies to the priorities fixed by the
President of the Commission.
- Coordinates transversal policies.
- Coordinates the College of Commissioners with the diplomatic delegations.

Commissioners cabinet. Each commissioner has its own cabinet (political guidance) but
they can’t choose their cabinet (Administration of 20.000), and there must be six members,
two must be women, no more than three can be of the same nationality as the
Commissioner and it must also reflect the Union's regional diversity. Nevertheless, the
Commissioner has 10 - 20 people that can pick, sometimes from the home country of
promotion from the Administration (20.000) and they work as a shadow cabinet.

The Secretary General is very influential.

The Commission didn’t consider politicians but super high profile experts trying to find
neutral or technocratic solutions. But now, it is over, they’re politicians of a wide spectrum.

HE LOVES BREXIT.

LECTURE 3. FUNCTIONS OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION

1. Commission as the guardian of the EU Treaties

Last week we were talking about internal structure (ways of Pressident tries to manage
internal work, strategies were used by person slide…). We were also talking about the
tension between perception and self understanding of the commision as a political body and
a neutral body.

Today, we will talk briefly about the two different functions of the Commission.
The two major roles of EC are being the guardian of the treaties and gatekeeper.
Guardian of the treaties is the most famous label the Commission has a task to control as a
neutral arbiter if the member states are respecting. This function is included in the EU
Treaties, being this its most known function. According to the article 258 TFUE: “If the
Commission considers that a Member State has failed to fulfil an obligation under the
Treaties, it shall deliver a reasoned opinion on the matter after giving the State concerned
the opportunity to submit its observations.
If the State concerned does not comply with the opinion within the period laid down by the
Commission, the latter may bring the matter before the Court of Justice of the European
Union.”
The most visible example is the power of the Commission to bring states for ‘’action for
violation of the Treaty’’ at the International Court.

1. WHAT IS COOPER VIOLATE (tiene un libro sobre esto)

Any violation of binding European law. The exceptions are rules of common foreign
security policy, in these areas any state violating the Commission doesn’t have this
enforcement, the controlling role is left to the Council and general political pressure in the
EU.
For anything else (transport, rule of law, environment…) is covered by this controlling power
of the European Commission.
As well, it covers acts and passivity of states.
In some cases, activities of private parties if states are ignoring its duties.
At the same time, the enforcement of European Commission is always addressed to a
member states as such (not individuals), because they are responsible of enforcing EU law
among its citizens and organizations.

At the same time Commission has no obligation to use these enforcement powers, there is
no duty to enforce every single violation so, the Commission has political discretion to go
into some disputes or to avoid them, because of the political costs or because it thinks there
are other ways to solve the problem. They don’t even have to prove before anyone when
using these powers.
Again, this political discretion is compensated by the fact there are no minimum rules
regarding this enforcement actions and there is no need to prove a damage.
For instance, CR were threatened by czech rules for commercial marim czechs (no me he
enterado bien). They changed the rules.

Procedure: before the Gutersport case there was a long administrative procedure and
dialogue between the European Commission and the State. But, when a vast majority of
disputes are settled during the administrative face and only few cases go to the European
Court of Justice.
Some cases have a strong impact and huge political impact (against Poland, against
Hungary...).
Art. 7 procedures for continuous and serious violations of EU values, where the Commission
can be one of the initiators of the procedures but the Commission is not deciding, but the
European Council.
The European Commission can also bring states in front of the Court of Justice in case they
violate the Treaties or any binding European law, except the rules of common foreign
security policy (here the power lays in the European Council). The Commission can also
trigger the article 7 TUE procedure, when a state violates several times and in a serious
way. This procedure goes this way:
- Art 7.1: The mechanism begins with a proposal to find a "Clear Risk of Serious Breach"
of EU values either by the Commission, the Parliament or one-third of member states.
This is then approved by a two-thirds majority in Parliament. The accused country is then
called to answer to the Council, which may then issue recommendations and vote by
four-fifths to identify a breach.
- Art. 7.2: In the event of "serious and persistent breach", the Commission or one-third of
countries, approved by a two-thirds majority in Parliament, calls the country to answer to
the European Council again. The European Council must then decide unanimously to
proceed to art 7.3
- Art 7.3: Once the European Council has unanimously decided that the breach is still
occurring, the Council then votes by qualified majority to suspend rights of the accused
country, including voting rights within the Council, until all duties are fulfilled.
Finally, the Commission can also suspend or limit the transfer of funds to a member state in
case they spend it incorrectly or when the standards of rule of law are not respected.

Power of the Commission to stop or limit transfers going to EU Countries based on violations
of rules. Since the new financial framework, there is another possibility to cut or limit when
the standards of rule of law are not respected in the receiving country. Ej. Poland.
Again, Commission can decide but it needs a review by the Court of Justice.

2. Commission as a gatekeeper and diplomat

This is the second major role of EC of european legislative process (‘’peacemaker’’). In the
centre of this power there is the Commission monopoly to propose EU legal acts
(regulations, directives, decisions). Is important that the decision making is done by the
Council or Council together with the European Parliament (more frequently).
Different rules apply for decision making for common foreign security policy but, back to the
standard, the European Commission has again full discretion to decide which new EU legal
act will be proposed, meanwhile other institutions gain power when the initiative is being
debated, so the have to wait for the Commission to open a topic so that they can also decide
because they cannot force the Commission to propose anything.
Other institutions tried to get some powers over this initiative but those attempts have not yet
transformed into real power to force European Comissions.
The only thing the other institutions can do is the requirement of addressing certain issues
made by the European Parliament, the Council or the European Council, but this is not
binding for the Commission. There is also the possibility of a citizens legislative initiative
triggered by at least a million of EU citizens, to which the Commission can propose that
legislation or not.
For instance, in the Lisbon Treaty there is a rule that the European Parliament can propose
to the EC to initiate some legal acts, but still up to the EC to decide. It has to explain in case
if it didn’t do it.

Council usually asks the Commission to do something, but again is up to the Commission
whether to respect or not this.

European citizens initiative (at least 1 million) can ask EC to start legislation in some
direction. Here again, the Commission must act by explaining what is going to do but the
final decision is up to the Commission.

Two limitations for this freedom of the EC:

- this monopoly of EC to propose new legal acts applies to EU legal acts / secondary
laws (directives, regulation, decisions) but not EU primary law (changes to founding
Treaties). Then, it is involved in decision making but doesn’t control which proposals
will be negotiated by intra governmental Conference or later by European Council
when adopting those changes.
- the fact that EC itself is more and more keen on legislative planning, advancing what
kind of legislation it is going to be proposed in specific years or semesters, somehow
sending information or warning to States.
- not only ECommission has the power to initiate EU legal acts, but also has power to
take the proposal back before the whole legislative process is complete, which
means that it has quite a big control over the matters of the European Parliament
and Council to substantially change the proposals and add some ideas and agenda.

3. MINOR ROLES

Those two roles (guardian and gatekeeper) are major descriptions. However, EC has less
important tasks.
Firstly, we have the diplomatic role. The Commission, specially in the Lisbon Treaty area,
was a very visible actor in the external relations of the EU. The Commission played a crucial
role in trade policy, environmental policy, development, etc.
After Lisbon Treaty (2010), the role of the EC as a diplomat has decreased because it was
created a substantial competitor in the form of European External Action Service, which
not only took some competences from the EC but also personal and the delegations of the
EC were transformed. So, the Commission is a bit looser but still visible in foreign policy.
However, not all the agenda was moved away. The Commission still has an agenda and
personnel for Trade, Environment, Enlargement Policy, etc. So, still is active in foreign policy
areas, especially those with enlargement and economy.
Even if the Commission has full control over the delegation, still in every delegation approx
50% of personnel of those delegations is instructed and managed not by the European
External Action Service but by the European Commission.

Secondly, we have the manager role. The last role of the Commission is the Commission as
a worker of the European integration policies, an institution which is not just proposing
new initiatives and controlling the compliance but also IMPLEMENTING them.
Regarding this role Commission finds strong competitors. Last but not least, member states
themselves because they implement the policies. At the same time, the Commission tries to
keep control and implement some policies that they believe that no one else can do that
efficiently and as neutral as the Commission itself. The Commission also complains about
the lack of staff and their exclusion of implementing strategic policies.
At the same time, the Commission constantly complains that it should focus on more
strategic work.
There are few features we should keep in mind when studying the Commission role.
1. Tendency of delegating some tasks (such as the research policies), not to
member states but to EU agencies. An example of this practice is education
policies of the EU, for instance policies linked with Erasmus, research funding…
Whole EU perspective, not local. The reason for that is a more merit - based funding
than the one done by member states.
2. The Commission is directly implementing policies considered to be too
sensitive or that require neutrality, to be delegated to the national level or
agencies. For instance, competition policy is one of the most influential and very
respected, focused on big companies. Small cases are left to national competition
authorities (principle of minimization).
3. Regulatory powers are also delegated to the European Commission. While
European Commission has the monopoly for the initiation of EU legal acts, but then
those legal acts are decided by joint decision agreement between the European
Parliament and the Council, frequently those regulations don't deal with every
technical detail and they take a long time to adopt, so they don’t respond … So, they
delegate some regulatory powers to the European Commission regarding non
essential elements of the legal acts.

