The Parliamentary Roots of European Social Policy: Turning Talk into Power [1 ed.] 3030782328, 9783030782320

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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN EUROPEAN UNION POLITICS SERIES EDITORS: MICHELLE EGAN · NEILL NUGENT · WILLIAM E. PATERSON

The Parliamentary Roots of European Social Policy Turning Talk into Power

Mechthild Roos

Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics

Series Editors Michelle Egan, American University, Washington, DC, USA Neill Nugent, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK William E. Paterson, Aston University, Birmingham, UK

Following on the sustained success of the acclaimed European Union Series, which essentially publishes research-based textbooks, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics publishes cutting edge research-driven monographs. The remit of the series is broadly defined, both in terms of subject and academic discipline. All topics of significance concerning the nature and operation of the European Union potentially fall within the scope of the series. The series is multidisciplinary to reflect the growing importance of the EU as a political, economic and social phenomenon. To submit a proposal, please contact Senior Editor Ambra Finotello [email protected]. This series is indexed by Scopus. Editorial Board Laurie Buonanno (SUNY Buffalo State, USA) Kenneth Dyson (Cardiff University, UK) Brigid Laffan (European University Institute, Italy) Claudio Radaelli (University College London, UK) Mark Rhinard (Stockholm University, Sweden) Ariadna Ripoll Servent (University of Bamberg, Germany) Frank Schimmelfennig (ETH Zurich, Switzerland) Claudia Sternberg (University College London, UK) Nathalie Tocci (Istituto Affari Internazionali, Italy)

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14629

Mechthild Roos

The Parliamentary Roots of European Social Policy Turning Talk into Power

Mechthild Roos University of Augsburg Augsburg, Germany

ISSN 2662-5873 ISSN 2662-5881 (electronic) Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics ISBN 978-3-030-78232-0 ISBN 978-3-030-78233-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78233-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Magic Lens/Shutterstock This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

There are people who love reading acknowledgements before diving into (or even regardless of) a book’s contents. I am one of them. They provide beautiful evidence that behind every book, there’s an author, and behind the author(s), there’s a crowd. Even if writing a monograph demands many, many hours in academic solitude (particularly tangible in times of a pandemic…), it is a pleasure to see that the published result builds strongly on a dense network of collaboration, friendship and love. That is certainly true for this book, which would be much poorer without the help and support of many people, bodies and organisations, the most important of whom I would like to mention here. First and foremost, I would like to express my profoundest gratitude to my doctoral supervisors—my Doktorvater David Howarth and Anna-Lena Högenauer at Luxembourg University, and N. Piers Ludlow at the LSE— under whose guidance this book took shape, and who are all in their own wonderful ways champions of advice, encouragement and inspiration, plus, over time, friendship, for which I am possibly the most grateful. I am furthermore very thankful for the advice I received from my examiners Berthold Rittberger, Francis Jacobs and Benoît Majerus (to whom I am particularly indebted because he showed confidence in my research and teaching abilities already before I had been granted an opportunity to prove them—indeed, without whose encouragement I might never have started a Ph.D. in the first place). I am furthermore very grateful to René

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Leboutte, under whose supervision this research project took off, and who offered much valuable advice prior to as well as after his retirement. In the assembly of the archival material on which the analysis of this book builds, I received great support from various archives and libraries. Special thanks go to the team of the Historical Archives of the European Parliament in Luxembourg—especially to Alexandra Devantier, for her patience and all her help with my many requests—and of the Historical Archives of the European Union in Florence, as well as of the Fondation Jean Monnet pour l’Europe in Lausanne, where I was granted a Henri Rieben Scholarship for archival research. I would not have gained as profound an understanding of internal processes, procedures and the dominating ideas in the European Parliament (EP) prior to 1979 without all the information, memories and experiences that former Members of the EP and EP staff shared with me. I am very grateful to the 26 contemporary witnesses who agreed to answer questions about their time in the EP,1 and also to the children, assistants and friends2 of the interviewees who helped with access, translation and technological implementation of the interviews. These interviews were conducted with generous financial support from the Institute of Political Science and the IPSE Doctoral School of the University of Luxembourg, and through a fieldwork grant from UACES, the association in the area of European studies most dear to me, where every event—regardless of its size or theme—feels like coming home. Friends and colleagues at various academic institutions have greatly helped me sharpen my arguments, look at my material from different and new angles and walk the fine line of interdisciplinary research, starting with the wonderful people at the Institutes of Political Science and History at the University of Luxembourg, my alma mater. Amelia Hadfield and her colleagues at the Centre for European Studies, Canterbury Christ Church University, allowed me to try out ideas and arguments, and to sharpen my academic research and writing skills as Jean

1 My gratitude goes not only to those 25 who are listed in the annex of Chapter 1 as interviewees, but also to Ep Wieldraijer, who had agreed to speak with me about his experiences in the EP prior to 1979, but who passed away three days before the scheduled day for the interview. 2 Special thanks go to Maurizio Travella for his help as a translator during the interview with Renato Ballardini.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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Monnet Guest Scholar at their centre. During an immensely productive and pleasant retreat as a Guest Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory in Frankfurt, I could then polish the manuscript in the most stimulating of settings. I am deeply grateful to Stefan Vogenauer, Head of the Department of European and Contemporary Legal History, for this opportunity, and to the great people in his team—especially to Philip Bajon, Jan-Henrik Meyer and Philipp Schmitt—for countless inspiring exchanges. Finally, my doctoral research could be turned into this book thanks to the support and backing of my dear colleagues at Augsburg University’s Institute of Social Sciences, and particularly of our team at the Chair in Comparative Politics of Peter A. Kraus. Many more deserve to be mentioned here, but I dare not overstretch the already extended word count of the manuscript (many thanks for the extension and, more importantly, for all their support and advice in the publishing process to Ambra Finotello and Geetha Chockalingam from Palgrave Macmillan). An additional handful of people, however, cannot remain unnamed: I am greatly indebted to Amie Kreppel for her expertise and feedback on various aspects of this research project; many thanks also for making available to me a big collection of EP Rules of Procedure. Thanks also to Craig Parsons for our insightful discussion and his advice on the study of ideas in European integration, and to Koen van Zon for many inspiring talks about the early EP and the Communities in the 1950s and 1960s in and around the beautiful Villa Salviati and Badia Fiesolana during our simultaneous stays there. To Lennaert van Heumen for discussing and conceptualising the study of informality, and for finding humour in the more uncomfortable parts of academic life. And finally, to Mathias Haeussler—who is the co-architect of the single most productive, inspiring and entertaining virtual office in existence, and whose contribution to this work goes so much further than his phenomenally constructive historical and linguistic advice. The exchange in our co-working space has repeatedly pushed me to aim yet a little higher and go just a little deeper, and I already look forward to the next 1001 instances of shared academic joy, despair, bewilderment and amusement. Finally, my family deserves and has my profoundest gratitude: my parents and my siblings, who allowed me to grow up believing that I could reach almost anything with sufficient dedication, and who continue to show me what such dedication looks like; but, more importantly, who silently but firmly ensured that the connection between them and their

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rarely resting no. 3 was never cut, no matter how far the distance, so that I always knew where to find orientation and rest. And, most importantly, my personal little European union, consisting of the little A currently crawling around my legs, and the roughly 2.25 times bigger A who I am grateful beyond words to have at my side. Not even the most poetic, elaborate, beautiful acknowledgements section could capture what happiness you instill into my every day.

Contents

1

2

Introduction: The Parliamentarisation of a Consultative Assembly 1.1 Research Question 1.2 The EP Pre-1979: An Understudied Actor with Noteworthy Influence 1.3 Studying the EP’s Institutional Evolution Through the Lens of Community Social Policy 1.4 Collection, Processing and Interpretation of the Source Material 1.5 Structure of the Analysis 1.6 Refuting the Image of a Powerless “Talking Shop” A1 Annex: List of Interviews References Conceptualising the European Parliament’s Gain in Power, 1952–1979 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Historical-Sociological Institutionalist Approach (HSI) 2.2.1 What is an Institution? 2.2.2 Explaining the EP’s Institutional Development With Historical Institutionalism (HI) 2.2.3 Explaining MEPs’ Behaviour with Sociological Institutionalism (SI)

1 2 4 8 14 19 23 25 27 35 35 36 36 39 49

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2.2.4

Combining HI and SI in One Hybrid Theoretical Approach 2.3 Conclusion References 3

4

The Institutional Evolution of the European Parliament Prior to 1979 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Brief Chronology of the EP’s Institutional Evolution Prior to 1979 3.3 Parliamentary Powers, and How They Were Obtained 3.3.1 Power of Control 3.3.2 Legislative Power 3.3.3 Budgetary Power 3.3.4 Power of Initiative 3.4 The Impact of MEPs’ Shared Ideas and Socialisation 3.4.1 Preparing the Ideational Ground: What Induced MEPs to Become Engaged in the EP Prior to 1979? 3.4.2 “We Turned It into a Parliament”: The Impact of Norm Entrepreneurs 3.4.3 Parliamentary Powers Through a Parliamentary Institutional Structure: Party Groups and Committees 3.5 Conclusion References Creating a Borderless Europe: The European Parliament’s Activism in the Pursuit of a Free Movement of Persons 4.1 Introduction 4.2 The European Communities’ Social Policy Concerning the Free Movement of Workers and Their Families 4.3 The European Parliament’s Social Policy Concerning Free Movement Prior to 1979 4.4 The Ideological Basis of MEPs’ Behaviour in the Area of Free Movement Policy 4.4.1 Towards Equality of all Community Citizens: Dominating Policy Ideas in the EP’s Free Movement Policy

58 61 62 67 67 68 76 76 84 90 96 100

101 105

110 119 121

127 127 129 134 139

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Displayed Unity Despite Controversial Debates: The Impact of Shared Polity Ideas on the EP’s Free Movement Policy 4.5 The Impact of the EP’s Free Movement Policy on Its Institutional Development 4.5.1 From Activism to Alignment: Gradual Change in the EP’s Free Movement-Related Policy making 4.5.2 The Institutionalisation of the Consultation Procedure Through Rhetorical Entrapment 4.5.3 Inter-Institutional Contacts as a Means of Empowerment 4.6 Conclusion 4.7 Annex References

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4.4.2

5

Emancipating Europe: The European Parliament’s Involvement in Community Equality Policy 5.1 Introduction 5.2 The European Community’s Equality Policy 5.3 The European Parliament’s Equality Policy Prior to 1979 5.4 Institutional Factors Shaping the EP’s Equality Policy making Over Time 5.4.1 The Policy-making Framework Shaping the EP’s Activism on Equality Policy 5.4.2 The Impact of Contemporary Events and Developments on the EP’s Equality Policy 5.5 The Ideational Basis of MEPs’ Activism for More Equality 5.5.1 The Shared Policy Idea of Comprehensive (Work-Related) Equality 5.5.2 The Influence of Polity Ideas on the EP’s Equality Policy 5.5.3 Norm Entrepreneurs Shaping the EP’s Equality Policy 5.6 Conclusion References

144 148

148 154 158 164 165 169 171 171 172 177 182 182 187 194 194 196 199 203 205

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Forging Europe’s Next Generations: The European Parliament’s Children and Youth Policy 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Community Social Policy Concerning Children and Youth 6.3 The European Parliament’s Policy Concerning Children and Youth 6.4 Teaching the Next Generation the Values of Integration: The Ideational Basis of the EP’s Children and Youth Policy 6.5 Formal and Informal Rules Determining EP Activism Concerning Children and Youth 6.5.1 Attempts to Formally Legitimise Activism: MEPs’ Reference to the Treaty 6.5.2 MEPs’ Changing Usage of Policy-making Tools in Children and Youth Policy 6.6 Conclusion References Controlling the Purse: How the European Parliament Shaped Social Policy Through the European Social Fund 7.1 Introduction 7.2 The Establishment of the ESF 7.3 The EP’s Gain in Power Through the ESF 7.3.1 Gradual Institutional Change in the EP’s Involvement in the ESF 7.3.2 The EP’s Informal Empowerment Through the ESF 7.4 Policy and Polity Ideas Driving MEPs’ ESF-Related Activism 7.4.1 Policy Ideas: The ESF as a Means to Establish a Community Social Dimension 7.4.2 Polity Ideas: The ESF as a Means of Empowerment 7.5 Conclusion References

207 207 209 213

218 228 228 236 242 244

247 247 248 251 252 260 268 268 271 275 277

CONTENTS

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Conclusion: The Making of a Parliament 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Main Findings 8.2.1 The Impact of Ideas, Norms and Socialisation on MEPs’ Behaviour 8.2.2 Processes of Institutional Change Resulting in the EP’s Gradual Gain in Power 8.2.3 Why Did the Commission and the Council Accept the EP’s Empowerment? 8.2.4 Bringing the Community Project Closer to the People: The EP’s Impact on the Evolution of European Social Policy 8.3 Added Value of the Hybrid HSI Approach 8.4 Outlook References

Index

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279 279 281 281 285 289

293 295 297 303 307

Abbreviations

Art. e.g. EAGGF ECB ECJ ECSC ed(s). EDC EEC EP EPC ERDF ESC ESF et al. et seq. / seqq. Euratom HAEU HI HSI i.a.

