AND BARGAINING IN BRUSSELS

The ten states that make up the European Community undoubtedly constitute a pluralistic security community. War between Germany and France—a possibil­ity only a generation ago—seems most unlikely today. The main indicators of such a security community, the lack of targeted military capabilities or military plans, are to be found in these states as well as in North America. But whereas Canada and the United States are in no process of economic or political integra­tion, and possess no institutions with supranational powers, France, Germany, Italy, and the Benelux countries created an organization that does possess such powers. In 1967, the three main institutions of European economic integration— the Common Market, the Coal and Steel Community, and Euratom—were com­bined into one organization, which we call the European Community. Although the members still conduct most of their foreign and defense policies indepen­dently or within the context of NATO, collaboration in economics, trade, tariffs, atomic energy, and transportation goes on primarily within the text of the Com­munity's organizations.

⁵ A more detailed account of conflict-resolving procedures in Canadian-American relations is in KJ. Holsti and Thomas Levy, "Bilateral Institutions and Transgovernmental Relations between Canada and the United States," International Organization, 28 (1974), 875-902. For evidence of in­creased conflict in the early 1970s, see Peyton Lyon and Brian Tomlin, Canada as an International Actor (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1979), chap. 7.

448 The Interaction of States: Collaboration

The main institutions of the Community combine features of both ordi­nary intergovernmental organizations such as NATO or the United Nations, where the members negotiate and bargain with each other until they can reach some kind of settlement or common policy, and a type of supranational organiza­tion, where international civil servants, not responsible to any one government, possess some authority to make binding decisions over member states and their citizens. This is the most important distinction between institutions of an inte­grated community, diplomatic-type organizations in pluralistic security commu­nities, and intergovernmental organizations. Several other distinctions are also evident. In the European Community, most decisions made by the member gov­ernments are reached through majority votes; policies resulting from these votes are binding on all members, including those who oppose them. In the United Nations, on the other hand, no state is compelled to accept or implement deci­sions reached in the organization relating to pacific settlement of disputes and conflicts. Second, the European Community possesses institutions that them­selves administer a common policy; to implement these policies, they are not dependent, in many cases, on national administrative structures, although these necessarily have to cooperate. This feature is seldom observed in intergovern­mental organizations. Third, the European Community, through the Commis­sion, has some direct authority over citizens and corporations within the member states and may enforce its policies by bringing suit or levying fines against individ­uals or corporations that do not conform to the policies established by the organization. Such diversion of law-enforcing authority to a supranational admin­istration is not an ordinary feature of international organizations.

The institutions of the Community that possess these mixed characteris­tics of intergovernmental and supranational powers include the following:

1. The executive Commission is made up of technical experts appointed by common agreement among the member governments, and responsible only to the organi­zation. They may initiate policy recommendations and administer those policies that have been approved by the member governments. Members of the Commis­sion also sit in on all meetings of the Council of Ministers, and represent the viewpoint of the Community.

2. The Council of Ministers, attended by national representatives, has the final authority to formulate and approve common policies, and to bargain with other member states.

3. The European Council, meeting three times yearly, is attended by the heads of government of members. These are informal meetings, but often important decisions are taken, and it often serves as a useful device for resolving impasses in the Council of Ministers.

4. The Assembly, made up of representatives elected by popular vote, has the authority to discuss and review the policies and actions of the Commission and the Council of Ministers.

5. The Court of Justice of the communities reviews the legality of Commission and Council decisions and disposes of legal cases arising under the founding treaties. It considers conflicts brought by governments against each other, by

449 The Interaction of States: Collaboration

governments against the Commission, and by individuals or business enterprises against the Commission. By 1980, the Court had disposed of more than 3,000 cases involving individual, intergovernmental, and organizational matters.