The combination of this delegation of power and the Commission monopoly to initiate
legislation could create a dangerous mix (not sufficiently controled) so, for this
purpose there were created a new mechanism relatively very influential but also
obscure, called ‘’Comitology system’’, when the member state delegates
something to the Commission at the same time they control the Commission by
specific Committees, and it consists on control the action of the Commission through
diverse Committees, with national experts.
It is complex since it creates a situation where you have working groups in the
Council apparatus where the national experts are sitting in the Council, but paralel
you have here Comitology where national experts are on the same task. The
combination of monopoly and regulative powers creates an image of the European
Commission, in the eyes of member states, as a too powerful and not controlled
enough body. For this reason, a new control mechanism was created (commitology
committees) according to which, when the Commission gets regulative powers in a
matter (these are executed by committees named by the Commission), experts sent
by member states can participate in parallel committees that occur in the Council and
can actually block some decisions of the Commission’s committees.

This creates a parallel sets of experts or working groups with different tasks:
- the Council preparing legal norms to be adopted by the Council and the
Parliament.
- Committees controlling the delegate power of the Commission
 LECTURE 5. EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
1. EP Elections
The EP always says that they are the only directly elected organ in the EU, so they have
more legitimacy.
European elections are held on the national level, so there are 27 mini - elections at the
same time.
All states must use a proportional system.

In contrast, there is a huge arguments against one huge election: it is partially armonized,
There are different rules for registration, and districts are different…

You don’t know your allocational seats, so for each country it is how many seats they will
have. E.g 10million country -> 20 NEPS
5million -> 13 NEPS.
These number are not a result of a formula but a POLITICAL AGREEMENT

There was a proposal to change it after Brexit (no me he enterado). Algo delnúmero (60% -
20, 22% -20).

Third argument for there being no real European elections is the format of the campaign.
Primarily, these debates and candidates are done with a national framework. There is no
european tv, european newspaper… So, the debates are more domestic.

2. Second rank / protest ?

Top jobs keep their attention to national policy.
European elections are often less participative (17% in some central countries, they don’t
care).
The impact on domestic politics is so indirect.
Whatever EP tries it is still 2rank election, everywhere in Europe.

Protest election, because traditionally small parties or opposition parties gives more
importance / tend to perform better than big parties.

3. EP as a Parliament light
EP has now more formal power than ever. But, still it is not a domestic Parliament.

Legislation: majority of legislation is done by the ordinary legislative process, which needs
an agreement between EP and the Council. The parliament has not the initiative and even
when there is already a legislative process initiated, the parliament must find a consensus
with the Commission

Concerning EU Treaties changes the Parliament powers are weaker because they are
adopted by the European Council. European Parliament is just consulted. So, they are
changing ‘’Constitution’’ without needing the approbation of the EP.

Not every EU acts adopted are legislative acts. Adoption is not done by the Parliament.
Executive + judicial branches. Parliament controls the executive and occasionally judicial.
European Commission needs a vote of Parliament and Parliament can vote the Commission
out, but not the judges or the Council.

High representatives
Judges are appointed by the Council and the only influence the Parliament has is through
the special penal. ‘’Soft control’’.
Embassadors. The Parliament

Budgetary powers. The Parliament has to approve the European budget (hard power), but
it cannot do it by itself, there has to be consensus with the Commission and cannot approve
a deficitary budget.
Firstly, the EP can never approve a deficit budget, it always must be plus.
Secondly, specially since 2010, we have many alternatives on how to finance EU activities
which are not covered by this budget (tools created in the eurozone without involvement of
the EP).

International Relations. The Parliament has only consultative powers, while the decision
making power is given to the COUNCIL.
Generally, EU finds out a division between common foreign security and the other EU
agenda including internal market, transport, cooperation, environment…
Common security policy the EP is in long distance. They give some information but no real
power. This creates confusion.
In the rest, Parliament has hard powers regarding Treaties. They are not involved in the
negotiation directly, but they approve the final product or not.

4. Power instinct of the EP

Parliament uses this argument of legitimacy due to the fact that it is the only directly elected
body of the EU Sometimes it works.
Rules in intergovernmental agreements.
The Parliament doesn’t have any power to impeach commissioners. If Parliament votes
and asks the President of the Commission to fire someone, the President will fire this person
or go to the Parliament to explain why he/she didn’t.

The Parliament wanted more powers, so they punished with budget.

In the Lisbon Treaty you have a single line saying that when the EP is selecting a new
president of the European Commission, they have to take into account results of the EP
election.
But, there is no political group with a majority.
European elections in 2014 example.

5. Political groups EP
The European Parliament has over 700 MP’s, which are divided in political groups
according to the ideological position of the MP’s. These groups participate in the different
committees and the subcommittees in charge of dealing with legislative proposals in the EU.
The size of the EP generally goes into individual working groups and at the same time to
manage the heterogeneous of the Committees power structures the crucial is the filter
through political groups.
The crucial principle according to which all the power related agenda is distributed through
political groups. Is not fully proportional, but the size of the EP determines the question of
the allocation of the function of the EP (time to talk, money support…).

Never in history there was a political group which had an absolute majority of the seats, so
its always working in coalitions and find consensus.

SIZE VS. IDEOLOGICAL HOMOGENEITY

Trying to be as big as possible but also be able to formulate some coherent positions.

There are TWO BIG GROUPS which were able, until last elections, to dominate the EP:
EPP (European People Party) and Socialist (PES/ Solidarity and Democracy). On some
agenda they were unable to find decisions and they made smaller groups to find alliance.
Usually, the EPP and the S&D had an absolute majority so they could agree to any policy
only by consensus of both groups, nevertheless, this is not the case any-more because
smaller parties have grown and the two biggest ones no longer hold an absolute majority.

1. liberals (alde / RE): Rebuilding Europe (Macron). This is the most pro - integration
group at the Parliament.
2. Greens
3. Left (European Democratic Left).
4. Eurosceptics
5. Independents

The current situation is much more complicated after the 2019 elections: EPP and SOC
don’t have a majority anymore. Smaller parties have grown. The game is much more fun
because they have to find at least a coalition of three parties to get a majority.

European Conservatives Reformists group has been created. It is composed by British

Conservatives and Law and Justice from Poland, Civic Democratic Party from CR. Now is
primarily from polish.

In contrast, before there was never a big eurosceptic group so they created two groups:
European Freedom and … Democracy Groups: it doesn’t exist anymore and their members
are primarily independents.
Europe of Nations and Freedom, now they are recalled Identity and Democracy Group.

The national parties have to decide in which group they are going after the European
elections so all its elected MP’s form part of the chosen group. .
Hungary -> Fidesz. They started being liberals and then they started going more
conservatives. They were part of the EPP, but they were squeezed out of the group and then
they went to the Independents.

Fingale (EPP) and FinaFold (migrates)

Poland have two major political parties: Citizens’ Platform and Law and Justice Party.
Ideologically they would fit in EPP v but they’re fighting every time, so Citizens Platform went
to EPP, and LandJ became a foundational member of ECR.

Czech Republic:
ODS -> ECR
Social Democracy -> Social Democrats, but they are falling everything. Ya no están en el
Parlamento?
Christian. Democrat -> EPP
TOP09 -> EPP (could go to liberal but they felt more comfortable in EPP).
COMMUNISTS -> Extreme left
ANO -> they are very flexible ideologically. They moved to Liberals (Renew)
Pirates -> they are also very flexible ideologically (unmorphic). They enjoyed the Green
group.
ID: Independence Party.
Independents.

There is a lot of strategic thinking on those allocations, is not intuitive.

European Elections
European elections are hold at national level, so that there are 27 “mini-elections” at the
same time. There are also some rules that harmonize all 27 electoral system such as the
obligation to use proportional systems, but there are still a lot of difference in between
countries such as the districts or the electoral barrier.

Apart from that, the number of seats given to each country is agreed in the different treaties
but it’s based upon a proportional formula.

In spite of the European decision making process partially happening on the European
Parliament, the political campaigns focus mainly in domestic issues, not in European ones.

2º rank or protest elections

European elections are often considered as 2º rank elections due to the low amount of
participation registered in them. They are also called protest elections due to the fact that
smaller parties or opposition parties tend to perform better than ruling or bigger parties,
nevertheless, from 2014 elections this is not true for opposition parties.