Article exempli gratia (for example) European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund European Central Bank European Court of Justice1 European Coal and Steel Community Editor(s) European Defence Community European Economic Community European Parliament European Political Community European Regional Development Fund European Economic and Social Committee European Social Fund et alii (and others) et sequens (and the following page/s) European Atomic Energy Community Historical Archives of the European Union (in Florence) Historical Institutionalism Historical-Sociological Institutionalism inter alia (amongst others)

1 This book uses the abbreviation ‘ECJ’, rather than ‘CJEU’ (Court of Justice of the European Union) as is normally used nowadays, because ECJ was the abbreviation commonly used during the period under consideration.

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ABBREVIATIONS

i.e. ibid. ILO MEP OJ p./pp. RCI SEA SI SPD TFEU UN WEU

id est (that is) Ibidem (in the same place/reference) International Labour Organisation Member of the European Parliament Official Journal of the European Communities Page(s) Rational-Choice Institutionalism Single European Act Sociological Institutionalism Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (German Social Democrat Party) Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union United Nations Western European Union

List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2 Fig. 6.1

Fig. 6.2 Fig. 6.3 Fig. 7.1 Fig. 7.2

Distribution of the duration (in days) of EP mandates prior to 1979, sorted in quartiles Number of EP documents concerning free movement per year Number of adopted EP resolutions and reports concerning equality policy per year Number of parliamentary questions concerning equality policy per year Percentage of EP documents concerning children and youth among all EP documents on social policy consulted for this research Number of adopted EP resolutions and reports concerning children and youth per year Number of parliamentary questions concerning children and youth per year Number of adopted EP resolutions and reports concerning the ESF per year Number of parliamentary questions concerning the ESF per year

109 149 189 190

217 237 240 254 259

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List of Tables

Table 1.1 Table 1.2 Table 3.1 Table 4.1

Distribution of national background and party-group affiliation of the interviewed former MEPs List of interviewees The evolution of the EP’s formal powers prior to 1979 Community legislation on the free movement of workers prior to 1979

16 25 75 166

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction: The Parliamentarisation of a Consultative Assembly

Studying the European Parliament’s (EP) history prior to its first direct elections in 1979 frequently prompts the question: why should anyone care? Why invest time and effort to study an institution without noteworthy powers and functions? Indeed, the bulk of academic work on the EP covers its pre-1979 development on a space ranging from one sentence to two or three pages. These studies usually point out—rightfully—that the pre-1979 EP was little more than a consultative assembly in formal terms, with only one notable power, namely to dismiss the Communities’ executive (i.e. the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community, and later the Commission of the European Economic and Atomic Energy Communities). These works mostly take the two budget treaties of 1970 and 1975, which granted the EP a say in budgetary matters, and the EP’s first direct elections in 1979 as the first indicators of the EP’s evolving parliamentary nature, truly achieved only from the 1980s and 1990s, when the Single European Act (SEA), the Maastricht and the Amsterdam Treaties granted the EP increasing legislative powers. By contrast, this book argues that, long before Parliament’s formal empowerment, Members of the EP (MEPs) succeeded in cementing the parliamentary fundaments of their institution through their supranationallevel activism. This activism was facilitated by the growing willingness © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Roos, The Parliamentary Roots of European Social Policy, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78233-7_1

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of other Community institutions and member state governments to accept the EP’s involvement, and a range of exogenous developments such as crises and technological change, providing fertile ground for the MEPs’ endeavour to empower their institution. This book analyses MEPs’ activism and the EP’s resulting gain in institutional and political power, suggesting that the EP’s formal empowerment from the late 1970s and 1980s was to some extent the result, rather than the beginning, of institutionalisation processes within the EP leading to increasing parliamentary influence within the Community political and institutional system. In its analysis of the EP’s gradual parliamentarisation, this book builds on the differentiating conceptionalisation of power on the one hand and influence on the other by Bressanelli and Chelotti (2019). Based on their definition—which is slightly extended here to cover not only formal, but also informal processes—power is understood in the following “as a capability formally [or informally] institutionalised or, in other words, as an institutional attribute allowing actors to shape outcomes despite external opposition”.1 Influence, in turn, is defined as the concrete instance “when power, as an institutional capability, is concretely exercised and put into practice”.2 The following chapters trace the evolution of such power and influence in the EP’s early institutional development.

1.1

Research Question

This book analyses the EP’s institutional evolution over the first three decades of its existence with the aim to answer the main research question: How did the EP shape social policy, and thereby its own role and powers, in the European Communities prior to the first direct elections in 1979?

The EP’s gain in power prior to 1979 is analysed with a focus on both institutional gains—i.e. changes of the rules of the game—and policy gains—i.e. gains within the existing rules of the game, and more specifically in the area of social policy, as further discussed below. These two types of power gains can be considered the dependent variables in the analysis, the development of which is studied by identifying and analysing

1 Bressanelli and Chelotti (2019): 266. 2 Ibid.

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a variety of institutional, ideational and social factors as well as the larger contemporary context that influenced MEPs’ behaviour and the EP’s institutional development. Within the study of power gains, this book traces both formal and informal changes. It shows which of these gains became established and contributed thus to the EP’s long-term empowerment, and which were merely short-lived gains in impact (rather than power or influence). The chapters of this book aim to answer the main research question from different angles in a historical-sociological institutionalist (HSI) analysis, i.e. an analysis applying tools and building on theoretical assumptions from both historical institutionalism (HI) and sociological institutionalism (SI), as explained in more detail in Chapter 2. The analysis of institutionalisation processes and of institutional change in the early EP on the one hand, and of MEPs’ ideas and the impact of their socialisation on the other, constitute the two main dimensions of the above-mentioned research question. They can be formulated in two sub-questions, which will guide the analysis: (1) Why, how and with what consequences did MEPs become involved in Community social policy making? (2) What institutionalisation processes shaped the EP’s role and powers prior to 1979? While contributing from their different angles to the overall analysis, neither of these two questions suffices in itself to explain the EP’s institutional development prior to 1979. Instead, this book seeks to show that the EP’s gradual gain in power can only be understood through the study of different sets of explanatory factors which, in their interplay, resulted in a significant empowerment of the EP beyond Treaty paragraphs. From a historical institutionalist point of view, such factors are exogenous and endogenous events and developments resulting in intended or unintended processes of institutional change, which in turn led to shifting balances of formal and informal powers. SI adds to the analysis an ideational, normative and sociological dimension in focusing on factors such as the impact of norms, policy- and polity-related ideas and resulting logics of appropriateness on actors’ behaviour. Importantly, this book looks at the EP as a body consisting of and being steered by its individual members, rather than as a unitary actor,

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as sub-question 1 indicates. This distinction is crucial insofar as the early EP’s frequent deviation from Treaty provisions cannot be explained without examining the changing behaviour of its members, and the reasons and ideas driving them to act the way they did. If an institution acts in compliance with formal provisions, it can be assumed that all—or at least a decisive majority—of its members agree with these provisions to the extent that they consider it reasonable to follow them. However, if an institution deviates from formal provisions, the reasons for this deviation, and moreover the reasons why it deviated in one direction and not in another, need to be sought among its members. Such a deviation suggests that a significant part of these members did not agree with the formal provisions, and considered another option of behaviour more profitable or appropriate. Indeed, this study discusses the ideas based on which MEPs considered a deviation from the Treaties more appropriate than compliance with the Treaties. The early EP—seen as a product of the actions of its members—is therefore shown to have been ever-changing and ever change-seeking prior to 1979 (which it arguably remained also thereafter).

1.2 The EP Pre-1979: An Understudied Actor with Noteworthy Influence In studying the EP’s institutional development prior to 1979, this book focuses on a period of the EP’s evolution which is still significantly understudied, based not least on the misconception that the relatively powerless position of the EP which the Treaties provided corresponded to the EP’s actual institutional role in Community policy making. Whereas a growing corpus of literature examines the EP’s general development as a parliamentary institution,3 and sheds light on some select aspects of its early

3 Such as Héritier et al. (2019); Ripoll Servent (2018); Viola (2016); Mény et al. (2009); Héritier (2007); Corbett et al. (2003); Kreppel (2002); Costa (2001); Westlake (1994). For a recent review of the evolving landscape of research on the EP, see Costa (2019).

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history,4 much work remains to be done in explaining the EP’s evolution, and notably its gain in power beyond Treaty changes and formal procedures. This applies in particular to the EP’s history prior to 1979. Those studies that take into account the EP pre-1979 focus predominantly on the EP’s formal gain in power, notably through Treaty changes, such as the Treaties of Rome of 1957 and the budget treaties of 1970 and 1975.5 A series of publications furthermore emphasise the impact of specific events on the EP’s powers and position within the Communities, such as the negotiations of a European Defence and Political Community,6 and the Empty Chair crisis 1965/1966.7 In addition, several authors have analysed specific aspects in the development of the EP’s institutional structure, namely its committee structure8 and partygroup system,9 as well as various individual party groups10 and national delegations.11 4 See for instance Krumrey (2018) on symbolic politics in the early EP; Knudsen (2012, 2014) and Cohen (2012) on MEPs’ different mandates and careers at the national and international level; J.-H. Meyer (2011, 2014) on the EP’s agenda-setting power in environmental policy during the 1970s; Rittberger (2005, 2006, 2012, 2014) with Goetze (2010) and with Lindner (2003) on the EP’s role in the planning of the European Defence Community and the European Political Community, the EP’s gain in budgetary power, and its role as provider of legitimacy to Community policy making; Murray (2004) on the EP’s party groups prior to 1979; Daniel (2015) on the interdependence of the EP’s institutional development and career paths within the EP; Costa and Magnette (2003) on ideologies that shaped the EP’s empowerment. 5 See e.g. Viola (2016); Hix and Høyland (2013); Shackleton (2012); Goetze and Rittberger (2010); Kardasheva (2009); Rittberger (2005); Kreppel (2002). 6 See e.g. Rittberger (2006); Corbett et al. (2003); Costa (2001). 7 See e.g. Krumrey (2018); Lindner and Rittberger (2003). 8 See e.g. Finke (2012); Jensen and Winsen (2011); McElroy (2006); and for contem-

porary analyses (Bieber, 1974; Bubba, 1969; Forsyth, 1964; Hagger & Wing, 1979; Herman and Lodge, 1978; Reifferscheid, 1966; Schwed, 1978; Stein, 1959). 9 See especially Murray (2004), and also Guerrieri (2015); Raunio (2012); Mittag (2011); Mény et al. (2009); Hix et al. (2003); Kreppel (2002); Corbett (1998); and for contemporary analyses Lücker (1978), Fitzmaurice (1975), Forsyth (1964), Schierwater (1961), Sperling (1961) and Haas (2004[1958]). 10 See e.g. Bardi et al. (2020), Kosowska-Gastoł (2015), Meyer (2011), Fontaine (2009), & Kaiser and Leucht (2008) on the Christian-Democratic Group; Salm (2011) and Benhamou (2020) on the Socialist Group; Orsina (2015) on the Liberals and Allies Group; Jansen (1998) on the Conservative Group; and Brogi (2015), Guerrieri (2008), Bracke (2007), and Leich (1970) on the Communist Group. 11 See e.g. Knudsen (2012, 2014); Cohen (2012); Guerrieri (2011); Pollack (2009); D’Ottavio (2007).

