Coordination of European policies

The role of socialization and conditionality instruments in the process of Europeanization and EU's use of these instruments in its enlargement policy towards Eastern neighbors have been widely discussed in the European integration literature. However, few studies have dealt with the differentiated impact of these two instruments on the internal European integration coordination structures in Eastern Neighbors. The proposed paper aims at evaluating the impact of the use of socialization and/or conditionality-based instruments by the EU towards its Eastern neighbors on the formation and transformation of European integration coordination structures. The paper observes European integration coordination structures of CEEC countries in a comparative case study to examine how EU's use of conditionality and socialization instruments generates different responses with regards to formation and transformation of European integration coordination structures. We argue that conditionality stimulates formation and transformation of coordinating structures in Eastern neighbors, while socialization based instruments do not prompt such response.

Niniejsze opracowanie stanowi próbę przedstawienia najważniejszych oraz najbardziej aktualnych z punktu widzenia europejskiego i polskiego prawa zagadnień związanych z koordynacją polityk unijnych w Polsce. Zespół badawczy, składający się z pracowników naukowych Instytutu Nauk Politycznych oraz Katedry Europeistyki Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego odpowiada w niniejszej publikacji na pytania nie tylko o sposób koordynowania polskich stanowisk do instytucji europejskich oraz wdrażania europejskiego prawa na poziomie krajowym, ale także o efektywność koordynacji oraz jej znaczenie w kontekście politycznej, społecznej i gospodarczej sytuacji Polski i wyzwań, jakie niesie ze sobą realizacja polskich interesów w Unii Europejskiej.

Coordination is reaching agreements through consistent operation of various parts of the system to achieve a particular purpose. Efficiency is one of the key concepts relating to the coordination of EU policies in the Member States of the EU. Although there are several tools to measure efficiency of coordination on domestic level, such as the scale of Metcalfe and benchmarks of the World Bank, there is no complex set of tools to measure the multifaceted efficiency of coordination. This paper consists of two main parts: 1/ analysis of efficiency of coordination of EU policies in the Polish government institutions using existing methods of evaluating efficiency and analysis of required improvements in the coordination system of Poland, 2/ analysis of possible improvements in measuring efficiency of coordination of EU policies, based on the paradigm of New Public Management and using theories typical for modeling business processes in private companies. The paper bases on qualitative research conducted in Polish ministries involved in domestic coordination. The research results show certain lacks in efficiency of coordination in Poland according to traditional tools of measuring efficiency. At the same time use of these tools does not allow for proper diagnosis and finding solutions to recent problems of coordination. Recommendations give some solutions to challenges of efficient coordination on domestic level using broader set of tools for measuring coordination efficiency.

The Lisbon Treaty has introduced numerous changes to the shape and role of the Council Presidency. However, it seems that the actual effect of those changes is not so big as might appear from the text of the Treaty. While a legal and institutional analysis of the Presidency on the basis of the Treaty of Lisbon gives a clear picture of the significantly changed role, quantitative and qualitative empirical research conducted by the author among officials involved in the Presidencies of Spain and Belgium do not fully confirm this picture. This article aims at analyzing the reasons and manifestations of certain discrepancies between the planned shape and powers of the Council Presidency in the Treaty of Lisbon and its actual role in practice.

This chapter examines this process of coordination to show how EU institutions adopt the set of Country Specific Recommendations (CSRs) that are issued annually by the Commission, endorsed by the European Council and approved by the Council in the framework of the European Semester. Drawing on interviews, it demonstrates that the European Semester is a process of coordination where constrains are deliberated and negotiated at three intertwined levels: in expert committees, where national experts exchange views and policy ideas with the Commission, in bilateral meetings between Member States and the Commission where Member States express their political will or unwillingness to implement reforms and seek to persuade the Commission to take into account their preferences and to consider their domestic situation, and, ultimately, in the Council, when the vote is used as a last resort mechanism to decide on issues unsolved by national experts. As the Council has to ‘comply or explain’ its position, at each stage Member States build coalitions to vote against the Commission’s proposals. Thus, the three levels of coordination are intertwined. At each stage, political and administrative actors seek to shape the degree of constraint by convincing their peers and the Commission about the validity of their claims in an attempt to avoid unpopular recommendations being implemented at the domestic level. The chapter concludes that although the coordination of policies has been improved in terms of process over time and has gained the support of all the actors involved (independently on their views on the policies at stake), it still lacks politicization, transparency and publicity, as most of these debates which are of great importance for European citizens take place behind closed doors, through negotiations and deliberations between representatives of the Commission, national experts and Member States’ representatives in the Council. The European Semester is an illustration of coordination of policies through executive politics.

This chapter examines this process of coordination to show how EU institutions adopt the set of Country Specific Recommendations (CSRs) that are issued annually by the Commission, endorsed by the European Council and approved by the Council in the framework of the European Semester. Drawing on interviews, it demonstrates that the European Semester is a process of coordination where constrains are deliberated and negotiated at three intertwined levels: in expert committees, where national experts exchange views and policy ideas with the Commission, in bilateral meetings between Member States and the Commission where Member States express their political will or unwillingness to implement reforms and seek to persuade the Commission to take into account their preferences and to consider their domestic situation, and, ultimately, in the Council, when the vote is used as a last resort mechanism to decide on issues unsolved by national experts. As the Council has to ‘comply or explain’ its position, at each stage Member States build coalitions to vote against the Commission’s proposals. Thus, the three levels of coordination are intertwined. At each stage, political and administrative actors seek to shape the degree of constraint by convincing their peers and the Commission about the validity of their claims in an attempt to avoid unpopular recommendations being implemented at the domestic level. The chapter concludes that although the coordination of policies has been improved in terms of process over time and has gained the support of all the actors involved (independently on their views on the policies at stake), it still lacks politicization, transparency and publicity, as most of these debates which are of great importance for European citizens take place behind closed doors, through negotiations and deliberations between representatives of the Commission, national experts and Member States’ representatives in the Council. The European Semester is an illustration of coordination of policies through executive politics.

Scopul prezentului studiu este de a analiza cadrul instituțional existent în Republica Moldova prin prisma evoluției procesului de integrare europeană, de a prezenta experiența instituțională a țărilor din Europa Centrală și de Sud-Est care au aderat la UE sau au perspectivă europeană clară, și de a formula în consecință propuneri pentru consolidarea mecanismului național de coordonare a procesului de integrare europeană și implicit a implementării Acordului de Asociere cu Uniunea Europeană. În ultima perioadă, atât în cadrul societății civile, cît și în sectorul public tot mai des se discută necesitatea consolidării mecanismului existent de coordonare a aspectelor care țin de implementarea politicii de integrare europeană.

This article deals with coordination of EU policies in the three Baltic countries: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Coordination refers in this context to a political process of both reaching agreements and consensus on the content of positions representing interests of those countries in EU institutions, as well as determining how to implement the European law and EU policies on national level. The main objective of the article is to shortly analyze the criteria and main indicators of the efficiency of EU policies coordination in the Baltic States in comparative perspective as well as to point out strengths and weaknesses of the coordination systems in the Baltic States in the light of coordination efficiency requirements. The article points out some aspects of construction and functioning of the coordination systems in the Baltic States and evaluates their meaning in the context of the EU seven-years-lasting membership.