The pattern of decision making and collaboration within the Commission and the Council of Ministers is very complex and involves work by hundreds of bureaucrats, both national and international. Typically, the Commission will begin planning rules, regulations, and directives that would give effect to the goal of economic integration. In making up the multitude of proposals, members of the Commission consult with the Permanent Representatives of the member states, who are all located in Brussels. The Permanent Representatives report to their own governments and naturally consult extensively with their own bu­reaucrats in the national capital. The Permanent Representatives defend national points of view, but, as they are intimately connected with all the affairs of the Community, they often urge their own governments to support the Commission's point of view as well.⁶ When the long process of consultation has been completed and a coherent set of proposals emerges, the Commission presents them to the Council of Ministers, comprising the foreign, economics, finance, or trade ministers of the member states. The Commission sits in the Council as a sort of eleventh member, except that it represents the viewpoint of the Community, not that of any member state. It can argue in favor of its proposals, make new proposals, or act as a mediator should some of the ministers find themselves in a deadlock.

Voting in the Council of Ministers is complicated. Most decisions are based on qualified majorities, based on a system of weighted voting (for example, France has more votes than Luxembourg or Belgium). In other cases, unanimity or a simple majority is required. The important point is that theoretically most decisions of the Council can be taken against the will of one or more of the governments—although, as we will see, the informal "code" of operation in the Council requires the ministers to reach an agreement acceptable to all. De Gaulle's vetoes on Britain's entry to the Common Market in 1963 and 1967, his threat to withdraw from the institutions of the Community in 1966, and Prime Minister Thatcher's showdown over British fees to the Community in 1980 were serious breaches of the normal pattern of decision making. Most policy for the Community is made through the slow and difficult process of fashioning an overall consensus through persuasion, presentation of evidence, and documentation of need. In recent years, however, as the European govern­ments have faced fuel shortages, recession, inflation, and unemployment, the major members of the Community have held a virtual veto power on some decisions. Some programs simply could not be implemented without French, British, and German acquiescence.

As in Canadian-American relations, certain assumptions, traditions, and

⁶ Leon N. Lindberg, The Political Dynamics of European Economic Integration (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1963), p. 79.

450 The Interaction of States: Collaboration

unwritten rules govern the settlement of problems, the pattern of collaboration, or the fashioning of new policies. Most proposals reaching the Council of Minis­ters involve losses and gains for the member states. Each minister will naturally attempt to see that the final outcome reflects the interests of his government to the maximum extent possible. But unlike negotiations in a violent conflict, where the basic issue is a settlement or the continuation of conflict, the negotia­tors in the Council of Ministers start with an implicit agreement that a final decision must be the end result; they assume that mutual concessions must be made, since the normal practice, occasional French exceptions notwithstanding, is to exclude the possibility of not reaching an agreement at all.⁷ Moreover, in the lengthy discussions, a built-in mediator is always present. The Commission constantly represents the views of the Community, and because it is armed with technical expertise and an aura of legitimacy, it is in a powerful position to influence the bargaining positions of the member states. Ministers are more apt to make concessions and to justify those concessions to their home govern­ments, if they are made in the name of the Community rather than, for example, of another state such as Germany or Luxemburg.⁸ The Commission, in sum, is in a strong position to overcome strictly national imperatives.

Moreover, most issues are dealt with as "problems." That is, solutions can be based on data, the elucidation of needs, and the application of technology. Ideological principles seldom color the bargaining that takes place within the European Council, Council of Ministers, or between the Commission and the Permanent Representatives. Thus, decisions and settlements are based less on the power, prestige, capabilities, or reputation of member states than on the objectives of the organization and the most convincing needs of its members. On many issues before the Council, French ministers have reduced their demands to accommodate the Netherlands, and on other issues, the Germans or Italians have retreated from their bargaining positions in order to placate the Belgians. In other words, no government consistently gains or withdraws from its objec­tives because it is economically or militarily weak or strong.⁹

The bargaining that goes on within the Council of Ministers offers a dramatic contrast to the formality, coldness, and vituperation that goes on in negotiations between hostile states. According to Lindberg, the ministers gener­ally display considerable sensitivity toward the needs of other member states. The atmosphere is informal, in part because the ministers know each other well and are, in some cases, good personal friends. Long, formal speechs are rare; banter and jokes are often in evidence. There seems to be an awareness that the ministers are working on a common problem, one in which compromise is expected from all sides in order to obtain a Community solution.¹⁰ If agreement cannot be fashioned, the proposals or projects are normally returned to the

⁷ Lindberg.Political Dynamics of European Economic Integration, p. 285. * Ibid., р. 286.

⁹ Haas. The Uniting of Europe, pp. 524-25.