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The first works which approached the EP’s early development from a broader angle appeared in the 1990s. Noteworthy in that respect are in particular the works by Westlake (1994) and Corbett (1998): both discuss evolving procedures within the EP and inter-institutionalcontacts at Community level which were gradually formalised, including concessions by the Commission and the Council in the extension of the consultation and conciliation procedures, and the involvement of the EP more generally. While both authors point out such formally acknowledged concessions as established successes, they do not question their respective application in everyday politics—which this book shows to have been incomplete in several instances.12 Notwithstanding, these studies offer some valuable starting points for research on the gradual institutional development of the EP, notably because they take into consideration gradual and initially informal changes, the importance of which for the EP’s evolution is underestimated in the majority of publications covering the early EP to date. More recent exceptions in that regard are the publications by Rittberger (2005, 2012, 2014) on the EP’s role as the provider of legitimacy to Community policymaking, Meyer (2011, 2014) on the EP’s evolving agenda-setting power in the area of environmental policy during the 1970s, and Krumrey’s 2018 monograph on the symbolic politics behind the EP’s gradual parliamentarisation during the 1950s and early 1960s. The most comprehensive study of the EP’s gain in power to date is the recent volume by Ariadna Ripoll Servent (2018), which covers the EP’s evolution from its creation until today. In her multifaceted analysis, Ripoll Servent traces the activism of MEPs and embeds it in the respective institutional and contemporary context, thus offering an in-depth understanding of emerging formal and informal rules and procedures. Given that the volume covers the EP’s entire history, Ripoll Servent puts significantly more weight on recent developments than on the EP’s beginnings,13 providing punctual—albeit cutting-edge—insights into the EP’s early years, rather than a coherent analysis of its institutional beginnings.

12 Héritier (2007) also discusses how the EP managed to negotiate and formalise informal rules, naming the same examples as Corbett (1998), but she does not analyse either whether these established rules were in fact implemented and applied on a regular basis. 13 This is visible already in Chapter 2 of Ripoll Servent’s book, which summarises the EP’s overall empowerment, and in which three pages cover the EP’s history up to its first direct elections, whereas the period from 1979 to the present day is covered in 13 pages.

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In a similar vein, Héritier et al.’s (2019) volume “European Parliament Ascendant” constitutes a highly insightful study on different “Parliamentary Strategies of Self-Empowerment”.14 The book examines a range of examples of such strategies during the entire period from the EP’s beginnings until today. Yet, the focus of analysis also leans more towards recent developments than the EP’s early years. Studies like those by Ripoll Servent and Héritier et al. are nonetheless a crucial basis for this book, in that they allow the findings of the following analysis to be situated within the broader context of the EP’s institutional development. Only by taking into consideration later gains in power can it be established to what extent procedures which have their roots in the period 1952–1979 developed a lasting impact on the EP’s institutional evolution. Another important pillar on which the following analysis builds consists of contemporary studies from the 1950s to 1970s on the EP. These publications, many of which are authored by practitioners who worked in Community institutions during the period under examination, have to be treated with some caution from an analytical point of view given their limited timeframe and a certain level of partiality. Nevertheless, they offer valuable insights in that they lay a focus on very different issues than more recent studies on the EP, including everyday working procedures, and personal experiences of informal practices and routines.15 In addition to these different corpora of works focusing directly on the EP, the following analysis builds on the broad landscape of literature on other Community institutions. In order to contextualise the early EP’s gain in power, this book draws on literature concerning notably those institutions with which the EP frequently interacted, and which in turn had a decisive influence on the EP’s development—i.e. first and

14 Part of the subtitle of Héritier et al. (2019), which reads in full: “Parliamentary Strategies of Self-Empowerment in the EU”. 15 See e.g. Coombes (1979); Giraud (1978); Herman & Lodge (1978); Kofoed (1978); Schwed (1978); Sasse (1976); Medefind (1975); Bieber (1974); Cocks (1973); Bubba (1969); Duvieusart (1968); Forsyth (1964); Lassalle (1964); Kapteyn (1962); Schierwater (1961); Stein (1959); Haas (2004 [virtually unchanged reprint of the 1958 edition]).

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foremost the Commission and the Council.16 Studies on these institutions help embed MEPs’ activism and the EP’s gradual empowerment in the evolving Community institutional system. This literature analyses contemporary circumstances which the following chapters show to have influenced MEPs’ behaviour, and the success or failure of EP activism. This literature also helps understand why the Commission and Council allowed—or accepted at least—that the EP’s gradual empowerment took shape,17 and what national preferences were at play in the context of different decisive events in the process of European integration.18

1.3 Studying the EP’s Institutional Evolution Through the Lens of Community Social Policy The following analysis seeks to explain the EP’s institutional development, as implied in the research questions, through its involvement in Community social policy. This focus of choice requires further elaboration: in the 1950s, the founding Treaties attributed only few articles to both the EP and social policy, making one a rather insignificant policy area and the other a rather insignificant institution at Community level during the examined period. Yet, the area of social policy is eminently suited to gain a deeper understanding of how and why the EP gained significant parliamentary powers prior to its first direct elections, despite the limited role provided for it by the Treaties. Even though Community social policy was handled by national governments largely as a byproduct in the establishment of the Common Market,19 it developed into fertile ground for MEPs’ activism, providing them with ample opportunities to develop and institutionalise procedures of parliamentary involvement in Community policymaking. Indeed, with regard to MEPs’ activism and resulting institutional practices, this policy area can be seen as to some extent representative of the Community’s policy spectrum at the time. The policy-making tools applied by MEPs in order to empower their 16 See i.a. the contributions to Laursen (2014), to Kaiser et al. (2009), to Dinan (2006), to Palayret et al. (2006), and to Loth (2001); Lewis (2015); van der Harst (2007); Ludlow (2006a, 2006b); Westlake (1994); Spierenburg and Poidevin (1994). 17 See i.a. Schulz-Forberg and Stråth (2010); König (2008). 18 See i.a. the contributions to Rasmussen and Knudsen (2009) to Gehler (2009); Rye

(2006); Dinan (2004). 19 See i.a. Crespy (2019: 20) et seq.

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institution were not area-specific, nor were the parliamentary powers the delegates pursued. The area of social policy functions here as a magnifying glass, allowing to trace MEPs’ typical behaviour in a series of concrete cases within one focus area. At the same time, social policy provides some unique insights, particularly when it comes to the analysis of factors driving MEPs in their supranational-level activism. More specifically, this area offers an ideational dimension of analysis that no other Community policy area could provide to the same extent. Namely, MEPs saw in social policy the potential to directly reach the member states’ citizens with Community measures, having a palpable impact on the people’s living and working conditions. This direct connection to the citizens was considered crucial by the MEPs, as the chapters of this book demonstrate, for mainly two reasons. First, the aim to deepen and extend European integration towards the attainment of European Union, which the majority of MEPs shared, could in the delegates’ view only be realised based on strong public support for and on people’s identification with the Community project. The MEPs hoped to reach such support and identification by demonstrating to the people how Community social measures could improve their lives, for instance with regard to their housing and employment situation, and social-security coverage. Second, MEPs sought to establish their institution as the representative of the people, in order to increase its parliamentary character, and to reinforce their argument before the Council and the Commission that the involvement of the EP in Community legislation would provide Community decision-making with more democratic legitimacy. Consequently, MEPs strove for a better social regulation of the citizens’ living and working conditions, based on contacts with social partners, interest groups and their constituents, in order to strategically position themselves as promoting the people’s interests. The representative character of social policy measures and the fact that they were used as a potential connection to the Communities’ citizens thus offer a key to understand the ideas driving MEPs in their activism. In addition, precisely because social policy was so little regulated and often at the margins of Community policy making, it constituted a terrific playground for the kind of MEP activism that left Treaty provisions far behind. The involvement of the EP in such a vaguely defined area of

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limited Community competence therefore allows for a profound analysis of MEPs’ strategies to reach political aims and to empower their institution through the broadest possible interpretation of the Treaties. The area of social policy was integrated more slowly, with more difficulty and reluctance than a number of other policy areas such as economic, transport or agricultural policy.20 To some extent, this was because the—in the majority centre-right—governments of the Six did not envisage European integration to have a strong socio-political dimension in the 1950s, assuming that flourishing markets and a peaceful Europe would contribute in themselves to an improvement of people’s living and working conditions, as further discussed below. Another reason lay in the different social systems which had evolved in the six, later nine member states over the previous century.21 Based on the distinct national social-security systems and their historical evolution, the member states had different definitions of social policy, which complicated political harmonisation. France, for instance, treated employment policy and social policy as one area, and in the Anglo-Saxon understanding, education policy was an inherent part of social policy, whereas other member states handled these areas differently.22 Nonetheless, adding a social dimension to the European integration project was already discussed and to some extent agreed in the negotiations of the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community(ECSC). The underlying idea was not so much the pursuit of a common social policy. Rather, the national delegations feared negative reactions from trade unions and the public if not putting a visible focus on the welfare of those persons who would be concerned by the new Community project. Moreover, the idea that the ECSC would be just the beginning of a broader project of political integration, eventually comprising all policy areas, was shared by a number of delegations around the negotiation table.23 The introduction of social topics into the Treaty was hence based on broader strategic considerations rather than concrete policy-related ambitions.

20 See i.a. Hantrais (2007); Leboutte (2008). 21 See Esping-Andersen (1990); Sapir (2006: 375) et seq.; Majone (1993: 161). 22 See Caire (1992: 10) et seq. 23 See Varsori and Mechi (2007: 225).

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In the negotiations of the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community(EEC), social policy issues were to some extent used in the pursuit of individual national aims rather than common policy lines. Rye (2002, 2006) has analysed in detail how the French delegation in particular prolonged discussions on social harmonisation by making demands on which the French delegates knew that the other delegations would have extreme difficulties to reach agreement. Officially just aiming to prevent the distortion of competition, the French government was eager to “secure time, protection and approval”24 : the French Parliament needed to be won over on the Common Market project, and the French industrial sector was in dire need of modernisation if it was to keep up with other member state economies. Only once the French government felt sufficiently secure that these aims could be reached did it agree to sign the Treaties of Rome; up to that point, the area of social policy provided a convenient tool to drag on the negotiations. As a result of these strategic rather than content-related considerations, and of the governments’ general reluctance to codify strictly socio-political integration, most social policy-related articles in the EEC Treaty remained relatively vague. Indeed, the Six were not only hesitant to transfer responsibility to Community level, they also did not see much need to do so, assuming that “steady economic expansion and the creation of a free trade area and its concomitants would automatically lead to prosperity for all”.25 Consequently, all three founding Treaties contained specific social provisions merely for a handful of specific issues, namely where a distortion of competition was feared, or where it was expected that market failures would need to be corrected.26 That concerned first and foremost labour migration, so that the articles on the free movement of workers were among the most detailed social provisions in the Treaties.27 Moreover, Community intervention was provided for circumstances causing an elevated need for retraining and housing,28

24 Rye (2002: 85). 25 Lodge (1978: 116). 26 See Hantrais (2007: 2) et seq.; Rhodes (2010: 288); Dedman (2010: 85). 27 See Arts. 69 ECSC and 48-51 EEC. Also the Euratom Treaty provided for a

free movement of qualified workers (see Art. 2(g) Euratom), but did not specify the introduction of their freedom of movement any further. 28 See Arts. 56 and 69 ECSC, 125 EEC.