Lectura clase. Common Market Law Review

After the European elections: Parliamentary games and gambles
Parliament is the place of organized consent or dissent. By visibly defining the limits of
permissible dissent and the ways in which it may be expressed, parliamentary deliberations,
however artificial they may seem, contribute to the preservation of public regimes, in
particular of those claiming democratic legitimacy.

The Spitzenkadidaten: A parliamentary gamble.

Martin Schulz -> Party of European Socialists nominated for the presidency of the European
Comission.
Jean - Claude Juncker -> EPP.

The candidates have become known under their German name Spitzenkandidaten
throughout the EU.
What has reportedly started as an individual gamble for power became the object of an
institutional conflict.

ART. 17 TEU Taking into account the elections to the European Parliament and after having
held the appropriate consultations, the European Council, acting by a qualified majority, shall
propose to the European Parliament a candidate for President of the Commission. This
candidate shall be elected by the European Parliament by a majority of its component
members. If he does not obtain the required majority, the European Council, acting by a
qualified majority, shall within one month propose a new candidate who shall be elected by
the European Parliament following the same procedure.

Jean Claude Juncker era el primero en conseguir esa mayoría and the European Council
proposed him as a candidate for Comission President.

The reaction of the European Council was more hostile than cooperative.

Is the Parliament’s resolve to have the Spitzenkandidat of the largest parliamentary group
installed as the President of the Commission in conformity with the Treaty? If so, is the
European Council under a legal duty to appoint this candidate? And finally, whatever the lex
lata, would the emergence of a parliamentary prerogative in this matter be welcome?

LECTURE 5. CREATING A NEW INSTITUTION: EUROPEAN EXTERNAL ACTION

SERVICE AND TRANSFORMATION OF THE EU EXTERNAL REPRESENTATION.
PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN COUNCIL
We will talk about one of the most visible institutional innovations of the EU.
Situation before and after Lisbon Treaty. Most visible changes.
Because of the fact that during the process, the shortcomings of the EU institutions' decision
of external actions became very visible during the crisis of Iraq War (2002, 2003…).

1. BEFORE LT
Regarding European external representation institutions, they were really different to what
we know today before the Lisbon Treaty. For this Treaty, reforming the external
representation service was one important task, so it was a topic during the IGC. One of the
reasons for that is that the external action institutions became relevant especially when the
EU got involved in the Iraq War (2002-2003).

First, we had the European Commission managing the network of delegations outside
the EU territory. Inside the European Commission apparatus there were departments
focused on external actions the heads of those Delegations were selected by the
Commission’s President. In addition to that, inside of the Commission’s apparatus there
were departments focused on external actions and, we had of course respective
Commissioners responsible for these external actions but we didn’t have any single one
person responsible for the whole external issues of the EC activities, instead each external
action commissioner was dealing on its own with particular issues.

At the same time, we have the European Council and the Council which also had their
own agenda in external actions both in the economic and the external policy and security,
enlargement, environmental dimensions... although its apparatus was much less robust than
the Commission's one. This is due to the fact that before Lisbon Treaty, with the rotating
presidency, every 6 months, the people dealing with external issues changed and also
because sometimes it was difficult to distinguish if the foreign minister of the country holding
the presidency was talking on behalf of the whole EU or just its country.

Further, the Council hadn’t specific network of permanent external representation.

They used embassies (some countries didn’t have so they usually have to deal with it).
Furthermore, not the European Council, neither the Council had specific networks of
permanent representation, instead they used the embassies of the presiding state. Not to
speak of the fact that some countries did not have particular large external representation
services abroad so they had to use other member state’s embassies for external
representation of the European Council and Council (during the Czech presidency, they
used French embassies cause they did not have embassies in many African countries).
Finally, even though there were specific figures of the Council, like the Director General of
Foreign Relations whose function was to deal with this issue, there was a lack of
coordination and permanent figures when coming to this topic.

They had a specific Secretariat of the Council who elaborated Director General further
actions.

In the second half of the nineties the figure of high representatives was created, but they
didn’t have much resources (not specific secretariat, not personnel or money) because they
were afraid of this person overshadowing national politicians' foreign policy. In the same
time, decided that the particular person would be a Secretary General of the Secretariat
Council so he/her had a double job in this position and this created problems, because the
high rep didn’t have time to deal with the entire organization and internal management of the
Council, so it was the Secretary general who was managing all the business in the Council.
To make it more complicated, you appointed a person with a pretty good international
reputation or experience in his job (ej. Javier Solana). A person with huge amounts sith
political and social capital of relations in order to use in the job and very charismatic.
Their media presence was bigger than their competences (Solana). Regarding the Iraq
crisis, Javier Solana had nothing to do because he didn’t have this decision making power of
his own because he had more representative powers.
All of this made it difficult for non EU states to comprehend and engage in relations with the
EU. For this reason, in the second half of the 90’s, wit the Amsterdam Treaty, a new job of
High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy was created, this person
was to coordinate the Council and European Council foreign activity, but it did not have a lot
of power and competences because the EU was afraid that this figure will overshadow
national politicians. So this job did not have enough resources or power to represent the
whole EU externally, plus this person was a secretary general of the Council, so it had two
jobs at the same time. Besides that, it was ironical that this person had to have international
recognition (Javier Solana, hijo de puta), but almost no real power, which made the EU
external representation even more confusing. This gave birth to the Solana (hijo de puta)
effect, meaning that the image of the High Rep was much bigger than his power (mejor pedir
perdón a pedir permiso).

From this big trio: European Commission, European Council and the Parliament which was
gettin more power in the formulations? He was promised to be informed, occasionally
consulted but not really hard powers. In the other areas (economic ones, enlargement,
development, environmental things…) he had stronger powers, but in the hard foreing policy
security its formal powers are limited but this limitation has not presented the Parliament to
be rather loud regarding european foreing actions, internal structures of committees and
platforms… When we talk about this we must keep in mind that in hard foreign policy,
security policy, security issues, policing, political dialogue... the Parliamentary rule powers
with non EU countries were rather limited.

Regarding the European Parliament, although it progressively won more powers, in the
field of external relations, it was kept apart. Mostly, his functions in this area were merely
consultative, which did not stop them from being loud about foreign policy and security
issues, for this the EP used principally non binding declarations and internal parliamentary
committees.

AFTER THE LISBON TREATY.

It carries so many changes, we’re going to focus on three of them.
1. Establishment of the European External Action Service
It was a new institutional project, but in this very genetic code we put those tensions and
ambiguities which we can find anywhere in European foreign policy or external action.
Sometimes it works well (ambiguity) but sometimes it limitates it efficiency.
This is a new institutional body serving as the diplomatic service and combined foreign and
defense ministry of the European Union. The regulation of this body is full of ambiguities,
which sometimes worked well, but in other situations limited its efficiency. Although it was
included in the LT, it took one year to be established and its details are not in the treaty, but
are decided by decisions of the Council to make it more flexible.

What are the pros and cons of this European External Action Service
- new actor: specifically focused on foreign policy that tries to resolve / overact
tension between different EU institutions (European Commission, Secretariat of
the Council, national diplomacies). It doesn’t mean that you have to work for these
institutions before, but it is the major input.
As such, its personal comes from the Commission, the Secretariat of the Council and
national diplomacy of the member states, plus the Service itself can hire personal, in
in any case, this personal must be able to return to its previous position after working
there.
 - It also has the global basis center and global network. It has a network of
delegations all around the world. They took control over the delegation of the
European Commission by transferring it. The director of these delegations are not
selected by the Commission President but by the high rep of this European External
Action Service, who is presiding the EEAA.
- it has global competences. It represents the EU externally everywhere, it also
focuses on specific global sectors like global protection of human rights.
-
It took one year before it was established and if we look at the Treaty, the rules of
functioning are rather weak and brief, so you can really decide on this institution.

BAD PARTS (CONS/SHORTCOMES).

1. Not all agenda has been moved to the European External Action Service, there
are still other institutions that take care of this matter, both at the European and
national level. For instance, the European Commission still has departments which
are still responsible for foreign agenda inside the EC, and it causes tensions some
Director General have kept their competences in external relations inside matters
such as enlargement, climate change or trade, this creates tensions between the
Commission and the European External Action Service
If you look at the personnel structure the 50% are composed of people working for
EEAS. The remaining are people sent by the European Commission because they
coordinate projects financed by the EC.
The European Parliament (kind of jealous, wants to show its influence) wants to take
the initiative in this matter, which slowed down the work of the EEAS. All of this
creates an internal competition in the EU for the control of the external policy area.
So, this institutional competition has not been solved yet.

2. We still had competition between the EAAS and national diplomacy. There is an
intensive personnel mobility between these institutions, but in the most important
issues the member state tries to do foreign policy through their domestic rules or to
coordinate the activities between each other leading the EAAS to play a second role
or get ignored.

