Prof Frank Delmartino & Ms Ana Maria Dobre

Professor Frank Delmartino and Ms Ana Maria Dobre
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

The European Integration System and its Methods of Policy-making. An Overview and Assessment

Abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to present the experience of EU integration ad intra (the methods of internal policy-making) and ad extra (the external dimension). We will argue that there has been no single magical formula for integration in the European Union. The continent-wide structures of governance have gradually taken form via a variety of modes of cooperation and integration. It is an ongoing process of broadening the scope vis-à-vis new policy fields and new member states. The paradigm of multi-level governance is not only valid for positioning the EU vis-à-vis the national, regional and local levels. One can observe multiple levels of integration within the EU policy-making system as well.

On the one hand, we will highlight the binding arrangements that are made, without neglecting the many other types of decision-making, such as: coordination, strategic objectives, open method of coordination, co-regulation (e.g. with an industrial sector ). The EU will be presented as an integration process that encompasses almost all policy fields but deals with them in an highly diversified way: from the strongly 'unified', almost supranational approach of the single market and the common monetary affairs to the 'periphery', where judicial cooperation and social policies are dealt with in a more intergovernmental way.

On the other hand, we will draw attention to the EU mode of dealing with enlargement. A short overview of the different waves of EU enlargement and especially of the recent accession processes of new member states offers a very interesting picture of the EU’s approach to its own membership and the other international actors (states and organisations of states). We will examine the trends of institutionalisation specific to the EU approach towards potential future member states and the instruments and mechanisms that the EU developed in order to create a binding process of domestic adaptation and preparation for accession. Accordingly, we will describe and discuss the EU conditionality framework by looking at the formal and informal accession conditions and requirements: the Copenhagen criteria, the annual Commission’s reports, the formal monitoring and the “shame and blame” Commission’s procedure etc.

Biographical notes:

Professor Frank Delmartino retired in 2005 as director of the Institute of International and European Policy at Leuven University (Belgium). He is still a Jean Monnet Chairholder for European Institutions and Policies.
Born in Brussels in 1939, he studied political science and medieval history at Leuven University, obtaining his Ph.D. in 1975 with a dissertation on the organisation and management of local authorities in Belgium. As a researcher, his publications mainly deal with regional governance and the political legitimacy of the EU. Appointed as an associate professor in 1979 and as a professor in 1995, he has taught comparative politics, European institutions and polices, and multi-level governance. He is a visiting professor at the College of Europe in Bruges, teaching on the ‘Concepts and Perceptions of the European Union’. His many teaching and research assignments abroad include: Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Fudan University in Shanghai, National University in Seoul and the Academia Sinica in Taipei.

Ms Ana Maria Dobre is working towards her doctorate at the Institute for International and European Policy, the University of Leuven, Belgium. Her dissertation topic is the Europeanisation of Spanish and Romanian territorial politics and the adaptation and transformation of domestic regional systems of governance in the context of EU enlargement. In the framework of her doctoral studies she has taught on the European Union’s policies, and especially on the EU’s regional policy.
Previously, she studied at the University of Bucharest, Romania, and at the Free University of Brussels, and she obtained, in 2002, an M.A. in European Politics from the College of Europe, Bruges. Currently, she is also co-editor of the Collection European Studies, at the European Institute Publishing House, Iasi, Romania.

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