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or wage inequalities.29 In addition, the Treaties granted the Communities competences in the policy areas of training30 and occupational safety,31 and allowed for social measures concerning specific policy sectors such as agricultural32 and transport policy.33 In spite of such a relatively broad portfolio, however, social policy remained at the margins of Community action and legislation, which is visible not least in the budget shares dedicated to it: in 1975, for instance, only 6.5 per cent of the Community budget was reserved for allocations in the social area, comparable to the allocation for the Commission’s administration, which constituted 5 per cent of the budget.34 Overall, Community social policy focused only upon those persons who were “full-time members of the indigenous labour force, or undergoing training or retraining for employment”,35 demonstrating that social policy provisions were introduced to the Treaties with the main aim to support economic rather than social integration. The belief that politics could control the economy—including the application of social policy measures to achieve full employment—was fundamentally undermined only with the 1970s crises.36 Crises were indeed important motors for the development of the European social dimension, not least because they allowed MEPs to intensify their involvement in Community policymaking beyond Treaty restrictions. During the period under consideration, the 1950s coal crisis as well as the economic and financial crisis following the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971 and the 1973 oil shock had significant impacts on Community social policy.37 Both periods had dire consequences for the concerned Community industries, causing unemployment and factory closures, and forcing numerous workers to retrain and (particularly in the case of migrant workers) move. Moreover, a number of mine accidents in the 1950s, the gravest of which took place on 8 August 1956 in 29 See Arts. 68 ECSC, 119 EEC. 30 See Arts. 128 EEC, 9 and 215 Euratom. 31 See Arts. 55 ECSC, 118 EEC, 30–34 Euratom. 32 See Art. 39 EEC. 33 See Art. 75 EEC. 34 See Lodge (1978: 116) et seq. 35 Hantrais (2007: 238). 36 See Schulz-Forberg and Stråth (2010). 37 See Leboutte (2008); Cassiers (2006).

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the Belgian town of Marcinelle, forced the Communities to reconsider their social-security policies. In these mine accidents, many Community migrant workers were among the victims, making these accidents a Community issue.38 There were no provisions in the founding Treaties that enabled or facilitated the member states in collectively tackling events of such dimensions and the resulting socio-economic conflicts, so that the Treaty-provided aid mechanisms were insufficient to cope with the consequences.39 The swift technological development of the 1960s and 1970s had similarly unexpected effects, leading to a change of tasks and consequently of required qualifications or even the entire abolition of a number of jobs, notably in the industry sector, and to an increasing shift of workers to the services sector.40 Such events and developments opened unintended opportunities for political activism, which allowed actors like the Commission and—as demonstrated in this book—the EP to push for an extension of the Communities’ otherwise narrow and vague social policy. Both institutions strove for the implementation of a broader European social dimension from the 1950s, the EP even more so than the Commission.41 The MEPs “always opposed the view that social problems are only incidental to economic integration”,42 and consequently pushed for Community social measures beyond investment where economic return could be expected.43 The underlying aim was twofold: on the one hand, most MEPs who steered the EP’s social policy were genuinely driven by the motivation to improve the citizens’ living and working conditions, as provided for in all three founding Treaties,44 not least in order to demonstrate that the Community project had a palpable positive impact on people’s lives. This aim was generally shared by the Commission, and from the late 1960s 38 See Leboutte (2008: 640). 39 See Leibfried (1998: 32). 40 See i.a. Kaelble (2007: 58) et seqq.; Sapir (2006: 372); Collins (1975: 201) et seqq. 41 For the Commission’s activism in the area, see i.a. Hantrais (2007). 42 General Secretariat of the European Parliament (1969): The first ten years

1958–1968. Luxembourg: Directorate-General of Parliamentary Documentation and Information, 91. 43 See interview with Charles McDonald, who named this as one priority of the EP’s social policy during the 1970s, and particularly of his party group, the Christian Democrats. 44 See Arts. 2 ECSC, 2 EEC, 1 Euratom.

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increasingly also by the member states, allowing the extension of the Community’s social dimension beyond the narrow limits of the Treaty articles.45 On the other hand, political activism in the area of social policy helped MEPs position themselves as representatives of the people, both in the eyes of the citizens, who should see that “their” delegates fought in their interest, and in the eyes of the other Community institutions, who should acknowledge the EP’s function as bridge to the Communities’ population. MEPs thus hoped to gain legitimacy for their institution as a parliament, and not merely a consultative assembly, so that the delegates could argue that the EP’s involvement in Community decision-making helped to democratically legitimise Community action. From this twofold motivation derived a wide range of EP activism in the area of social policy, which is analysed in the following chapters.

1.4 Collection, Processing and Interpretation of the Source Material This book seeks to fruitfully combine different approaches in its analysis of the early EP’s role in Community social policy. It does so not only in its hybrid theoretical approach of historical-sociological institutionalism, but also in its methodological approach to the process of data collection, processing and interpretation. Herein, it seeks to bridge two disciplines: political science and history. In the case studies of this book, findings within the theoretical framework from political science are backed up by an extensive dataset of archival documents and semi-structured interviews with contemporary witnesses, thus including a key element of historical analysis. Moreover, the analysis benefits from insights and methodological techniques from the area of oral history, which enhanced the preparation, execution and interpretation of the semi-structured interviews.46 Two categories of sources thus constitute the basis for the analysis of the EP’s gradual empowerment in Community social policy. First, a corpus of ca. 4,000 EP documents which are accessible in the Historical Archives of the EP in Luxembourg and the Historical Archives of the EU in Florence was assembled, providing insights into the actions 45 See i.a. Varsori and Mechi (2007); Brown (2012); Lodge (1978). 46 See i.a. Thompson and Bornat (2017); Ritchie (2015); McGrath (2009).

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of the EP, its groups and committees. This corpus consists on the one hand of approximately 200 resolutions and reports that mark important events and developments in the EP’s institutional evolution, for instance introducing party groups and committees to the EP’s Rules of Procedure, adopting changes of the EP’s institutional title, and demanding more general institutional change in the Communities, such as notably the empowerment of the EP. The bigger part of this corpus (ca. 3,800 documents), on the other hand, constitutes a near-comprehensive47 collection of EP documents concerning social policy which were produced prior to the first direct elections, including resolutions, reports, parliamentary questions, minutes of debates, opinions, drafts, motions, amendments, memoranda and working documents. The qualitative analysis of these documents allows for an in-depth understanding of MEPs’ behaviour, of their changing strategies and evolving activism, as well as to some extent of the ideas driving them. Moreover, quantitative developments such as the changing and overall increasing frequency of EP involvement in Community social policy, shifting political priorities and changes in the applied policy tools can be demonstrated based on a dataset created through the coding of all these documents.48 However, the documents depict only the official output of the EP: although not every document was publicly accessible at the time of its production, and some constitute background material only, all of them were produced within those working processes of the EP that were either formal, formalised or at least to some extent proceduralised. They therefore offer only limited insights into informal and newly evolving procedures, both within the EP, and between the EP and other Community institutions. What is more, whereas dominating ideas can be traced

47 The corpus was compiled by going through (1) all documents digitised in the EP

Archives’ database, which according to the EP Archives contains all EP output from its establishment until today, via extensive keyword searches; and (2) all Official Journals of the Communities published prior to 1979 in order to check that no resolution—which usually followed a report and connected corpus of preparatory documents that could thus be identified—or parliamentary question had been overseen. Both resolutions and questions were always published in the Official Journal (OJ). 48 The author coded all documents that addressed social policy issues based on their archival code, title, date, document type, issuer, and the appearance of 19 social policy topics (such as children, employment, free movement, social security, women and youth) as well as 65 subordinate topics, identifying specific issues within the 19 main topics (such as motherhood and equal pay as sub-topics for “women”).

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Table 1.1 Distribution of national background and party-group affiliation of the interviewed former MEPs Party group Country Belgium Denmark France Germany Ireland Italy Luxembourg Netherlands United Kingdom Total

CDG*

SG*

LAG*

ComG*

EPDG*

ConG*

NA*

Total

1 1 2

1 2 2 5 2 2 3 3 2 22

1

1 1 1

3

2 1 3 1 1 1 2 11

1 1 1 1

3

1

1

1 1

*CDG = Christian Democratic Group, SG = Socialist Group, LAG = Liberals & Allies Group, ComG = Communist Group, EPDG = European Progressive Democratic Group, ConG = Conservative Group, NA = non-affiliated

in many of the documents, the evolution of these dominating—and of competing—ideas cannot be fully explained by EP documents alone. They also provide only limited information on the socialisation of the early MEPs both prior to and during their European mandates. Hence, the research question outlined above could not be comprehensively answered based on EP documents alone. In order to gather necessary additional information, a number of personal accounts from contemporary witnesses were collected: apart from consulting a number of former MEPs’ published memoirs,49 the author conducted 25 semi-structured interviews and written exchanges, including 22 with former MEPs, two with former members of EP staff and one with a former special advisor to the Irish government who was involved in the drafting of the Social Action Programme of 1974. The 22 interviews with former MEPs cover all member states and party groups prior to 1979. Table 1.1 gives an overview of the distribution of nationality and party-group affiliation of the interviewed former MEPs.

49 Many of these, however, make no mention of the respective MEPs’ time in the EP, or give only limited information on their experiences in Strasbourg, Luxembourg and Brussels.

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The main issue in the interviewees’ party-group affiliation and national background that leaps to the eye is the over-representation of former Socialist MEPs. While the author tried to keep as even a balance as possible, a number of difficulties arose during the organisation and the conducting of the interviews. First and foremost, the few former delegates who sat in the EP prior to 1979 who are still alive have reached an advanced age, which complicated the process of getting in touch with them, not least because phone or post were often the only media available to reach them, but addresses and phone numbers could not always be found. In some cases, health conditions did not allow the scheduling of an interview. Once an interview could be conducted, however, interviewees occasionally provided contact details of former colleagues, allowing the author to get in touch with additional MEPs. It seems that Socialist MEPs remained particularly well connected, which is one of the reasons why they dominate the list of interviewees. Another possible reason lies in the comparatively high number of younger Socialist MEPs prior to 1979, which means that particularly many of them were still alive.50 In addition to the bias with regard to party groups, the sample of interviewees is biased with regard to the period it covers: hardly any MEP could be contacted who held a European mandate in the 1950s or early 1960s. Most interviewees sat in the EP during the 1970s, and only a small number had entered the EP already in the second half of the 1960s. Notwithstanding these imbalances, the interviews that were conducted offer a valuable and indeed necessary fundament of the analysis, as they provide information, which is not accessible to that extent elsewhere. Given how small the EP was at the time, how comparatively low the level of fundamental controversies was, and how relatively united MEPs strove for common political and institutional aims (as analysed in more detail in the following chapters), the bias of the sample loses some of its significance. Table 1.2 (in the annex of this chapter) presents a list of all interviewees. All interviewees were asked the same catalogue of questions, in addition to which specific details from their own experience were discussed in

50 Ca. 18 per cent of all Socialist MEPs who sat in the EP prior to 1979 were younger

than 40, compared to ca. 7.5 per cent of Christian Democratic MEPs, and ca. 12 per cent of Liberal MEPs. These percentages were calculated based on an internal dataset from the Historical Archives of the EP containing all MEPs from the pre-1979 period (according to the archival team’s information), their date of birth, date of entry to and exit from the EP, their sex, country of origin and EP party group.

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more detail. The questions dealt with MEPs’ perceptions of the EP and its powers in general, with procedures, structures and everyday working routines in the EP and contacts with the other Community institutions, with MEPs’ individual engagement in the EP and their double mandate, with MEPs’ attitudes towards European integration and the role the EP played therein, and with the EP’s social policy. Moreover, the interviewees were asked about their personal background, the reasons for which they entered the EP and why they left it, and what other national, European or international experiences they had that stood in any relation to their European mandates. The two interviewed members of EP staff were asked questions similar to the first part of the questions addressed to the MEPs, namely about the functioning and everyday working procedures of the EP, about interand intra-institutional relations, and about dominating ideas and norms in the EP not only among MEPs, but also among members of staff. The two interviewees worked for the EP’s two biggest party groups: Fionnuala Richardson was an administrator of the Socialist Group from 1974, and became the group’s Deputy Secretary General in 1982; Arnaldo Ferragni was Secretary General of the Christian Democratic Group from 1966 to 1972. Unfortunately, the author was unable to contact more former members of staff, both because of difficulties in obtaining contact details, and because of a lack of time and resources. However, the author was able to gather more information on staff perspectives since a number of interviewed MEPs themselves experienced the EP from that perspective, having worked in the EP or another Community body prior to or after holding an EP mandate.51 Furthermore, a number of interviewed former MEPs could give insights into the cooperation of the Council with the EP, because they later became ministers in their national governments and thus members of the Council.52

51 Alain Terrenoire, for instance, was the Deputy Secretary General of his later EP party group, the European Democratic Union (later renamed the European Progressive Democrats) before joining the Parliament as MEP. Astrid Lulling regularly joined EP plenary sessions and was in contact with MEPs as a member of staff of the Bureau de Liaison des Mineurs et Métallurgistes from 1952 to 1963 (in the interview with the author, Lulling stated that she never missed a plenary session ‘except once or twice, when I was sick’ [original quote: “außer bei ein oder zwei, da war ich krank”]). 52 See i.a. interviews with Jean-Pierre Cot, Ole Espersen, Colette Flesch, Liam Kavanagh and Jacques Santer.