We had some missions where embasors that are in non EU states are meeting on a
regular basis and coordinating their activities. It is more or less seen as a standard
agenda for good weather and in times of crisis is not working so well.
The member states try to do the more important tasks of external policy through this
diplomacy and leave the EEAS outside of it. Even though there is a Head Of
Missions, that is a meeting between national diplomacy and EEAS, this does not
work during crisis times.

Ej. Situation Luhansk -> Minsk agreement (no one from the EU structure, no
highreps: Russian president, Ukrainian president, Bielorussian President, German
cancillar and French President).
 EEA took some role on the preparatory front, but when the deal was made it was the
national politicians and national diplomacy dealing with the whole thing.

For instance, deal between EU and Turkey (2015) regarding the management of the
migration flows. They have to stop the Balcane route of migration.
There was officially agreed between the EU and Turkey but in negotiation there was
German diplomacy, which played a crucial role in preparing the deal on the formal
approach.

EU activities and coordination during the last day of Western presence in Kabul.
When Taliban was approaching, the diplomatic personnel and collaborators from
Kabul to Europe.
There were relatively limited coordination between EU countries and EAA and its
delegation to Kabul were virtually invisible and low profile for the whole process.

This is one of the weakest in this new institutional model, it might look well on the
paper and work well in good times, but it has problems when the weather is not that
good.

Last weakness of the EAA system: The personnel policy.

In 1999, countries were a bit afraid that having too famous, too prestigious a person
occupying this job of High Rep might overshadow national diplomacies and made the
EAA too powerful. It is written even in the text of Treaties (sui - generis body dealing
with European external action). For this reason, the EEAS was not named as a EU
institutions.
People appointed there had rather a weaker carisma, administrative job and deliver
consensus, they are just products of partisan pacts.
The EU has too many partnerships regarding partnerships.

2. HIGH REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNION FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND SECURITY

POLICY.
To some extent, it is even more treaty because we didn’t have EAA before the LT.
Regarding high representatives is a problem because the title means almost the same
before the Lisbon Treaty and after, the job description (represents the EU in the global
arena and try to coordinate the European foreing policy and increase cohesion) before
LT and after is almost the same, but competences and institution affiliation are vastly
different. It still tries to coordinate external policy, but it has some changes, mainly the
addition of jobs.

Firstly, this police Lisbon high rep had three or four jobs in one package. Before LT, high reps
job was representing the EU externally, present at the meeting of the Council with foreign
ministers (not presiding them) and he was at the same time the Secretary General of the
Council.
Now, the high rep represents the EU position abroad, but more specifically he or she is
sharing its european diplomatic services and is the vice president of the Commission
and responsible for external actions.
Same time, she or he is sharing in meetings of the Foreign Affairs Council. Plus,people of
the EAA are sharing these lower levels of the Council responsible for the common foreign
security policy.
She or he has 3 jobs at one time. It might not increase coherency but increase conflict and
loyalties to those 3 institutions. It is not easy to find a balance between those three. For
instance, in case that the Commission and the Council have different opinions, the High Rep
would have to choose a position and then defend it as part of both previously mentioned
bodies, unless, the High Rep comes with some other solution.

The new design experimento works so so but we are waiting for longer analysis.

It is not only high rep representing the EU positions abroad but still national politicians,
diplomats and also the president of the European Council (new job created by Lisbon) has
some powers in the external action issue, such as a represent increasing the coherence of
the EU -internally and externally- and representing the position of the European Council to
other actors outside and inside the EU.

EXTERNAL ACTION SERVICE and its external policy, so these things does not apply within
national within EU territory, but respecting individual countries is also foreign policy so it
creates complexity when in relation to non EU countries the member state have this actor,
but not when we have foreign relations within the EU (bilateral diplomacy, meetings...).
The EU doesn't have any delegation in EU countries, but information offices and national
embassies. Outside the EU the situation is more complex (EU embassies, EAA,
meetings…).

The Lisbon Treaty had really simplified the system? I don’t think so, it is more complex.

In which non EU countries there is an ambassador from our EU country.

LECTURE 6. THE ORIGINS AND BIRTH OF THE LISBON TREATY

The Lisbon Treaty, also known as the Reform Treaty, which was approved in 2007 and
entered into force in 2009, amended both the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaty of Rome and
set the basis for the functioning of the EU.

According to article 48 of the EU Treaty, when changes in a treaty are presented by the
European Parliament, European Commission or Member States, the Council and the
European council are the ones deciding on the convenience of them, after that, an
intergovernmental conference (IGC) has to negotiate and materialize these changes
and send them to the European Council, which has to approve this new treaty. Finally,
each member state must ratify this new treaty so it can enter into force.

The origins of this treaty go back to the 2001 Nize Treaty. The rational of this treaty is to
ensure an efficient system that can function with the enlargement that was to adapt
the institutions to accommodate the future enlargement of the EU to twelve new
Member States, in particular by adapting the weighting of votes of the representatives of the
Member States in the Council and by limiting the size of the Commission. It also gave more
powers to the European Parliament, extending to new areas its right of co-deciding
legislation with the Council, and by conferring the same deciding power as that of the
Council.

The ratification of the treaty was difficult, as a first referendum in Ireland gave a negative
result in 2001, but after the recognition that the Irish policy of neutrality would remain
untouched, a second referendum was positive in 2002.

Nevertheless, deeper institutional changes were necessary in order to accommodate all

the new states, plus the EU wanted to solve the problem of lack of enthusiasm by European
citizens towards the European project. For that matter, they used the “Convention on Future
of Europe”, which was an element used for the drafting of the EU Charter of Fundamental
Rights in 1999 and summoned again for this task in 2002. This Convention was formed by
representatives for all member and candidate states, these representatives were not
only from the national executives, but also by European MP’s, European Commission
members and national MP’s. In 2003, the draft for the “Treaty establishing a Constitution
for Europe” was sent to the Council and the European Council, and from there to the IGC.
In 2004, this Treaty was sent back to the European Council, which approved it. In this text,
the previous treaties were collected in only one text, which also granted more power to the
EU and advanced towards integration. In 2005, this treaty was supposed to be ratified by the
Member States but the referendum was only held in Spain, France and the Netherlands, and
both France and the Netherlands rejected the treaty.

Even though the Constitutional Treaty was not approved, the EU still wanted to advance
in the democratization and integration process, so a new treaty had to be redacted. The
conditions that France, Netherlands and the UK imposed were 3:

1. It should be a classic amending treaty, without replacing the other traties

2. The disappearance of the words ‘constitution’ and ‘constitutional’.

3. The deletion of the words ‘minister’, ‘law’, ‘flag’, ‘anthem’ and any other wording which
would evoke the possible transformation of the EU into a state.

With these conditions, the European Council gave the task to the IGC in 2007 of
redacting a draft for an amendment treaty, which amends the Maastricht Treaty (1992),
known in updated form as the Treaty on European Union (2007), as well as the Treaty of
Rome (1957), known in updated form as the Treaty on the Functioning of the European
Union (2007).
Prominent changes included the move from unanimity to qualified majority voting in
several policy areas of the Council of Ministers, a more powerful European Parliament,
forming a bicameral legislature alongside the Council of Ministers and the creation of a
long-term President of the European Council and a High Representative of the Union
for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

After that, it was supposed to be ratified by the member states in 2008, nevertheless, the
Lisbon Treaty threatened opposition from several points in Ireland. In the first place, an
organization called Libertas thought it was too regulatory and not pro free market enough,
then the conservatives thought that it went against the traditional family and then the
neutrals believed that it could be a risk to the Irish policy of neutrality. This made the
referendum fail in 2008. Finally, in 2009, after some concessions, another referendum was
held and the turnout was positive.

LECTURE 7. EU LEGISLATIVE PROCESS (texto)

1. EU LAW
Changing treaties
Instead of standard diplomatic relations we need more involvement (both nation and
European Parliament), it creates some document called the Draft Treaty…

Some countries opted for referendums, some others did not.

Irish referendum problem for domestic irish politics (keep your anger for elections not for
referendum).

Last but not least, the European Diplomatic Service is just one paragraph in the Treaties.

December 2009 crisis Lisbon Treaty said that they forgot to adopt measures because no one
predicted this big crash, but no one really wanted to change the Treaty because of the
complications we have seen.

The Kelsen pyramid in the EU is much more complicated: we don’t have a Constitution but
Founding Treaties (+ Chart of Fundamental Rights of the EU which is not a part of the
Treaties but have the same force). It goes like this:
- Founding Treaties and Chart of FUndamental Rights
- Legislative norms are directives, regulations and decisions
- Finally, some non binding legal acts like opinions and recommendations.

After this, we have a mess of different legal norms: directives, regulations, decisions and
sometimes opinions / recommendations. These have in common that they are adopted
by EU institutions according to rules contained in the Treaty of Functioning of the EU and
they do not need ratification in member states (easier to adopt than Treaties). This
flexibility has also weakness.
The main difference between the legislative norms and the non binding acts is that the first
have legal obligations, while the second ones don’t. Although countries do not have to
accept these norms, there is a review by the European Judicial Court, which must control if
this norms go against the Treaties, in which case, they can be annulled.

