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POLITICS AND MEDIA IN
MULTILEVEL GOVERNANCE:
THE POLITICAL SYSTEM OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
POLITICAL AND MEDIA SYSTEMS
DOC. MAREK RYBÁŘ, PHD.
SPRING 2024

INTRODUCTION
•The EU is the first genuinely supra-national political system.
•
•The EU evolved in half a century from an organization governing coal and
•steel production and a common market to a continental-scale political
•system, with extensive executive, legislative and judicial powers.
•
•The EU shares many characteristics of other multi-level political systems,
•which allows to apply analytical tools developed in CP.
•

EXPLANATIONS OF EUROPEAN
INTEGRATION  (1/2)
•At the early stage of EU integration, the phenomena was addressed with theories of “regional
integration”. By the mid 1960s, the intensity of political/economic cooperation was already far
greater than in any other region. A new theory was needed:
(1)Intergovernmental approaches:
• The main actors in the EU are the governments of the member-states with a clear set of policy
preferences.
•Early approaches expected that integration could not proceed further than to a minimal level. But
deeper integration and delegation of power can be in national governments interest (e.g. single
market).
•Model is coherent with “grand bargains” but less with day-to-day decision-making
•

EXPLANATIONS OF EUROPEAN
INTEGRATION  (2/2)
•(2) Supra-national approaches:
• EU integration is a deterministic process driven by underlying political, economic and social
forces.
•Neo-functionalist theories of economic and political integration: A specific action calls for
further action in order to achieve the original goal
•Other supra-national approaches stress the role of “non-state” actors in the integration process,
such as economic and social interest groups
•The model is coherent with explaining the integration process, but fails to explain fields of
“non-integration”

UNDERSTANDING THE EU
AS A POLITICAL SYSTEM  (1/3)
•According to Easton (1957) there are four essential characteristics in all democratic political
systems:
(1)Clearly defined set of institutions for collective decision-making and set of rules governing
relations between and within institutions
(2)Citizens try to achieve their political desires through a political system
(3)Collective decisions have an impact on distribution and allocation
(4)Continuous interaction between inputs and outputs of the political system
ØThe EU possesses all these characteristics. Hence the EU qualifies as political system (but not as
a state).

UNDERSTANDING THE EU
AS A POLITICAL SYSTEM  (2/3)
•The constitutional architecture of the EU:
•
•The EU’s catalogue of competence:
-Exclusive EU competences
-Shared competences
-Coordinated competences
-Exclusive member-state competences
•

UNDERSTANDING THE EU
AS A POLITICAL SYSTEM  (3/3)
•Shared executive powers:
-Council: Medium and long term policy agenda
-Commission: Formal monopoly on legislative initiative
•Shared legislative powers:
-Council: Under procedures of consultation and co-decision
-European Parliament (EP): Under co-decision procedure
•Shared judicial powers:
-European court of justice
-National courts

VERTICAL DIMENSION: THE EU
AS A “REGULATORY STATE”  (1/6)
•In contrast to the “welfare states” at the national levels, the EU is often described as a
“regulatory state”. This is due to the primacy of the single market and the centrality of the EU
market regulation policies.
•The single market has deregulatory and regulatory elements.
§Deregulatory side: The removal of barriers to the free movement of goods, services, capital and
labour:
-Fiscal barriers (e.g. harmonization of VAT)
-Physical barriers (e.g. custom formalities, border control)
-Technical barriers (non-tariff barriers)

VERTICAL DIMENSION: THE EU
AS A “REGULATORY STATE”  (2/6)
§Regulatory side: Replacement of national with European-wide regulation:
-Competition policies
-Environmental policies
-Social policies
•Whereas the EU’s social policies aim at making labour markets more efficient, national social
policies are geared towards providing benefits for particular social groups.
•EU regulations impose constraints on redistributive capacities of the national welfare states.