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Based on EP documents and the semi-structured interviews, the assertion of certain procedures and ideas over others in EP policymaking is traced in the following chapters. The extent to which the different chapters of this book build their analysis on EP documents and on the conducted interviews differs according to the subject under examination. Indeed, the case studies have been chosen so that they cover a variety of institutional and ideational factors influencing the EP’s institutional evolution. Some of the following chapters focus more on the development of rules and procedures within and around the EP, whereas others discuss cases in which shared norms and ideas steering MEPs’ behaviour came to the fore particularly clearly, as discussed in more detail below. Consequently, the analysis of some chapters builds more on official EP documents, whereas the statements made by interviewees and MEPs’ speeches during plenary debates, for instance, play a more important role in others. These different foci of analysis allow for a multifaceted analysis of the early EP’s socio-political activism and institutional development.

1.5

Structure of the Analysis

The book is divided in eight chapters. Following this introduction, Chapter 2 sets the frame for the subsequent analysis by presenting the theoretical approach. The chapters thereafter constitute the analytical core of the book. Chapter 3 provides an overview of the EP’s institutional evolution prior to its first direct elections. It analyses inter alia through which strategies MEPs pursued a number of parliamentary powers for their institution: namely the power to control the executive, legislative power, the power of initiative and budgetary power. The chapter examines also how the EP’s evolving internal structure of party groups and committees enabled MEPs to increase the effectiveness of their treatybased as well as non-treaty-based actions, and facilitated the socialisation of new MEPs into the EP and its working procedures. Furthermore, the chapter traces the assertion of pro-European ideas of ever closer integration over others, notably through the activism of a small group of particularly engaged MEPs who assumed the role of norm entrepreneurs in the early EP. The four chapters which follow then analyse the involvement of the EP in three key sub-areas of social policy, and in the establishment of the European Social Fund (ESF) as the main financial tool to implement Community social action. Opening these four case studies, Chapter 4

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discusses the initial cornerstone of Community social policy: the free movement of workers, the implementation and regulation of which was considered a necessity by all member states in the creation of the Common Market. Based on clear Treaty provisions, Community legislation was adopted relatively swiftly, partly even ahead of the schedule set in the Treaties, which in the area of social policy was rare (as the other case studies demonstrate). Even though the Treaties did not provide for any EP involvement in the set-up of the free movement, MEPs managed to gain a say in the related decision-making procedures as early as during the 1950s. Chapter 4 analyses the strategies through which the delegates succeeded in influencing Community legislation, what formal and informal tools they used, and based on what ideological foundation they pursued the bigger aim of reaching not only a free movement of workers, but of all member state citizens in the Communities. In most other areas of social policy, MEPs had fewer Treaty provisions to go with than in the case of free movement. Chapter 5 examines a case in which the MEPs could refer to only one narrow, though still relatively clear, Treaty article to pursue broader socio-political aims: Art. 119 EEC provided for the equal pay of male and female workers for work of equal value. Chapter 5 analyses how a small group of mainly female MEPs used the EP as a forum to promote their ideas of equality. The chapter also shows that this policy area stood out in comparison to the other case studies in that MEPs did not try to instrumentalise equality policy in their pursuit of institutional aims with regard to the strengthening of the EP, or the deepening of European integration more generally. Chapter 6 analyses a case going even further beyond Treaty provisions: none of the Treaties contained any provision on children, and merely one article (Art. 50 EEC) touched upon youth affairs, calling for youth exchanges among the member states. Yet, the EP developed from the 1950s an extensive children and youth policy, and pushed for Community action to make younger generations feel concerned by and involved in the bigger context of European integration. Indeed, whereas this case study provides limited insight into the EP’s involvement in Community legislation and formal decision-making procedures, it allows for a profound analysis of the ideational basis in which the MEPs’ activism beyond Treaty articles was rooted. This case study contributes thus to the understanding of the ideas and norms steering MEPs’ behaviour not only in their activism concerning children and youth but also in their striving for closer integration more generally.

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The fourth and final case study looks at a policy instrument rather than another policy issue: Chapter 7 analyses how MEPs used their Treaty-assigned powers to become involved in the establishment and revisions of the European Social Fund to pursue different socio-political and institutional aims. With a focus on the EP’s legislative and budgetary powers, and its powers of control and initiative, the chapter studies various strategies through which MEPs attempted to improve the member state citizens’ living and working conditions and their own institutional position at the same time. Using their say in the Community budget, the delegates sought—at times successfully—to shift the focus of Community social action towards disadvantaged groups, to change the weighting of policy items through changes in the Community budget, and to put issues on the agenda for which the Treaties foresaw no Community competence. The chapter therefore reveals the interplay of path dependencies and strong, relatively uniform ideas-driven activism, which in turn led to a significant power gain for the EP. Each of these four case studies serves to identify different factors in the EP’s gradual gain in power through its involvement in Community social policy. They were selected on the one hand based on a variation in the density of Treaty provisions, in order to see how the presence or absence of formal rules shaped the behaviour of MEPs in their pursuit to empower the EP and reach more socio-political integration. Among the four chosen cases, Treaty provisions for the respective social policy areas ranged from clear and relatively strict guidelines (Chapters 4 and 7) to very few—if any—Treaty provisions (Chapters 5 and 6). On the other hand, the case studies were chosen with a view on different factors influencing the EP’s institutional development: in some of the case studies, the MEPs’ activism was mostly driven by their ambition to deepen political integration (Chapters 4 and 6), in one case mostly by the MEPs’ aim to strengthen their institution (Chapter 7), and in one case, MEPs used the EP first and foremost as a platform to attain policy aims which they pursued unconnected from more general ideas of European integration (Chapter 5). Naturally, none of these case studies provides insights into only one single factor. The varying balance of different institutional and ideational factors traced in the different cases allows for a better understanding of the reasons why, for instance, certain procedures were institutionalised in one, but not another case, and why MEPs made use of a specific strategy in one area, but less so in another. Indeed, the case studies are internally

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structured according to the elements within the explanatory framework of this book on which they focus more. Accordingly, Chapters 4 and 6 open with an analysis of the ideational factors influencing MEPs’ behaviour in the respective case studies, before shedding light on the procedures and the institutional framework within which these ideas were pursued. Chapters 5 and 7 are more helpful to study the evolution of such procedures, of habits and routines contributing to the EP’s gradual empowerment. Consequently, both chapters open with an analysis of these institutional developments in EP policymaking within the respective case study, before discussing the influence of underlying ideas and logics of appropriateness. It should be noted that the case studies discussed in this book are only a selection of those which the author examined with regard to the EP’s involvement in Community social policy prior to 1979. Since a choice had to be made in order to keep the length of this book within reasonable limits, a number of case studies which also deserve scholarly attention did not make it into the final selection. First and foremost, most of these unselected cases would not have contributed fundamentally new insights into the MEPs’ behaviour, their strategies and ideas, but would have merely confirmed the findings of the four case studies that were eventually included. Among these is the EP’s engagement in favour of people with disabilities and elderly persons: both groups of people are not directly mentioned in the Treaties. Yet, the EP adopted a significant number of reports and resolutions asking for support for these specific groups of people, their better integration in national labour markets and in (re-)training schemes, and decent living conditions beyond the concerned persons’ working life. To some extent, the ideological argumentation underlying the MEPs’ activism resembled the MEPs’ engagement in favour of children and youth: in the eyes of the MEPs, the Communities should improve the living conditions of all citizens, not just of the working population; and all citizens should be able to identify with the Community project. Moreover, EP activism concerning people with disabilities and elderly persons formed a part of the MEPs’ engagement in favour of disadvantaged groups of people—to which they also counted women, children and youth—one motive behind which was the EP’s positioning as the representative of the people at Community level. All these aspects, however, can be demonstrated and analysed in the above-mentioned four case studies, whereas the study of the EP’s policy concerning people with disabilities and elderly persons offers no distinct

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added value in answering the above-mentioned research question from an analytical point of view. As another example, MEPs’ activism in the area of Community policy on occupational safety could have been studied as one of the earliest cases of EP involvement in social policy. The above-mentioned series of grave mine accidents in the 1950s in which numerous migrant workers were among the victims led the member states to discuss Community regulations concerning occupational safety beyond Treaty provisions.53 This allowed MEPs who swiftly developed an expertise in the area to leave a mark on adopted measures already prior to the Treaties of Rome, and thus to solidify the early EP’s role as more than a mere control body. While this could have been analysed as another case study, it would again have provided insights on informal procedures, underlying ideas and gradual gains in power and influence which could largely also be demonstrated in the case studies selected for this book. The same applies to the respective social dimensions of other Community policy areas, which could have been studied, such as MEPs’ socio-political activism in the areas of agricultural, textile or transport policy. All these examples would have offered only limited additional insights, while demanding a lot of background explanation and contextualisation, which would have overstretched the length of this volume. The selected case studies which are analysed in the following chapters thus represent model cases of different modes and dimensions of MEP behaviour and the EP’s institutional development. They reveal aspects and dynamics which can be traced even beyond the area of Community social policy, as the conclusion to this book discusses.

1.6 Refuting the Image of a Powerless “Talking Shop” The European Parliament, prior to its first direct elections, must not be thought of as the institution described by the Communities’ founding Treaties. Instead, whilst largely operating within its Treaty-assigned remit, the pre-1979 EP should be considered the sum of the actions of its members. This is the main thrust of the argument underlying each chapter

53 See i.a. Leboutte (2008: 640); High Authority of the ECSC (1963): EGKS 1952– 1962. Ergebnisse, Grenzen, Perspektiven. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

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of this book. Even though the EP’s gradual empowerment was obviously not in the hands of MEPs alone, the analysis reveals that the MEPs’ pursuit of more integration was the main driving factor behind the EP’s gain in power prior to 1979. It shows how social policy—a policy area with very narrow Community competences and limited Treaty provisions—became a springboard for the larger political and institutional ambitions of the early MEPs. While more research is needed for other areas to make these findings more universally applicable, this study of MEP activism in the field of social policy nonetheless demonstrates clearly how the EP swiftly outgrew the role of a “talking shop” and developed noteworthy parliamentary powers prior to 1979.54 This book thus makes an important contribution to the literature which has thus far largely underestimated the importance of the EP’s early years for its institutional evolution, and hence for the developing power balance of the European institutional system more generally. In so doing, the findings of this book furthermore add to our understanding of the EP more generally, notably of its gradually developed internal structure, its functioning and intra- as well as inter-institutional procedures, since many of them are rooted in the semi- and informal procedures introduced by MEPs prior to 1979. Through the analysis of norms and ideas shared by the majority of MEPs throughout the period under consideration, and of MEPs’ socialisation into the EP, this book helps understand the formation of the Parliament in its early years. The MEPs’ continuous striving for more influence, which this book identifies for the period prior to direct elections, can be traced throughout the EP’s entire history to the present day. Through a focus on the EP’s very beginnings, this study makes an important contribution to a deeper understanding of the EP’s—and its members’—historical strive for greater influence from the 1950s.

54 For an overview of literature in which the EP is considered as a mere talking shop prior to 1979, see i.a. Ripoll Servent (2018).