¹⁰ Lindberg. Political Dynamics of European Economic Integration, pp. 76—77.

451 The Interaction of States: Collaboration

Commission for reworking. The Commission then reestablishes contact with the Permanent Representatives, or with national bureaucrats, and irons out the remaining problems. In these relationships, collaboration rather than conflict is the rule.

Although the Community's practices have altered to some extent because of French threats and vetoes during the 1960s and economic nationalism in the 1970s, the experience since 1952, starting with the Coal and Steel Commu­nity, has been the gradual emergence of an unwritten "procedural code" that has come to be called the "Community method." According to Lindberg and Scheingold, the method includes the following expectations and practices:

1. Member governments express strong support for the Community, emphasize the benefits to be gained from participation, and downgrade the possibilities of failure or of withdrawal.

2. The governments recognize the Commission as a legitimate bargaining partner and occasional mediator, as well as a spokesman for the interests of the collectiv­ity.

3. Bargaining is approached in terms of problem solving, not gaining victories for any single member or bloc of members. Negotiations concern how solutions are to be achieved, not whether they should be achieved.

4. All member governments are attentive and responsive to each other's needs and interests. This extends to the Commission as well. Unacceptable demands are avoided, and divisive issues are usually postponed.

5. Governments and the Commission are willing to make compromises and to withdraw from positions in order to uphold the common interest and secure long-range benefits.

6. They agree that unanimity should be achieved on all contentious issues and that bargaining should continue until agreement has been reached and all objec­tions have been overcome. Losses in one area, for a member state, should be compensated for by gains in another. Since bargaining often crosses over from one issue area to another, the governments are able to arrange '"package" deals, although often only after lengthy, marathon negotiation sessions.¹¹

Repeated exposure to these sorts of bargaining sessions, and the many successful outcomes that have resulted from them, undoubtedly build up per­sonal commitments among the ministers. In conventional diplomatic negotia­tions, final settlements do not necessarily reflect the technical correctness of a position, but rather degrees of need, dependence, and threat credibility and the bargaining skills of each side. In the negotiations among the ministers and the Commission, however, compromises are often reached on the basis of techni­cal criteria. The ministers' knowledge of each other and of the needs of other member governments (responsiveness) enables them to distinguish between ar­guments based on bargaining points and arguments based on real needs and

¹¹ Leon N. Lindberg and Stuart A. Scheingold,Europe's Would-Be Polity (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970), pp. 96-97. See also Ernst B. Haas, "The Study of Regional Integration: Reflections on thejoy and Anguish of Pretheorizing,"International Organization, 24 (1970), 618.

452 The Interaction of States: Collaboration

interests. The result is that the discussions focus mainly around technical consid­erations rather than ideological, sentimental, or national positions.¹²

What conclusions are we to draw from these comparisons of bargaining behavior and conflict resolution in an integrating community and in violent conflicts and disputes? First, we must remember that problems in the European Community are concerned primarily with economic questions, involving issues where technical factors and information can be easily used to influence negotia­tors. In conflicts arising out of incompatible ideological values, long-range objec­tives, territorial claims, or more diffuse national aspirations, no such precise criteria for agreement exist. Second, the member governments and their negoti­ating representatives in the Community are aware of long-run common advan­tages that can be used to justify short-run economic sacrifices. But when one state makes demands on another country's territory, or in some way threatens its core interests, it is difficult to convince the victim that it will gain some advantage by acceding to those demands or threats. Third, the pattern of collabor­ation and conflict resolution within economically integrating communities has not yet been completely duplicated in negotiations on military and political questions between the same governments. Within NATO, for example, negotia­tions on military questions resemble classical bargaining behavior, where agree­ment is usually based on the lowest common denominator and the military capacity of each member plays an important role in determining its influence in the bargaining process.

On the other hand, within such nonintegrated organizations as NATO, diplomatic bargaining, conflict resolution, and policy making often display the characteristics of responsiveness, adherence to strict rules of negotiating eti­quette, and avoidance of military threats to achieve objectives. In short, resolu­tion of conflicts within pluralistic security communities and in many international organizations falls somewhere between the patterns of behavior found in inte­grating communities and in conflicts involving violence.

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