VERTICAL DIMENSION: THE EU
AS A “REGULATORY STATE”  (3/6)
•The Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union (EMU):
•The institutional design of the EMU:
• (1) The European Central Bank (ECB):
• The sole responsibility of defining and implementing monetary policy.
(2)Stability and growth pact (SGP):
•Budget deficits < 3% of GDP
•Questionable credibility
•

VERTICAL DIMENSION: THE EU
AS A “REGULATORY STATE”  (4/5)
•EU expenditure policies:
•The direct spending of the EU is relatively small (ca. 1% the of GDP of member states).
•The main fields of spending are:
-Common agricultural policies (CAP)
-Regional policy (economic and social cohesion)
-Scientific research
•The EU spending is a combination of “solidarity” and “side-payments”.
•Spending is difficult to terminate since EU budget decisions require unanimous agreement.
•

VERTICAL DIMENSION: THE EU
AS A “REGULATORY STATE”  (5/5)
•Interior policies and external relations:
•There are two areas of EU policy-making not strictly related to the EU’s main economic policies:
•Justice and interior affairs policies (immigration, asylum, police and judicial cooperation)
•EU’s external relation policies (International trade policies, Common Foreign and Security Policy
(CFSP), European Security and Defence Cooperation (ESDP)
•The EU is developing elements of a “security state”. But security and foreign policy remain highly
conflicting among member states.
•

HORIZONTAL DIMENSION: A HYPER
CONSENSUS SYSTEM (1/3)
•In the EU there are split agenda-setting powers and multiple veto players
•Ú hyper consensus system of government.
•This system of checks and balances means that legislation can only be adopted with support among
different veto players. Risk of a “gridlock”.
•Executive policies - Competing agenda setters:
§Council: Agenda is strongly influenced by the presidency of a member-state.
§Commission: Though considered to be “integrationist”, there remains a visible affiliation to the
“home-party”. The commission’s policy preferences are close to the median member.
•

HORIZONTAL DIMENSION: A HYPER
CONSENSUS SYSTEM (2/3)
•Bicameral legislative politics:
§EP: The “standard legislative procedure” guarantees equal power between EP and Council. The policy
preferences of the EP align along the left-right dimension.
§Council: Qualified-majority or unanimous voting. Division of policy preferences along many
dimensions (geo-political, economic, net contributors vs. net beneficiaries, left vs. right
governments etc.)
•

HORIZONTAL DIMENSION: A HYPER
CONSENSUS SYSTEM (3/3)
•Judicial politics:
•
§It was the CJEU that developed the doctrines of direct-effect and supremacy of EU law
§The CJEU frequently struck down the legislation adopted by the Council and the Parliament
§
•

POLITICS LIKE ANY OTHER?
•Hurrell and Menon disagree with Hix: there is no separation of everyday political (policy)
decisions from high-level political ones (politics)
•Integration benefits national governments, who remain the key actors
•National governments are in charge of EU integration, they can change the EU treaties as they see
fit
•EU institutions have no independent say in systemic decisions that concern the EU: unlike in
“normal” federal systems, EU (quasi-federal) bodies are not involved in decision-mking
•In times of crises, EU leaders (the European Council) visibly steer the course of EU integration

THE EU’S DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT
•Jan-Werner Müller: democratic deficit can disappaer only if EU citizens have enough opportunities
to form shared political views, and ultimately political demands, through common means of
communication
•At present, there are only “weakly Europeanized NATIONAL public speheres”
•until recently, the “permissive consensus” governed the EU affairs – EU integration worked because
voters did not object to the actions of political leaders pursuing integration project à that is no
longer the case! (financial & migration crises)
•Attempts to create a common European public sphere in the 1990s: the European, as Europe’s „first
national newspaper“ and setting up of the Euronews TV Channel: failure
•

A EUROPEAN PUBLIC SPHERE?
•the only truly European media are British – The Economist, The Financial Times and BBC: and the UK
is not an EU member state!
•Perhaps national public spheres sensitive to EU affairs are sufficient – citizens debate the same
issues in the same times
•Europeanization of national public spheres is supposed to have both a vertical and a horizontal
aspect:
•vertical refers to the visibility of EU actors and issues in national public spheres;
•horizontal refers to the notion that Europeans should have a voice outside their own nation-state
and that they should debate the same themes and issues at the same time

A EUROPEAN PUBLIC SPHERE?
•the problem is with the precise forms which politicization has taken so far: many of the new
conflicts have been framed as nation against nation, which is precisely the thing EU integration
seeks to prevent
•these conflicts (e.g. Germany vs Greece in the Eurozone crisis) weakened existing sentiments of
solidarity across borders
•the emerging state of highly fragmented (nationally bounded) public spheres in Europe in fact
mirror what has emerged inside these national public spheres – these too are highly fragmented,
given the decreasing impact of high quality media outlets and ascendance of new social media and
social networks:
•an ever-decreasing number of citizens read the high quality press; related worry is that the
high-quality press is losing not just readers but also editorial independence, due to investors
with substantial political interests
•