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A1 Annex: List of Interviews

Table 1.2 List of interviewees Name

Date and place of the interview

National party

EP party group*

MEP/EP staff member from/to

Renato Ballardini Georges Clerfayt

Riva del Garda, 17.01.2017 Phone interview, 12.07.2017

SG

1969–1974

NA

1975–1977

Anthony Brown

Dublin, 15.02.2017

–

–

John Alexander Corrie

Phone interview, 21.09.2016

ConG

Jean-Pierre Cot

Hamburg, 25.09.2017 Copenhagen, 01.04.2017 Phone interviews, 21. and 27.10.2016 Phone interview, 12.05.2017 Phone interviews, 01.06.2017 Series of e-mails, March 2018 Luxembourg-Ville, 13.10.2016

Partito Socialista, Italy Front démocratique francophone, Belgium [Special Advisor to the Irish Minister of Social Welfare Frank Cluskey, Labour Party] Conservative and Unionist Party, Scottland Parti socialiste, France Socialdemokratiet, Denmark Democraten 66, Netherlands

NA

1975, 1977–1979, 1994–2004 1978–1979, 1984–1999 1977–1979, 1979–1980 1973–1974, 1981–1984, 1994–1999 1971–1973

SG

1974–1977

CDG

1960–1972

Demokratesch Partei, Luxembourg

LAG

Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, Germany Labour Party, UK

SG

1969–1979, 1979–1980, 1984–1985, 1989–1990, 1999–2004 1978–1979

Karen Marie Dahlerup Doeke Eisma

Maarten Engwirda Ole Espersen Arnaldo Ferragni Colette Flesch

Lothar Ibrügger Brussels, 18.02.2017 Liam Kavanagh

Phone interview, 02.09.2016

Democraten 66, Netherlands Socialdemokratiet, Denmark -

SG SG SG

SG

1973–1979, 1979–1981

(continued)

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Table 1.2 (continued) Name

Date and place of the interview

National party

EP party group*

MEP/EP staff member from/to

Astrid Lulling

Schifflange, 30.09.2015

SG

1965–1974, 1989–2014

Charles McDonald Hans-Werner Müller

Dublin, 14.02.2017 Wadern, 12.06.2017

Sozialistesch Aarbechterpartei, then Sozial-Demokratesch Partei, then Chrëstlech-Sozial Vollekspartei, Luxembourg Fine Gael, Ireland

CDG

1973–1979

CDG

1977–1979

Fionnuala Richardson Jacques Santer

Dublin, 14.02.2017 Luxembourg-Ville, 12.09.2016

SG

1974–1988

CDG

1974–1979, 1979, 1999–2004 1977–1979, 1984–1989

Heinz Schreiber

Horst Seefeld

Vera Squarcialupi Dick Taverne

Chrëstlech-Sozial Vollekspartei, Luxembourg Phone interviews, Sozialdemokratische 27. and 28.06. and Partei Deutschlands, 11.08.2017 Germany Series of phone Sozialdemokratische interviews and Partei Deutschlands, e-mails, February Germany to October 2017 Milan, 18.01.2017 Non-affiliated, Italy

London, 10.11.2016

Alain Terrenoire Paris, 20.06.2017

Arie van der Hek Werner Zywietz

Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands, Germany -

Phone interview, 19.10.2016 Phone interview, 21.09.2016

Labour Party, then Social Democratic Party, then Liberal Party, UK Union des démocrates pour la République, France Partij van der Arbeid, Netherlands Freie Demokratische Partei Deutschlands, Germany

SG

SG

1970–1979, 1979–1989

ComG NA

1976–1979, 1979–1989 1973–1974

EPDG

1973–1978

SG

1973–1977

LAG

1977–1979

*CDG = Christian Democratic Group, SG = Socialist Group, LAG = Liberals & Allies Group, ComG = Communist Group, EPDG = European Progressive Democratic Group, ConG = Conservative Group, NA = non-affiliated

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CHAPTER 2

Conceptualising the European Parliament’s Gain in Power, 1952–1979

2.1

Introduction

This book is based on the assumption that the EP must be considered a product of its members’ aspirations and their behaviour rather than as an institution defined by the Communities’ founding Treaties, as mentioned in the introduction. This chapter presents the theoretical approach based on which the subsequent chapters will scrutinise this assumption. It brings together two strands of institutionalism: namely, historical and sociological institutionalism. The resulting hybrid approach is from here on referred to as historical-sociological institutionalism (HSI). The chapter opens by outlining the definition of institutions applied in the subsequent analysis, and explains the respective basic assumptions of historical and sociological institutionalism with regard to institutional development and actors’ behaviour. Building on this conceptual fundament, the chapter presents a series of analytical tools stemming from the two institutionalist approaches which are applied in the subsequent chapters, and discusses the added value of their combination in one hybrid HSI approach. Thus, this chapter sets the theoretical frame within which the following analysis is situated.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Roos, The Parliamentary Roots of European Social Policy, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78233-7_2

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2.2 Historical-Sociological Institutionalist Approach (HSI) 2.2.1

What is an Institution?

In combining two institutionalist approaches, this book brings together not only different theoretical concepts, but also different understandings of what an institution is. Before examining in detail the two merged approaches of institutionalism, this sub-section discusses how institutions are defined by authors from the two distinct approaches, and develops the definition of institutions applied in the subsequent analysis. Both historical institutionalism (HI) and sociological institutionalism (SI) build on the basic definition of institutions by North (1990) as “the rules of the game in a society or, more formally, […] the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction”.1 Importantly, North distinguishes these sets of rules from organisations, or “groups of individuals bound by some common purpose to achieve objectives”,2 such as—here—the EP, Commission or Council. Institutions as defined by North allow for a reduction of uncertainty in political interactions of organisations, and also of individuals, by structuring everyday procedures and offering a certain level of predictability. Institutions can in this understanding be formal—for instance official laws, agreements and regulations—in which case they specify both the rights and obligations of actors. They can also be informal, i.e. norms, conventions or codes of and constraints upon behaviour, which are accepted by certain groups of actors. In a wider definition, even beliefs and ideologies can be considered as institutions, given their constraining/channelling function.3 This relatively broad understanding of institutions has induced scholars applying an HI or SI approach to develop their own more distinct definitions.4 In conceptualising institutions, HI first and foremost adds a time dimension, assuming that “[r]ules and repertoires of practices embody historical experience”, whereas the regulation of organisational action “is shaped by constructive interpretations embedded in a history of language,

1 North (1990: 3). 2 Ibid.: 5; see also Saurugger (2014: 81). 3 See Parsons (2003: 9). 4 See Rosamond (2000: 115 et seqq).

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experience, memory, and trust”.5 HI research furthermore focuses on the balance of institutional endurance and change. Hall (2010), for example, emphasises that institutions are frequently subject to change and adjustments; they must hence be put into the respective historical context, and be analysed as parts of ongoing processes. Mahoney and Thelen (2010), while saying that HI defines institutions as “relatively enduring features of political and social life (rules, norms, procedures) that structure behavior and that cannot be changed easily or instantaneously”, point out that institutions are subject to gradual change in the long term, based on both exogenous and endogenous factors.6 SI research, in comparison, places different emphasis on its definition of institutions: here, actors are understood as (consisting of) individuals whose ideas and socialisation have an impact on and are at the same time shaped by surrounding institutions. Steinmo (2008), for instance, points out that in SI, “institutions frame the very way in which people see their world and are not just rules within which they try to work”.7 Rittberger (2012) defines institutions with Scott (2008) as “regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive elements, that, together with associated activities and resources, provide stability and meaning to social life”.8 Mühlböck and Rittberger (2015) emphasise in particular the role of institutions as “identity builders which socialize political actors into accepting certain collective norms”.9 Generally, SI understands institutions “as standards and rules determining actors’ preferences in processes perceived as endogenous”, and evolving “through cognitive processes linked to external events [which are] interpreted by actors who are embedded in and thus influenced by collective and individual cognitive frameworks”.10 Indeed, actors’ perceptions, based on their socialisation, play a crucial role in a sociological-institutionalist conceptualisation of institutions, which

5 March and Olsen (2006: 8). 6 Mahoney and Thelen (2010: 4); emphasis by Mahoney & Thelen. 7 Steinmo (2008: 126). 8 This is not a quote originally by Rittberger, but by Scott (2008: 48) whom Rittberger cites (2012: 20). 9 Mühlböck & Rittberger (2015: 9). 10 Saurugger (2014: 95).

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are seen to “reflect shared understandings of what actors perceive as legitimate, efficient, or modern”.11 The theoretical approach underlying this book combines historical and sociological aspects in its definition of rules and institutions. It assumes that organisations are created and evolve within a permanently changing framework of formal, semi-formal and informal rules and norms. These rules and norms constrain the organisations’ and their members’ scope of action, but they enable and indeed encourage agency at the same time,12 not least because the group of the rules’ and norms’ authors may differ from the group of actors who implement them, notably as regards composition, interests and ideologies.13 Consequentially, those who implement the rules might not agree with the institutional system created by the authors, and might hence seek to change this system. It should be emphasised that this book limits its focus not exclusively to the institutional structure of the EP, but that it embeds this institutional structure in the developing Community institutional system of the time, and also the member states’ institutional systems and traditions. After all, no institution develops on its own, but strongly depending on the surrounding institutions, as well as on models from other systems—such as, in the case of the EP, national and transnational parliamentary models, and their respective underlying traditions of legislative procedures.14 Before elaborating in more detail on the two institutionalist approaches which form the theoretical basis of this book, a terminological issue needs to be discussed briefly: as mentioned above, North (1990) and those who apply his definition understand institutions as (sets of) rules, whereas the collective bodies which act according to these rules are defined as organisations. For the sake of easier readability, however, this book uses the common understanding of “institutions” as bodies/actors—i.e. the EP, the Commission and the Council (among others) are referred to as institutions of the European Communities, instead of calling them organisations. When speaking about formal, semi-formal or informal 11 Mühlböck and Rittberger (2015: 8). 12 See Conran and Thelen (2016: 66). 13 Interests are here defined with Blyth (2002: 271) as “social constructs that are open to redefinition through ideological contestation”, and with Blyth (2003: 697) as “a ‘cluster’ concept: one whose intention, or core meaning, is intimately bound with its extension, or its cognates (such as beliefs and desires)”. 14 See March and Olsen (2006): 14.

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agreements, regulations, laws, norms, practices and routines that structure the behaviour of actors in policymaking, the term rules is applied, which is used by many of the above-mentioned authors as a synonym to institutions (as defined by North).15 2.2.2

Explaining the EP’s Institutional Development With Historical Institutionalism (HI)

Within the hybrid HSI approach that is applied here, a distinction can be made with regard to the functions the two approaches take in the analysis. Whereas SI offers a number of helpful tools and concepts to scrutinise the behaviour of individual MEPs, the following analysis is embedded in an HI theoretical framework allowing to trace processes of institutional change in and of the early EP and its parliamentary structure. Importantly, HI looks at the spaces between treaties and intergovernmental conferences, and treats such formal(ising) instances not as individual events, but as results of preceding inter- and intra-institutional processes.16 Consequently, HI helps examine the dynamics behind rule changes, and points “to the importance of sequence as a factor in explaining institutional outcomes”.17 Institutional change can take place either based on the determined pursuit of change by concerned actors, or as a consequence, intended or not, of other—preceding or parallel— institutional developments. HI offers different concepts to study these variations of institutional change, the most important of which are described below. Generally, events that take place early in the evolution of an institution are assumed to matter more than later ones,18 i.e. they have more weight in shaping an institution because “each level is more costly to change than the previous one”.19 This makes the analysis of the EP’s early years so important for a better understanding of its later institutional development.

15 See i.a. North (1990); Steinmo (2008); March and Olsen (2006); Blyth et al. (2016); Conran and Thelen (2016); Pierson (2016). 16 See Mühlböck and Rittberger (2015: 12). 17 See Rittberger and Stacey (2003: 1023). 18 See Pierson (2004: 18). 19 North (1990: 83). See also Mahoney (2000: 510, 515).

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This book looks at both formal and informal rules and procedures which had an impact on the EP’s institutional evolution. The following chapters trace such rules and procedures from their creation through their institutionalisation, and in several cases up to their formalisation. The analysis examines how the repetition of certain processes and practices turned into habitual behaviour, allowing members of the EP as well as of other Community institutions “to go about the everyday process of making exchanges without having to think out exactly the terms of an exchange at each point and in each instance”.20 Over time and with growing acceptance among those involved, such habitual behaviour not only structured intra- and inter-institutional procedures, but rendered (perceived) legitimacy to rules and procedures, because individuals came to expect the connection of a specific schema with a certain action as response.21 The development of such behavioural expectations played an important role in the institutionalisation of the EP’s involvement in Community politics and, in the long term, its gain in parliamentary powers, as the following chapters demonstrate. Habitual behaviour and gradually institutionalised rules and procedures are shown to have led to a relatively unitary demeanour of the MEPs, and thus to a strengthened perception of the EP as a serious and competent actor on the Communities’ political stage. Moreover, initially informal and gradually extended formal procedures were not merely institutionalised within the EP, but also between Parliament and the other Community institutions, the members of which equally developed expectations with regard to appropriate and feasible (re-)actions as a result. Some noteworthy examples, such as the consultation procedure and budgetary control, are discussed in detail in the following case studies. 2.2.2.1 Path Dependence The above-mentioned institutionalisation processes and the development of expectations can be studied through one of the main concepts of HI: path dependence. In short, this concept aims “to explain how a set of present decisions is limited by the decisions made in the past, even

20 North (1990: 83). 21 See Goetze and Rittberger (2010: 40 et seq).

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though past circumstances may no longer be relevant”.22 In order to understand why certain measures were chosen over a number of alternatives, an analysis not only of the possible outcomes from the actors’ point of view is necessary, but also of the factors that determined the actors’ behaviour in previous similar bargaining and decision-making situations. Such previous experiences influence and delimit the participants’ later scope of action—not only in terms of binding rules and norms, but also in their perception of what is necessary, what is possible, or what has good chances of success. Once established, rules and norms induce actors to adapt their behaviour not only in the areas for which these rules and norms were initially introduced, but beyond, not least because the rules and norms facilitate transactions, for instance by increasing predictability and efficiency in decision-making processes. Expecting the same effects, actors may transfer established procedures to other areas, be it to different policy areas or to different institutional settings.23 An important factor which needs to be considered in the study of emerging path dependencies in the EP’s early history is the relative vagueness of many Treaty articles, both with regard to the EP’s role and tasks, and with regard to the Communities’ social policy. This vagueness initially left much space in policy making for choices about institutional tasks and responsibilities, and about Community competences.24 As a consequence, MEPs’ activism which contributed significantly to the EP’s gradual gain in power went frequently beyond Treaty paragraphs. This activism led to the establishment of habits and routines which were accepted and assumed by subsequent delegates socialised into the EP’s formal and informal working procedures. Moreover, political activism also on the side of the Commission resulted in path-dependent EP action through the creation and consolidation of new procedures of inter-institutional collaboration, gradually increasing the EP’s influence on Community policymaking. Among the most important examples of such inter-institutional collaboration resulting in a path-dependent empowerment of the EP were increasingly frequent informal Commission consultations with MEPs in EP committees on proposals which were still in the process of being prepared. Such 22 Saurugger (2014: 91). See also Hay and Wincott (1998: 955). 23 See Nölke (2005: 156); Pierson (1996: 145). 24 Peterson (2001: 302) discusses the effects of such vagueness in more recent Commu-

nity and EU Treaties. This book discusses a similar effect of vagueness in the Treaties of Paris and Rome with regard to the EP’s institutional development.

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consultations gave MEPs the opportunity to shape significantly legislation at a very early stage of the drafting process. Another striking example is the constant extension of the formal consultation procedure in the area of Community social policy. Although the Treaties provided only for very limited EP involvement in the area—mostly with regard to the establishment of the ESF—the MEPs succeeded in establishing that the EP’s opinion was requested and heard on a growing number of social policy issues. The more such procedures were institutionalised, the smaller the range of choices perceived by Community actors as possible and feasible became, as the following chapters discuss through a number of examples. In that sense, the concept of path dependence helps explain a number of concessions the Council made to the EP. Once certain rules and procedures were in one area established as legitimate, notably with regard to the involvement of the EP as representative of the citizens and as the only parliamentary institution at Community level, it was comparably easy for the MEPs to convince the Council—and, in some cases, also the Commission—to apply the same rules and procedures in other areas. At the same time, the further an institutionalisation process had developed in a path dependent manner, the more difficult it became for individual Council members to contest EP involvement. Several such processes of “positive feedback”25 took place early on in the EP’s history, namely in the decisive phase in which the basic institutional character of the (would-be) supranational Parliament instead of a trans-parliamentary assembly was moulded. These processes had thus a considerable and lasting impact on the EP’s later development. 2.2.2.2 Unintended Consequences Though not as established and conceptualised within HI as path dependence, unintended consequences and by-products of decisions determining rules and procedures have had a noteworthy impact on the EP’s early institutional evolution.26 Indeed, several such unplanned developments emerged in close connection to the above-mentioned pathdependent processes. The Treaties as “incomplete contracts”27 provided 25 Processes of self-reinforcement in which every step of a development down a certain road makes reverse steps more costly and thus less likely. See Pierson (2004: 21). 26 On unintended consequences, see i.a. Thelen (2004: 36 et seq.); Hay (2002: 211); Pierson (1996: 136 et seq). 27 Héritier et al. (2019: 3).

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for ample opportunity in that regard. Already at the creation phase of the later Community institutions, actors “opted for ambiguous provisions and left space for interpretation, seeing such ambiguity as the only way to reconcile different institutional preferences”.28 This, however, merely postponed the necessity to concretise decision-making procedures and competences. The clarification of such initially ambiguous provisions frequently led to outcomes that differed significantly from what the authors of the provisions had foreseen. The Communities swiftly developed into an “extraordinarily complex network of overlapping authority”,29 and of frequently changing competences, making adaptations of institutional tasks and responsibilities necessary. For many of the members of Community institutions involved in decision-making, Community politics constituted only one part of their multifaceted and multilevel mandates. For members of the Council and of the EP, most prominently, initial responsibilities lay at the national level. In order to be able to combine their different mandates, these actors sought as effective a balance between invested effort and desired outcomes at Community level as possible. As a result of limited capacities which led to selective engagement and information, members of the Community institutions were often not fully aware of what implications the outcomes of interand intra-institutional bargaining would have, particularly with regard to long-term consequences. In the period under examination, the EP profited considerably from such unintended consequences and by-products of decisions with an impact on the Communities’ institutional power balance. Indeed, the member states at times increased the EP’s influence without the primary aim of doing so. Usually, whenever the EP was assigned additional powers prior to the SEA, a dominant underlying motivation of the member state governments was the aim to counter the perceived lack of democratic legitimacy of Community action and legislation by getting the citizens’ representatives on the table.30 In many cases, the involvement of the EP in a delimited area culminated in a broader—though often initially informal, and only over time formalised—gain of parliamentary powers

28 Lindner and Rittberger (2003: 468). 29 Pierson and Leibfried (1995: 434). 30 See i.a. Rittberger (2012, 2005, 2003); Lindner and Rittberger (2003).

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for the EP.31 This book adds new insight regarding concrete examples of such unintended concessions of increased influence, which over time translated into a significant power increase for the EP. 2.2.2.3 Critical Junctures Path dependent processes and unintended consequences can be triggered through critical junctures, i.e. temporarily limited periods allowing for (though not necessarily leading to) significant change. Such junctures enable relatively free agency in a situation in which otherwise prevailing institutional constraints collapse, do not apply, or become invalid.32 In consequence, “the range of possible outcomes that might take place in the future briefly but dramatically expands”.33 Once a decision in a certain direction is made, however, the window of opportunities swiftly closes, and more gradual processes—such as path dependencies—set in. These processes can differ significantly from the status quo prior to the critical juncture, leading institutions in an entirely different direction than previously pursued, and re-shaping existing rules and procedures, or offering space for the creation of entirely new ones. However, this is not a necessary consequence: indeed, actors may choose from the variety of options open to them at the juncture to return to established routines, which Capoccia (2016) calls the “re-equilibration of an institution”.34 This can make critical junctures difficult to trace; they may also be hard to identify since they do not have to be visibly outstanding but can seem relatively insignificant compared to their consequences.35 In its institutional evolution prior to 1979, the EP encountered only very few critical junctures. This book argues that at least in the area of social policy, there was no major rupture with the potential to change fundamentally the EP’s policy making or MEPs’ behaviour at Community level. Instead, the EP’s institutional structure, and the rules and procedures established by MEPs based on the ECSC Treatyproved to be stable yet (gradually) adaptable enough to endure various exogenous and endogenous ruptures to which the Communities were exposed without 31 See i.a. Héritier et al. (2019); Héritier (2007); Lindner and Rittberger (2003). 32 See i.a. Capoccia (2016); Fioretos et al. (2016). 33 Mahoney et al. (2016: 77). 34 Capoccia (2016: 95). 35 See Pierson (2004: 51).

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major and sudden changes. Indeed, it is worth emphasising that this analysis takes the ECSC Treaty (rather than the Treaties of Rome) as its starting point. Particularly with regard to the EP’s institutional development, the frame was set by the ECSC Treaty, which the Treaties of Rome then merely modified and extended, building to a significant extent on informal practices which had developed over the first years of the EP’s existence (as the Consultative Assembly of the ECSC), such as the consultation procedure. Given the vagueness of the ECSC Treaty’s provisions concerning the EP, a multiplicity of choices lay before the early MEPs with regard to the shaping of their mandates, and to their behaviour at Community level. Whereas it took years for many changes in the EP’s institutional role and powers to take shape, they all stand in connection to this initial vagueness, in combination with the activism and strong ideologies of a group of MEPs. Indeed, with an eye on these long-term processes rooted in part in the ECSC Treaty, the labelling of a number of major developments in the EP’s history as ruptures needs to be put into question—for instance, the EP’s gain in budgetary power through the two budget treaties of 1970 and 1975.36 Indeed, this book stresses a number of continuities, the formalisation of which may seem like a major breakthrough in the EP’s institutional evolution, but which had in fact already existed for years, sometimes decades as informal practices and routines before being officially acknowledged. Although the following analysis finds no evidence for a critical juncture in the EP’s own institutional development within the area of Community social policy, it points out that events and developments which have been identified as critical junctures for the Communities’ social policy, and Community politics more generally, also had an impact on the EP’s involvement therein. For instance, the Empty Chair crisis of 1965 has been identified as a critical juncture for the Commission and the Council in the sense of fundamentally questioning legislative procedures at Community level, resulting in a strongly reinforced culture of consensus-seeking.37 Alongside its effect on the Commission and the Council, this rupture had noteworthy consequences for the EP and its

36 This is discussed in greater detail in Chapters 3 and 7. 37 For an overview of literature on the Empty Chair crisis as a critical juncture, see

Lewis (2015: 226 et seq).

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involvement in Community policymaking, not least since the Commission became more hesitant to propose legislation in the area of social policy.38 In addition to such critical junctures within the Community institutional system, the EP was affected by significant socio-economic ruptures the effects of which stretched beyond the Communities’ territory. In the area of social policy, the coal crisis of the late 1950s and the economic and financial crisis of the 1970s forced new issues on the Communities’ social policy agenda and intensified the need for concerted action, among other issues concerning health and safety at work, and youth unemployment, while at the same time triggering protectionist tendencies in the member states.39 While the EP’s own working procedures did not change significantly under the impression of these crises, their effect on Community policies had an impact on the EP’s social policy making in that it allowed MEPs to pursue certain policy aims with increased verve, since issues which the MEPs had unsuccessfully advocated before now acquired a new level of urgency. At the same time, such ruptures dampened some governments’ openness for an extension of Community competences, making immediate crisis management more important than lofty integration ambitions, which in turn affected at times the feasibility of ambitious EP initiatives.40 2.2.2.4 Modes of Gradual Institutional Change The concepts of path dependence, unintended consequence and critical juncture can be considered traditional concepts of historical institutionalism. More recently, scholars of HI have begun to apply newer concepts, such as different modes of gradual institutional change. The incentive to develop such new concepts lay in the concern that the more traditional tools contributed only to the study of rapid change, followed by long periods of institutional stability. With regard to the study of other types of institutional change the original HI toolbox has shown limitations, notably in that it only allows for the effective examination of rapid change and continuity as distinct stages, even though “elements of

38 See i.a. Ludlow (2006, 2001), Kreppel (2002). 39 See i.a. Leboutte (2008); Cassiers (2006). 40 See i.a. Stråth (2007); Schulz (1996); Warner (1984).

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stability and change are in fact often inextricably intertwined” in institutional development.41 Moreover, the above-mentioned more traditional concepts largely overlook “shifts based on endogenous developments that often unfold incrementally”, focusing rather on exogenous shocks and influences on the respectively studied institutions.42 Newer HI concepts enable a more profound analysis of processes of gradual institutional change, overlapping structures, informal procedures, and of “the points of connection between institutions created or changed at different times and for different purposes”.43 Mahoney and Thelen (2010) distinguish four modes of gradual institutional change44 : 1. Existing rules may be removed and replaced by new ones (“displacement ”). 2. New rules may be introduced on top of, or alongside, existing ones, changing the way in which existing rules structure how actors behave (“layering ”). 3. The impact of existing rules may change due to shifts in the respective environment (“drift ”). 4. Existing rules may be interpreted and enacted in different ways than initially intended, due to their strategic redeployment (“conversion”). Examples of all four of these modes of gradual institutional change can be identified in the first three decades of the EP’s existence. Among the cases of displacement is the decision by MEPs to structure their everyday work based on party groups, not national delegations (as provided by the Treaty), and to sit in plenary sessions according to their group affiliation instead of alphabetical order. The introduction of a regular Question Time as part of almost every plenary session from the 1970s, in addition to the already well established written and oral parliamentary questions, can be considered a case of layering . The Treaties of Rome led—among manifold examples of institutional change—to a drift in the EP’s formal right to dismiss the executive of the Communities: as the Council of 41 Thelen (2004: 31). 42 Mahoney and Thelen (2010: 2). 43 Fioretos et al. (2016: 14). See also ibid.: 12, 19. 44 See Mahoney and Thelen (2010: 15 et seqq).

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the EEC became more formally powerful than the Commission (contrary to the formal power balance between the ECSC Council and the High Authority), the importance and impact of the EP’s right of control over the executive changed. The EP’s power of consultation, notably in the area of social policy, constitutes a case of conversion: the MEPs extended and re-interpreted that power in a way that gave their involvement considerably more legislative influence than the Treaties (and their authors) had originally foreseen. Such cases of MEP activism45 and more examples of gradual institutional change are discussed in more detail in the subsequent chapters. The MEPs’ supranational and multilevel activism and their pursuit of different institutional and political aims is a central element in the following analysis. Such activism is not a concept that is exclusive to HI, SI or indeed any theoretical approach to European integration.46 It is, however, a valuable concept for the analysis of institutional development. Pierson and Leibfried (1995) have stated that the EP, as well as the Commission and the ECJ, were “always looking for opportunities to enhance their powers”47 beyond the literal interpretation of the Treaties. The structural and procedural institutional change which resulted from these aspirations can be fruitfully conceptualised with HI tools. The underlying ideas and the individual as well as the collective experiences which drove and enabled—or prevented—MEPs to pursue certain activist aims, however, are better analysed through concepts from SI. In that regard, Rittberger and Stacey (2003) point out that the toolbox of HI retains some limitations when it comes to the study of endogenous institutional change.48 Crucially, HI analyses usually take the creation or change of rules and institutions as point of departure, but do not account for the preceding stage, namely reasons that induce actors to change their behaviour in a way that rules and institutions can be created, changed or

45 Activism is defined here with Howarth and Roos (2017: 1010) as “a particularly energetic effort on the part of an entity to fulfil an expansively defined understanding of its officially prescribed powers and goals and / or an effort, explicitly or implicitly, to expand these powers and goals”. 46 See ibid. 47 Pierson and Leibfried (1995: 435). 48 See Rittberger and Stacey (2003: 1022). These two, however, combine HI not

with SI, but with rational-choice institutionalism in their pursuit to trace when and why sufficient political or environmental pressure generates institutional change.

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removed. This book, however, argues that the early EP’s gain in power cannot be fully understood without this dimension, and hence without an in-depth analysis of MEPs’ behaviour and the norms and ideas inducing them to deviate from Treaty provisions and formal rules. In order to complement the HI toolbox to this end, elements of SI are incorporated into the theoretical framework of this analysis. 2.2.3

Explaining MEPs’ Behaviour with Sociological Institutionalism (SI)

Sociological institutionalism seeks to explain actors’ behaviour and the resulting institutional change based on social identities, role orientation and ideas. It aims to understand what induces individual and collective actors to act in a certain way, based on the fundamental assumption that actors are driven by logics of appropriateness rather than cost–benefit calculations and resulting expectations about possible consequences.49 SI adds to the HI approach applied here notably in emphasising that rules and norms are permanently interpreted—in different ways—according to individual actors’ ideas and their socialisation. Dominating perceptions among actors in an institutional context change over time, be it because of a changing composition of these actors, or because actors undergo ideological change themselves. Such changes of perception may in turn induce institutional change, the reasons for which need to be consequently sought not only in changing exogenous circumstances—though they can certainly play an important role—but also in the permanently developing set of ideas and socialisation of the involved actors, and their divergent and conflicting interests.50 Lindner and Rittberger (2003) go so far as to consider exogenous events such as critical junctures or unintended consequences to “become superfluous”, or at least have only a limited impact on institutional development compared to the impact of the constellations of actors and their preferences, and of the actors’ behaviour resulting from their rule interpretation.51

49 See Mühlböck and Rittberger (2015: 8); March and Olsen (2011). 50 See i.a. Conran and Thelen (2016: 65); Lindner and Rittberger (2003: 449); Hay

(2006: 68) and (2002: 166). 51 Lindner and Rittberger (2003: 468).

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When studying the perceptions of actors in order to understand their behaviour, it is important to keep in mind that “it is, frankly, implausible to suppose [that] actors have complete information on the context in which they find themselves”.52 To some extent, this may result from actors’ limited access to information, be it for instance because some information is hidden (such as on informal procedures and their outcomes), or because of limited resources of an actor to get fully informed. Both points certainly play an important role in the study of the EP prior to its first direct elections, not least given that for all MEPs, their Community-level activities constituted merely one part of their double mandate as parliamentarians. Equally important is furthermore the ideational filter through which actors choose to believe and to remember one piece of information rather than another, mostly because it fits well into their ideological mind-set.53 Actors who share a similar ideological mind-set are likely to interpret circumstances similarly, and consequently to act similarly. This assumption is tested for different groups of actors in this book, namely for the entire group of MEPs prior to 1979, furthermore for the EP’s party groups and committees, and finally for a small group of norm entrepreneurs who had a particularly strong impact on the EP’s institutional evolution. 2.2.3.1 Polity and Policy Ideas In the analysis of MEPs’ behaviour, the following chapters put special emphasis on the study of ideas which had a particularly strong impact on MEPs’ actions. Jacobs (2009) defines ideas, or “mental representations”, with cognitive and social psychology as “knowledge structures stored in long-term memory that usually abstract from specific instances or experiences”.54 According to Parsons (2003), ideas are “autonomous factors in politics” which “cause actors to make certain choices” and which, through their institutionalisation, can gradually reconstruct actors’ interests.55 Also, Blyth et al. (2016) and Hay (2006) emphasise that ideas

52 Hay (2002: 257 et seq). 53 See i.a. Hay and Wincott (1998: 955); Lindner and Rittberger (2003: 449). 54 Jacobs (2009: 257). 55 Parsons (2003: 5 et seq). See also Blyth (2003).

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can under certain conditions prove transformative in institutional development.56 To concretise the still relatively vague concept of ideas, this research applies the definition more particularly of polity ideas presented by Lindner and Rittberger (2003). In the construction and reform of EU institutions, Lindner and Rittberger define polity ideas as “shared beliefs or theories about institutions that actors consider ‘appropriate’ and legitimate in the construction of a political order”.57 They specify with Jachtenfuchs et al. (1998) that polity ideas are ‘normative orders in which specific constructions of the legitimacy of a political system are (re)produced through the ascription of purpose and meaning’ or, equally, as ‘convictions about the rightfulness of governance shared by actors in the political system’.58

According to this definition, the scope of polity ideas is limited to institutional action and change. The theoretical approach applied here, however, extends the ideational analysis by also examining the relevance of dominating ideas with regard to political integration, i.e. the following analysis also traces what ideas underlying certain policy aims, shared by a significant number of MEPs, had an impact on the EP’s institutional development and the coming into being of a Community social dimension. In order to distinguish this type of ideas from the above-mentioned polity ideas, ideas underlying policy aims are conceptualised here and referred to in this book as policy ideas . These two types of ideas are expected to have influenced the evolution of the EP and of Community social policy in different ways, and are hence analysed separately (as far as this is possible and sensible, as discussed in the following chapters). Both kinds of ideas are expected to fulfil an important role in structuring actors’ perceptions and behaviour, “guiding their attention toward certain logics and pieces of information and—just as important—away from others”.59 In the case of the EP, such ideas functioned as a kind of a filter in the over-abundance of information at Community level with which the part-time Euro-parliamentarians were confronted. Crucially,

56 See Blyth et al. (2016: 149); Hay (2006). 57 Lindner and Rittberger (2003: 450). 58 Ibid., quoting Jachtenfuchs et al. (1998: 413). 59 Jacobs (2009: 254).

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the following analysis does not assume the actors’ ideas to be fixed, but rather to be in a permanent process of reconstruction, and inseparably linked to the changing institutional environment, as well as to external events and developments which are discussed in the respective chapters. In order to understand why certain ideas prevailed over others, this historical context needs to be taken into consideration. 2.2.3.2

The Development and Influence of Norms and Logics of Appropriateness Ideas, once established and shared by a sufficient number of actors, may develop into norms, i.e. “standard[s] of appropriate behavior for actors with a given identity”.60 These norms, and the resulting logics of appropriateness which actors perceive,61 can guide actors’ behaviour up to the point of being institutionalised, as this book shows in a number of examples within the early EP. Much of the MEP behaviour analysed in the following chapters derived from their identification as supranational parliamentarians. This self-perception and the thereby induced activism were embedded in a normative framework of ever closer institutional and political integration in which the EP was situated as the Communities’ Parliament and representative of the citizens. Being accepted by the vast majority of MEPs, this framework led the delegates to adapt their behaviour to their perception of the EP and of their role therein, as well as to the pursuit of the broader aim of ever closer union, rather than acting in correspondence to their individual interests.62 The underlying normative framework was not specifically defined by MEPs or put down in writing. However, as Finnemore and Sikkink (1998) state, “because norms by definition embody a quality of ‘oughtness’ and shared moral assessment, norms prompt justifications and leave an extensive trail of communication among actors that we can study”.63 Such traces are in the following analysis identified in EP documents such as resolutions, reports and minutes of debates which offer insights into the normative

60 Finnemore and Sikkink (1998: 891). 61 See March and Olsen (2011). 62 On the conceptualisation of such logics of appropriateness, see i.a. ibid. and

Saurugger (2014: 94 et seq). 63 Ibid.: 892.

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system within which the MEPs situated themselves. Moreover, the semistructured interviews which were conducted for this research provide in-depth insight, as a number of the interviewees recalled what standards of behaviour influenced their actions. The understanding of this evolving normative system within which MEPs acted is important when trying to determine what alternatives of action lay before them, which ones they considered as viable options and which they chose in the end.64 The chapters of this book reveal that shared normative beliefs and logics of appropriateness channelled MEPs’ behaviour partly beyond their EP mandates. Several of the conducted interviews and a number of speeches made by MEPs and Commissioners during plenary debates prior to 1979 suggest that the MEPs’ socialisation in the EP had an impact on their actions (a) at other levels, such as in their national parliaments, and (b) in roles which they took over after the end of their EP mandates, for instance as national ministers (and hence members of the Council) or as members of the Commission. Their advocacy of policy positions promoted by the EP, and of the EP as an important actor in Community decision-making procedures was influenced by the norms which these (former) MEPs had accepted and internalised during their time in the EP. In the focus of the analysis of this normative system stands the pursuit of increasing legitimacy and public support for Community action and legislation, which MEPs believed could be attained to some extent through an intensified involvement of the EP. MEPs also saw a stronger social dimension of the Communities as an important element in strengthening the Communities’ relevance for the citizens, thus reaching a more favourable public image of and broader identification with the Communities, as the case studies in this book demonstrate. 2.2.3.3 Norm Entrepreneurs Finnemore and Sikkink (1998) identify three stages in the evolution of norms: norm emergence as the phase of a norm’s origins; norm cascade— a point in time at which a critical mass of actors adopts the norm; and internalisation, constituting the end of the norm cascade from which onwards a norm has acquired a taken-for-grantedness.65 Not all norms

64 On the constraining and channeling power of norms, see i.a. