W3: impact of EU regulation (Knill & Lehmkuhl)

Question 1

Europeanisation

Answer 1

the impact of the EU on policies, political processes and institutions in the member states

Question 2

The national impact of European Union regulatory policy:

Answer 2

• A lot has been written about developments at the European levels and the extent to which domestic conditions affect the outcome of supranational institution-building and policy making
• But only recently more studies have focused on the Eropeanization of domestic institutions. Aim of this article to provide a more comprehensive framework for explaining the domestic impact of European policy making.

Question 3

Three mechanisms for europeanisation

Answer 3

Institutional compliance (direct)
- EU adopts binding legislation (prescribes institutional model)
- Mostly positive integration: environmental protection, health and safety at work, consumer protection and sections of social policy.
- Community policies are explicitly directed at replacing existing domestic regulatory arrangements. They imply a real re-shaping and re-forming of existing domestic provisions

Changing domestic opportunity structures (indirect)
- EU rules/norms change the distribution of power and resources between domestic actors (without prescribing outcomes): altering the domestic rules of the game.
- Mostly negative integration: exclude certain options from the range of national policy choices rather than positively prescribe distinctive institutional models to be introduced at the national level.
- Good example: free movement, if you are a firm based in Belgium, you are able to move your firm, get people from other states, sell everywhere. You can use this to pressure governments

Framing domestic beliefs and expectations (indirect)
- EU offers models and best practices that frame beliefs
- Changes in domestic beliefs may in turn affect strategies and preferences of domestic actors, potentially leading to corresponding institutional adaptations

Question 4

What determines the impact?
Institutional compliance

Answer 4

Step 1: are changes in domestic arrangements required?
- we consider the institutional compatibility of the European model with domestic arrangements (‘goodness of fit’).

Step 2: (un)favourable constellation and opportunity structures?
- The fact that domestic adjustments are actually possible from an institutional compatibility perspective does not mean that such changes actually take place
- Therefore: to what extent is there sufficient domestic support for adjusting to EU requirements? To what extent do domestic actors who support regulatory change have sufficient powers and resources to ensure that their interests prevail?

Question 5

What determines impact?
Changing domestic opportunity structures

Answer 5

Step 1: (uncontested) coalition?
- The extent to which a domestic policy context is characterized by a contested interest constellation and a relatively even distribution of powers and resources across opposing actor coalitions. If one actor coalition is dominant, EU impact is unlikely.

Step 2: detailed analyses of specific context constellation
- You need to know if the changes in domestic opportunity structures actually strengthen those actor coalitions which support the objectives

Question 6

What determines impact?
Framing domestic beliefs and expectations

Answer 6

Option 1: broad consensus for reform exists -> EU affects reform outcome
- the impact of European framing might change the outcome of national reforms that occur independently of European influence.
- European beliefs and ideas might provide a ‘focal point’ for domestic developments, offering potential solutions or ideas to deal with domestic problems.
- In other words, European beliefs, while being well in line with the ‘core beliefs’ of the dominant domestic actor coalition, shape domestic reform outcomes by altering ‘secondary aspects’ within the domestic belief systems

Option 2: EU framing causes consensus for reform -> EU affects reform process
- By affecting the beliefs and expectations of domestic veto players, European framing can play a decisive role in bringing about a consensus on national reforms.
- In this way European influence contributes to the emergence of a dominant advocacy coalition (Lavenex 1999) whose core beliefs are fairly congruent with the ideas behind European legislation.

Question 7

Knill & Lehmkuhl demonstrate these models

Answer 7

Institutional models three cases of environmental issues in three countries:
- Drinking water directive, access to information directive and the Environmental Management and Auditing System regulation
- Six of the nine cases can be explained on the basis of the first explanatory step which takes into account the institutional compatibility between European requirements and domestic arrangements
- Some cases: existing regulatory arrangements at the national level were already well in line with European requirements. low pressure for changes

Europeanization by changing domestic opportunity structures: The case of road haulage in four countries
- Liberalization of the transport sector and the introduction of the right of non-resident transport hauliers to operate in foreign markets (cabotage)

Europeanization by mobilizing for domestic support: European railways policies
- railways were not seen as purely economic actors but as the providers of a public service with obligations that had to be maintained for political reasons.
- new strategy was to alter the national policy making context by increasing domestic support for its reform programme.