Those legal acts must fit within the competences given in the Founding Treaties, so they
always have a reference to some articles of this big treaties (...based on X article of the
Treaty of Functioning of the EU we are adopting…).
There is a review procedure of the EU Court of Justice, it has full competence to review
those acts (not opinions and recommendations) and if it finds out that is colliding with big
treaties it can declare it null.
For instance, Poland vs. EP and Council.
EP vs. EP Commission
Microsoft vs. European Commission

For a long time, this messy picture was adopted by different institutions (regulations adopted
by the Council, by the Commission, etc.) and some of them looked like administrative
decisions and the EU were constantly criticised for not distinguishing between regulation and
particular addresses.

In the LT is slightly different and more clear. We still have the EU Treaty and then we have
EU LEGISLATION (EU norms adopting according to general or special legislatives
procedures according to the Founding Treaty) normally adopted by Council and European
Parliament and then, the delegated / implementing legal acts adopted by EU institutions by
different procedures than the legislatives, normally adopted by Commission. Plus, we have
decisions adopted by EU institutions.
Treaty of the EU and Treaty on the Functioning of the EU
We also have a brunch bank of norms formed by States legislation (implementation by
Member States).

EU Legislation: norms adopted according to regular or special legislatives procedures that

are gathered in the treaties. Usually, this norms are suggested by the European
Commission and approved by the Council plus the European Parliament. The EU
legislation includes:
-Regulations are legal acts that apply automatically and uniformly to all EU countries,
without needing to be transposed into national law. They are binding in their entirety on all
EU countries. For example, when the EU wanted to make sure that there are common
safeguards on goods imported from outside the EU, the Council adopted a regulation
-Directives require EU countries to achieve a certain result, but leave them to choose how
to do so. EU countries must adopt measures to transpose them into national law in order
to achieve the objectives. National authorities must communicate these measures to the
European Commission and they must take place by the deadline set in the directive
(generally within 2 years) and if a country does not transpose a directive, the Commission
may initiate infringement proceedings.
-Decision: act binding on those to whom it is addressed (e.g. an EU country or an individual
company) and is directly applicable.
-Recommendations allow the EU institutions to make their views known and to suggest a
line of action without imposing any legal obligation on those to whom it is addressed. They
have no binding force.
-Opinion: instrument that allows the EU institutions to make a statement, without imposing
any legal obligation on the subject of the opinion. An opinion has no binding force.
- Delegated acts and implementing acts are adopted by EU Institutions in a different
procedure than the usual legislative one and are both binding acts.
- Delegated acts are legally binding acts that enable the Commission to supplement or
amend non-essential parts of EU legislative acts, for example, in order to define detailed
measures. The Commission adopts the delegated act and if Parliament and Council have no
objections, it enters into force.
-Implementing acts are legally binding acts that enable the Commission, under the
supervision of committees consisting of EU countries’ representatives, to set conditions that
ensure that EU laws are applied uniformly.

Examples of EU legislation:
- The Chocolate Directive, that tried to regulate which products could be sold as
chocolate, when there was a fight with UK.
- The TWB (Television Without Borders) Directive, which setted the limits of free TV services
within the EU internal market (what can be regulated by the states). Some doubts were left
about whether the provider of services can be discriminated in the other country as a
protection of the providers.
 - Shall we?
- Can we?

TWF Directive. It setted the limits of free tv services within the EU internal market (what can
be regulated by the states).
Whether the provider of services can be discriminated against in the other country as a
protection of the providers / Common minimum standards.

Internet for providing services abroad and the cost were much smaller.

The Court of Justice has not delivered, so it must be done by the politicians.

2. REGULAR LEGISLATIVE PROCESSS

How -> Codecision (general legislative procedure). It is initiated by the Commission
because the Treaty say so, but it has to consult states and other political actors.
The time the Commission was consulting heavily with States (not so much with the Trade
Unions) and they prepared official documents and they published it. Officialy, the Comission
proposed 13/01/2004 to the European Parliament and to the Council and they have
unlimited amount of time to deal with the proposal (no deadlines). If the EP and the
Commission agreed there is no problem, if not the Council had a counter proposal to the EP
and it can accept it or send it to the Council (second reading).

These institutions have to decide if they approve it, reject it or modify it. The EP goes first,
and sends it proposal to the Council, which can accept it or reject it and send its proposal to
the EP. In that case, the EP will have a second lecture and decide if they accept it or send a
new proposal to the Council, which can do the same. If no agreement is reached, a
Consolidation Committee composed by people from both bodies, which in three months
have to agree, this agreement is sent again to the EP and the Council so they can ratify the
agreement.
Informal meetings between members of all bodies happen all the time, regardless of the
legislative phase they’re in.

An example is the Bolkestein directive, also called Frankenstein directive (officially Services
in the Internal Market Directive 2006/123/EC) is an EU law aiming at establishing a single
market for services within the European Union. For achieving this goal, the directive tried to
introduce the Country of Origin Principle, meaning that cross-border service providers would
mainly be subject to the laws of their home country, plus it required member states to justify
all existing legislation on the grounds that it was non-discriminatory, necessary and
proportional.
This was devised by the Commission in 2004 and wasn’t taken into account by the Council
and the EP until one year and a half later. There, opposition to the directive was made by the
French, Germans, Danish and Belgians and mainly by socialist, leftist and green parties, due
to the fact that they thought this directive would inevitably lead to "social dumping" as
companies and jobs were relocated to the lower-cost and less regulated economies of
eastern Europe. For this reason, the Council and the Parliament decided that discriminatory
practices will be allowed in some jobs such as legal and social services, postal and
audiovisual services, public health care or public transport, they also decided to eliminate the
Country of Origin Principle. This draft was finally passed on 2006, seeing significant changes
from the initial version.

There is a third reading, the Consolidation Committee, composed by member of the Council
and also the Parliament. For the first time, they are dealing together not only sending letters
in a relatively short amount of time. If they don’t agree or they miss the deadline (can be
prolonged by one month) the norm is dead. They can send it again to the Council and to the
Parliament to vote it again.
Is like a ping pong game

TRIALOGUE is an informal consultation between Council, Parliament and …

Some of the trialogue documents are actually available.

They submitted it and for a year and a half nothing happened.

In March 2005, the European Council intervened but it didn’t have a role in the legislative
process, so some countries got opposed to it.
The European Parliament

NO ME HE ENTERADO
Directive 2006/ 123/ EC On Services Within Internal Market -> importance (European
Parliament and Council).

LECTURE 8. EU Institutional Reaction to Eurozone Crisis: new institutions needed?

EU changes of the institutional design.

EU reaction as an institutional improvisation of the very action.

Why?
- the original design of eurozone institutions, as agreed in the Maastricht Treaty.
The institutional mechanism of the Eurozone has not remained untouched since its creation
with the Maastricht Treaty, but has changed along with the development of the Eurozone
economic situation.
When creating the Eurozone institutional setting, two big compromises were made:
- The first one was that integration in monetary policy would happen, but fiscal policy
wouldn’t.
- The second one was about the conflict between the inflation focused approach and the
employment focused approach. In the end, the first one prevailed and so, the institutional
design was made in a similar way as those of the Northern countries.

The Eurozone is a fascinating subject of research, because it is a great mixture of

economic, political and also symbolism (complicated reasons to justify). For instance, when
Checoslovaquia split the original plan was to maintain the same currency, but this project
survived less than two months, specially by fault of the czechs.
Final construct was a full compromise between north and south.
One element regarding economic governance was the internal market but also other areas
(currency and monetary policy and fiscal and budgeting policy). For that, a strong European
integration is needed.
The European budget would remain relatively small (1% of gross national product) and
the EU would not be there for debts (each country would manage national debts and
national finances). There would not be privilege financing from the European Bank to EU
countries
This was written in the Lisbon Treaty (no bail out …), which was a problem during the crisis.
So: a lot of integration regarding monetary policy but not in fiscal policy.

The second compromise was the compromise within the European monetary policy:
northern countries vs southern (inflation, devaluation…). These two approaches had to find
an institutional design and the NORTHERN approach prevail, at least on paper.
So the design of the European Bank and other institutions linked you see the north design:
creation of institutions focused on stability of currency, keeping inflation under control.
No legal or political responsibility for economic growth of the country or, the currency stability
prevails over concerns of economic growth.
In consequence, the ECB was officially created in 1998 as the main institution of the
Eurozone. It is designed in a really similar way to the German one, with some defining
characteristics such as the excessive focus on inflation, the lack of the dual mandate (price
stability and full employment) or the lack of political responsibilities.
ECB decision making is done behind closed doors without direct involvement of the
politicians of the EU countries and big protection from the pressure of public opinion.
The most federalist institution of the whole EU, top bodies are appointed but they are
protected from political influence or from being recalled, and the conditions for firing are very
high (STRONG INSTITUTION: institutional power, protection and monopoly to regulate
monetary policy). This new ECB has since the monopoly of monetary policy.

Two compromises: focus on monetary policy not fiscal policy (states regulation). From
the very beginning we don’t have an equal mark between being a member of the EU and
being a member of the Eurozone (inflation, change rates, interest rates…).
This decision was made in the first half of the 90 (Maastricht). Then, we have the practice in
the first decade.

Here we see that regardless of the rules, sometimes those rules which looked very solid
could crack a bit under political pressure. So, three major big compromises made during
90 and early 2000:
- the selection of countries of the Eurozone were in general interpreted very FLEXIBLE
way and pro - membership way. At the end, every country were accepted maybe
with more or less delay. In consequence, only the countries that did not wantes to
join the Eurozone were left out (Denmark, UK, Sweden).

Second big compromise was the selection of a First president of the European Central
Bank. The French said that the model was designed in a German way (German image,
located in Germany…), so the First president must be french. The other countries said ok,
but they weren’t very conformed because the First President would leave her/his imprint. So
the French stepped back and said ok but it can’t be german. So, the first President of the
ECB was dutch for 4 years.

Last but not least, the last example is the experience of the Stability and Growth Pact,
outside of Treaties (compromise) controlling the excesses of euro zone countries regarding
public finances and total national debt. This regime has a big catalogue of potential
sanctions for violators, however in the second and third time these deficits procedures came
on the table and decision making is up to Council of Ministers of Finances, and at the same
time France and Germany exceed the 3% deficits, they obliged the EC by using their political
pressure to make the Council impose virtually tethless and symbolic sanctions to countries.
Even the reaction was against the position of the Commission, from legal perspective the
Commission won the case but in practice the sanctions were not imposed and even the
Stability and Growth Pact was consequently amended to SOFTEN the rules and expand the
exceptions: more a political declaration instead of a realistic sanction mechanism. Still
continue to work but rather without teeths.

2. LACK OF ATTENTION GIVEN BY EUROPEAN GOVERNANCE DURING THE DEBATE

OF THE LISBON TREATY.

So we have these three compromises changing the design, but it seems that it doesn’t
matter, Eurozone works regardless of the handicaps of the procedures. In the first decade,
everything was going ok (excessive deficit) so the stabilization function and policy of ECB
bank didn’t have to change.
This explains that during the preparation of LISBON TREATY you have a lot of attention
given to foreign relations and to foreign representation of the EU seen as a global actor
(institutional aspects). In contrast, the issue of economic governance, its legal framework
and institutions were more or less neglective. We don’t have economic chart created, a
merging institution of people responsible for the economy, everything was more focused on
policy and security.
In that matter, the economic institutional mark was ruled by individual and separated
institutions, those being:
- ECB : which holds the monopoly on the monetary policy.
- Eurogroup and Ecofin : which are the meetings of the finance and economy of the
eurozone and
the EU respectively.
- European Commission : that can propose legislation, also in the economic matter

ECB separated, Eurogroup (Minister of Finances), ECOFIN (meeting of Ministers of

Finances of the whole EU countries), Commissioner responsible for monetary issues… But
they were all separately in their own areas. Then, LT finally came into force in 2009 (1 Dec)
and after Christmas and 2010, from the economic perspective everything was wrong.
Crisis -> no legal tools, no financiary sources or no expertise ready to react.

3. Response to the economic crisis

Reaction of Eurozone 2008 - 2009, with the economic crisis growing, but it was a traditional
crisis at first: banks, insurance companies, cars producers, mortgage for providers… it was
not yet the crisis of public finances. States have fiscal tools (budgets), some countries
privatise banks, others provide emergency loans, other guarantees, etc. So, that’s the
reason that you don’t have a single model of reaction in the EU (Germany special program
of financial contributions for people to buy a new car…).
Because of political events Czech Republic didn’t have this special program for cars,
meanwhile Slovakia did.

It has to feed with the rules of the internal market of the EU (not just German cars f.e). Still
the Eurozone was considered something which provides a platform, where no trade works
can emerge. The further away you were from the Eurozone, the more cruel the impact of the
crisis was. Even at that time some new countries required financial assistance from the EU
to stabilise public budgets and they were provided. But, the reason why it happened was the
NON Eurozone countries (Hungary, Latvia, Romania) who asked for assistance.

It seems that the Eurozone is still a good project, a good solution (optimistic articles
2008-2009). But in 2010, it was worse.
Nevertheless, as 2010 advance, some euro countries such as Greece entered in a much
more severe crisis and couldn’t find private inverters to buy their debt, not even the IMF, so
they turned to the EU for help

Outside Greece there was some confidence thanks to some manipulated statistical data. So,
those big global private actors are concerned about Greece and refuse to buy the bond
issued by the Greek government to finance its debt. So, Greece is in trouble and with
difficulties to obtain finances for every day work and pay old bonds, so they asked the EU for
help. The Center Bank didn’t say anything and the European Council said well, we don’t
know can we? we want to? Because of the BAILOUT CLAUSE.
At the same time, Greece said ok but we are going to declare bankruptcy and then, of
course life for Greeks would be miserable because they are in the internal market (economic
migration, worst management of external borders…). Plus, remember who owns those old
lons (Germany, UK…) so the cost could be even bigger than the money we are asking for
temporarily.
So, there was a very important moment where big EU countries considered whether to do
something or not (clause of no bill was an easy excuse for being passive) or to try to do
something to prevent the collapse of Greece, but also explain and justify their steps in
their home countries. This last option prevailed and they started this step by step approach
to deal with countries in trouble.
So, the balance was ok, We would like to help and the question was HOW? Because there
were no tools, no institutions and therefore no money and no expertise.
They started to create very difficult mechanisms which were very difficult to comprehend
even for especialise people (Prof.): political declaration, legal mechanisms… Some of these
documents were agreed within the EU, it wasn’t the standard European decisions and others
were done outside the EU framework.
It was something in between: International Treaty (signed by some countries) and at the
same time they used some expertise of the EU (Court of Justice and European
Commission).

So, what happened? Firstly, for Greece it was a bunch of bilateral loans between the
Eurozone countries and Greece which all together made this amount of 1.8 billions which
Greece asked supplemented by AEMET 40 millions … They were coordinated at the EU
level (how long, conditions…)
Then, loans for Ireland, Portugal and later for Cyprus and for the second and third program
for Greece, other institutions recreated:
European Stability Fund Mechanism Instruments, an intergovernamental organization
created in 2010, were the loans provided to the country in need and EU was the guarantor
and EU budget as collateral but there were not many instruments because the EU budget is
rather small, so they were limits (30 billions of euros). Its function is to fund bailouts to
countries in need, which where guaranteed by the EU budget, the main problem is that the
EU budget is relatively small, so another institution was created, the European Financial
Stability Facility, which bailouts where guaranteed by member states instead of the EU.
Finally the European Stability Mechanism was created by an international treaty and
replaced the two earlier temporary EU funding programmes.

So there was created the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and it was specific
legal entity created by agreement of Eurozone countries outside the EU framework as a
special commercial company and also an instrument which obtained money from the global
market (market conditions) and then provide loans to the country in need and the Eurozone
country provide collateral guarantee on the capacity of this found up to hundred of billions an
increase to thousands of billions euros (twelve zeros) based on political instructions.
Then, you have things like European Stability Mechanism, a new instrument created by
international agreement again outside the EU framework using and replacing the Financial
Stability Facility.
Technical and very non understandable to people who is no familiar to international financial.

You had to feed both the limits of the euro, deal somehow with this no bill out plus for
instance and within the split of the EU, where Eurozone countries were more likely to assist
than no eurozone countries. So they have to fight compromises, for instance the UK said
they didn’t want to help Greece and they didn’t contribute except for Ireland (more expose).

In addition to this, we have a reform to the Stability Growth Pact to the Sixth Pack because
there were six legal acts (5 regulations and 1 directive) which increased the control power
over the public finances to all EU states (not only eurozone), creating special reporting
duty on the budgetary, introducing a greater macroeconomic surveillance. It entered into
force in 2011, and its aim was strengthening the procedures to reduce public deficits and
address macroeconomic imbalances, these 6 reforms do not change any of the conditions
already imposed by the SGP, but aim to enforce greater budgetary discipline among the
Member States of the euro area by stipulating that sanctions come into force earlier and
more consistently.

Last but not least, we have the European fiscal compact was implemented. Special
international treaty as a new stricter version of the Stability and Growth Pact adopted by 25
EU countries (not UK, CR, no me entero del otro país no estaba en la UE entonces) which
created a stronger control mechanism on the public finances preventing excessive spending,
excessive budgetary deficit. Its goal was to strengthen the limits to public deficit. According
to this pact, national budget has to be in balance, an automatic correction mechanism has to
be established to correct potential significant deviations and a national independent
monitoring institution is required to provide fiscal surveillance. The treaty defines a balanced
budget as a general budget deficit not exceeding 3.0% of the GDP, and a debt level not
exceeding 60% of GDP.
Finally, some initiative to impose a greater control of national banks by the EU.

At the very end we have the initiatives to create bigger European control of banking and
strategy burden which was defined by the largest banks in Europe.

4. Institutional dimension
Several different pillars of the EU reaction, and this EU reaction from legal and economic
perspective was very heterogeneous and very difficult to explain in a simple way.

From the institutional perspective, there was a inheritance of three big institutions:
- European Council and Council
- European Commission
- European Parliament

The Eurozone crisis needs to react to strengthen the European Council and Council
because those two initiatives were actually politically agreed on by the European Council
and put into technical bidding terms by the Eurogroup (meetings of the Eurozone Ministers
of Finances). Due to the fact that this was the institution that ideated most of the decisions
that were to come, and the Council, specially the Ecofin and Eurogroup, because they were
in charge of developing these ideas into specific policies.
Plus, what happens it happened before it that we had the meetings not just of the European
Council and Prime Ministers and Governors but also separate meetings of Heads of States
and Governments of Eurozone countries. Some political decisions were negotiated more
detailedly without participation of some countries (UK).

The other two actors were a bit unhappy with this. The Parliament had the least capacity
to react because get more powers in the LT but the center of gravity of power with finances
moved away. Parlament critique of what was happening but, generally the Eurozone crisis
meant the decline of power of the Parliament because it had no control over those huge
financial assistance programs,
The Commission played a smarter and more efficient role because they provided
some expertise. So, for instance, the Commission succeeded in managing European
Financial Stability Mechanism and it was the major offer of the Six Pack initiative. The
Commission's role in imposing those rules is stronger now, originally it was the Commission
who proposed sanctions and member states by qualified majority who approved and now the
system is reverse voting which means that the Commission proposes sanctions and
member states can block it by qualified majority. So, if States are passive now the sanctions
against the State can go on. Plus the Commission increased its powers of imposing
sanctions, because after the Eurozone crisis, Commission would propose sanctions and
member states, instead of having to vote on imposing them or not, only could vote to block
them, so the inaction of member states did not blocked sanctions any more.

Plus, we have the European Central Bank which was relatively passive at the beginning
but then turn into a very active member providing loans to EU country (emergency loans) but
specially declaring several programs of buying bonds issued by eurozone countries. Of
course, this was done step by step by reinterpreting the existing rules of the ECB and has
been challenged frequently by the European Court of Justice and it says OK but there is
another challenge at the German Constitutional Court and they issued a very strong
judgement, saying that the German participation on this program is conditional and based on
proper justification and explanation done by ECB to German authorities why and at which
extent they need to extent this program of buying bonds.. It challenges European law
supremacy which is now heavily debated both in political and academic circles.
Generally, the ECB expanded its activities quite significantly and it can be described as a
body which is an unlimited source of money and right to intervene to prevent the crisis
of Eurozone (famously said by the President: the ECB will do everything what is possible to
save Eurozone, and trust me it will be enough). Until then they didn’t make too much (quite
passivity until 2010).

Plus, in someway we can see indications of internal disputes within the ECB but we don’t
see because they were not public, but german bankers were quite angry because they
expected there would be a German president but they refused to nominate, so there were an
agreement decision in 2009 to appoint a French President.

ECB has changed the question of banking governance system, making a European bank
control system to prevent the fall of banks that were too big to fail, this was complemented
with the creation of the European Bank Authority, that conducts stress tests on European
banks to increase transparency in the European financial system and identifying
weaknesses in banks' capital structures.
. One element of this banking crisis is that the EU wanted to build a Bank Union and banks
in trouble and those that were considered to be too big to fail were the beginning of the
crisis. European system of controlling banks before crisis was more about Central National
Banks and special agencies and regulators controlling, but it moved to the Eurozone level
and some powers to the ECB (new job description) and also new agencies: EBA
(European banking authority in London, and now in Paris). So, there were changes in
institutions plus creation of new institutions.
Already mention the European Stability Mechanism or European Financial Stability
Facility, which worked special legal entities outside EU framework, created only by
EUrozone countries and most visible entity was TROIKA special body created without
reference in Treaties, created already in 2010 composed on people of the Commission, ECB
and International Monetary Fund. Its power to control and monitor those countries which
received financial assistance, check if they complied with their promises and bailouts
conditions and recommend the Council to provide a new trench or not..
The official idea was to mix out ECB Commission and AMF, but at the same time there were
some expectations that this institution would be hated (budgetary cuts) from the Council.
Those bodies become the more hated but ought to the fact that they are very visible, they
make evaluation.. But the final decision is not within them but Eurogroup or ECOFinance
and other political bodies of the Council. It was very experimentive, but not smart. If u are
from Central Europe TROIKA, you will see the sense (three)... and it was a Stalin project
where people were executed and sent to the Gulag. The Council should have been more
sensitive in that sense.

So, the EU had to react in an improvised way dealing with both the limits by political bills
in their countries, constraints of EU legal framework and by absence or institutional
plans in such a crisis. Shifting power balance between the big three- four institutions
(ECB, Parliament, Council…), increasing cooperation between eurozone countries to some
extent of the most economically important and then, also creating some new institution (not
particularly elegant but able to provide the necessary service)

- and then the lack of attention given to the European governance institutional
dimension during this big debate in the first decade, which materialized in the Lisbon
Treaty.

LECTURE 9. EU INSTITUTIONAL REACTION TO BREXIT

800 - 1000 characters per question.

Which arguments were used by the European Parliament to support the spechinkandidat
system.

Institutional design of the EU is still not ready to deal with the crisis similar to the migration
crisis in 2015. Discuss.

Brexit is quite a fascinating legal experiment from the legal perspective of rather use of non
particularly sophisticated clause in the EU Treaties (article 50 Treaty of EU) applied in a very
complex situation in a decentralised state in many aspects.
Today we will look more at institutional design.

Usually, this restriction applies here British leaving into the dark. The problem was much
more subtle and much more complex.

From the institutional perspective, we can see FIVE MAJOR PHASES and different periods
of the process. We can also divided it into the brexit impact: interaction EU-27 and the UK
and interaction impact on the EU institutions as such (how the institutions change without the
British element).

1. Phase minus one. Before referendum (23rd June 2016)

What happened there was that the British prime Minister David Cameron commits British
voters before the elections that if he wins the election he will renegotiate the Treaty
framework and relation between UK and EU.
He won the election, went to the European Council and asked for a new deal for Britain.
However, he was not particularly successful because other EU politicians of other
countries and institutions didn’t believe that this threat of Britain leaving the EU was
particularly serious or likely to happen. The referendum was already promised but very few
people at the EU side contemplate it seriously. As negotiations advanced without success,
the relations between UK and the EU progressively worsened, especially with the chairman
of the European Commission, Juncker and with the European People’s Party.

Cameron returned to London with very few things to apport. In 2016 there were specific
British Packages agreed at the European Council but it was a political promise which
might be renegotiated during next changes of European law and it was very little, it couldn’t
be presented as a political success (technicalities written in very unclear language, quite
unhelpful).
The EU institutions were not in chemistry with Cameron, he alienated a rather big
number of politicians in the European Council and he was unable to persuade them that it
was a serious risk.
In the European Commission, he was weakened by the fact he didn’t have chemistry with
the chair one (German: Juncker). Cameron was one of the politicians (with Orban) that in
2014 was voting against Juncker to be appointed as a chairman.
Cameron unsuccessfully claimed that a country as big and important as Britain should have
the … regardless of formal rules (Chair of the EC is voted by a qualified majority of the EU
states in the Council) and he lost. Definitely the relation between Juncker and Cameron was
not good.
In the European Parliament the situation was similar, Cameron was leader of the
Conservative Party, which at that time was part of the European Conservative group which
was not at the center of European decision making. So, at the end his connection with the
decision makers of the Parliament was relatively weak.

2. Phase 1: Referendum
The first proper phase started with the referendum, in June 2016 and ended when the UK
delivered its formal notification of intention to withdraw on 29 March 2017. The referendum
was made according to UK electoral norms, without any intervention of the EU.
Internal British business, and the EU took a very low profile intervening into it. Even
the European Court of Justice was asked to intervene regarding internal rules of the
referendum, in particular those that excluded British citizens who are living outside for a long
time from voting, and rules which not permitted EU citizens and Irish (he thinks) which were
residents of the UK were not permitted to vote. The Court of Justice said it was outside of
its jurisdiction, so the EU didn't intervene into rules or the campaign.

The day after the referendum, with the result of leaving the EU, we entered the first phase of
the Brexit process, which ended in March 2017 (9 months of duration). Is a phase which can
be described as a time when legally changed nothing (almost), and politically almost
everything.
In the design of the article 50, the real institutional changes and steps at the EU level start
only when the country leaving the EU announces formally the European Council its intention
to leave, then everything starts. Until then, nothing happens but everyone knows the country
is leaving and that’s quite a difficult situation when you have to follow all the procedures rules
(full participation of the UK in all the Institutions) but they knew they were going to the Brexit
process, so how to deal with it? We had to improvise (photo).
You use those modified institutions which are more flexible than standard institutions. For
instance, the meeting of the European Council. In the EC, until this February / March 2017
the Britain had full right to access any meetings, so what they did was to call for ‘’informal’’
European Council meetings with no written formal rules. Slovakia was the President
(Bratislava Summit) when the prime minister invited all the leaders of all EU countries but
Britain. The British complained and said it was unfair and against European integration, but it
was everything they could do because there were no rules.

Apart from that, member states agreed on the abolition of the British Presidency of the
European Council, there was already timetable for rotating presidencies and it was quite
evident that it was useless that british were and they agreed that the british presidency
would be abolished and the time schedule would be reshuffled.
The Member of the European Commission from Britain resigned and they nominated more a
diplomat instead of a politician and changed portfolio.
Regarding the European Parliament, some MEPs asked for Britain to abstain from voting
some things that would not be materialised after, but they refused to do so (full right to
attend so they would attend). How this would impact on the portfolio allocation for british
MEPS they were taken less seriously.

This happened in the first phase, the British approach to the EU institutions to talk about the
conditions and Brexit, and the answer was no until they made the formal announcement
(art. 50.2) . There were debates and coordinations between EU institutions: EU Council, EU
Parliament and European Commission each of them they appointed their coordinative
person responsible for Brexist and all together agreed that the Commission would be the
major contact point for British and the Commission negotiator Michael Barnier was the
Mr. Eurobrexit, which is important his profile: french formal member of european commission
then, high civil servant and high recognised in France (very senior figure but not someone
holding a political office in any country or not a Commissioner also, outside of the College).

Of course there were institutional changes inside the UK, change in the position of David
Cameron after the referendum (he resigned) and Theresa May became the leader of the CP
and Prime Minister. They slightly redesigned the Foreign Office they separate special
department Ministry for External Economic Relations and create a Department for Brexit.
Fascinating legal disputes, whether this Brexit letter can be triggered by the Government
itself or it must be approved by the Parliament. It ended up in the Supreme Court who ruled
that the Parliament has nothing to say, which turned into a tough reaction (‘’enemies of the
people’’).

This phase ended with the formal notification of withdrawal by the UK in March 2017.

PHASE 2.
Theresa May delivered the formal letter explaining intends to leave the EU at the end of
March 2017, when they were celebrating the Anniversary of LT.
So, afterwards according to article 50.2 and 3, still the Britain was a full member of the
EU and full participation in ALL EU institutions (agencies, Council, Commission, Court of
Justice), but there was a specific clause saying that Britain can be excluded from the
Meetings of the European Council or the Council meetings which are dealing within
EU position into Brexit.
So, formally something has changed and they were the Britain on the European Summits
which were debating the position of the red lines in the Brexit process, and Theresa May and
british negotiators and diplomats were sent out of the room, and they started negotiations on
the Brexit Treaty because there were too variants: negotiate the Brexit without agreement
with the EU and UK which must be approved by the European Parliament and by
qualified majority of the European Council (not full consensus) and approved on the
British side by their own constitutional rules and their Parliament, but the negotiation
was going on and it started rather late because, because the first phase of negotiation was
focused on the financial commitments of Britain until Brexit and beyond Brexit, both parts
were still discussing what topics discuss first.
The legal issue was that attention between the EU and British position was to talk about, the
British wanted to talk at the same time about the Brexit Treaty and the Treaty regulating the
Future (trade+corporations). EU 27 in contrast said that they first had to negotiate the Brexit
Treaty.
In addition to that, the British were presenting different topics and plans that made an
unclear position: soft brexit, norwegian model, hard brexit… And the EU was reactive in
many aspects.
At the end, the EU 27 position prevailed and started first to negotiate the terms of the
Brexit Treaty and only after many months of negotiations, the Council said yes we have the
content of the Treaty advanced sufficiently, we can open the debate of the final negotiations
(post - Brexit: trade and corporations agreement).
At the end we have two documents:
- the Brexit Treaty, rather long and detailed. Cortex, special protocol (North Ireland,
Gibraltar…).
- Declaration on the Future Relations between the EU and UK. Shorter, political
declaration.

Even this was more and more complicated, Theresa May negotiated and deal with EU27
team, but before formally signing it the british government and Parliament supported by the
position of judictionary but the final design by the Parliament, said we will not only ratify this
Treaty after it signs before the British government signs this Treaty it must have an extra
approval and Theresa May was unable to get it several times, so things somehow went lock
and Theresa asked for extension negotiation period, got it and it get again prolong (2
years and 9 months from the official letter) the double agreement entered into force 1
February 2020, and it was supposed to be ready by March 2019.

CONSEQUENCES OF THE DELAY:

Firstly, you have changed and challenged Theresa May and of course you had Theresa May
lost and Boris Johnson became 1M, and he was able to slightly modify the Brexit
agreement (Double Agreement), specially regarding details of Irish protocol but, in particular
he was able to win the elections. By getting this pre-approval of the Parliament and then
signing it and ratifying in the British Parliament, but this delay of 10 months had interesting
institutional consequences.
In 2019, you had European Parliament elections and the UK was a member state. So
what was expected was that they would organise the elections to the European Parliament
but they refused because they were there for two more months so they considered that it
made no sense.
Political deal of what to do with the left British seat of the Parliament. Some of them were
expected to be allocated to fit demographic development and there was the idea that some
bunch of seats would be used as the paneuropean district, which was rejected, etc.
Quite complicated in the EP, like how to deal with majorities. You have to calculate only
those people who were elected to the Parliament, leaving the british outside or do we should
include the British in the calculus because formally they could be elected, but they didn’t
want to be elected (procedures consequences)
In the autumn 2019 the Commission was created and there was a place for british
commissioner, because british were still members of the EU but, of course british said
we’re not sending anyone and Commission says they have to do it and they even threat
to start legal actions against Britain for not organising EP elections and not sending the
Commissioner (legalistic formalism of the Commission behaviour).
When Britain had to fully participate in the European institutions with the exception of these
meetings of the European Council and Council it was over by the end of January 2020.
As we said, Boris Johnson achieved to get the Withdraw Agreement approved and it entered
into force by February the 1st 2020, so phase 2 of Brexit ended.

PHASE 3. Transition period

This phase was included in the Double Agreement, which lasts until the end of 2020. There
was quite an interesting situation when Britain didn’t have representatives in EU
institutions anymore, because Britain was not a member but still Britain was binding by
the vast majority of the EU rules even though these were adopted during this transition
period and without participation. For instance, European Court of Justice had almost full
jurisdiction over Britain until the end of 2020, including infringement actions (were used) and
including the power to answer problemary questions posed by british courts, so it's quite
interesting but there was no british commissioner, no member of the Parliament, no british
minister at the Council meetings or british 1M at the European Council.
The only interesting thing or conflicting part was the Court of Justice because judges are
not representing the country, but they left at the 1st of february and who stayed was the
advocate general because there were no appointment replacing her and there is less
advocate general than member states, so continuing in someway until its term but in the
autumn 2020 they appointed another instead of her, she challenges replacement at the
Court of Justice but she lost.
Then, regarding the Council and Commission (no British Commisioner) and Parliament (no
British Ministers) in the Council there was one big player missing so the power box was
changed and still is under debate how it is currently. The classical explication of France and
Germany are pro integrationist and Britain blocking them does not apply anymore, but still
we need more time to put this intuitive thinking into hard numbers.
What was very visible was in the European Parliament because simply British MEPs
disappeared from the liberal group, socialist group, solidarity and democracy, radical and
eurosceptic groups. The major challenge was for the European Conservative and Reform
Group composed primarily of the people from the Conservative party and polish (Law and
Justice Party) and smaller people (Civic Democratic Party of CR) but, without conservatives
not only shranks but it is working on its identity and there were several attempts weather
(radicalization and nearer to the far-right), for instance the Fides would get membership
because after being spelled from the European People’s party, but still it is in process of
transformation and we don’t know its future.

PHASE 4.
January 2021 when the transitional period expired and Britain is fully out of the EU and the
relations are regulated primarily by Corporation and Trade Agreement between EU27 and
the UK, but still some institutional things survive from the Withdraw Treaty. For instance, the
specific join of Committees and Consultation Bodies between both which should prevent
escalation of conflict and define most technicalities of future cooperation. Moreover, there is
a special regime for Northern Irland and Gibraltar issues where the power of Court of Justice
survived the Brexit.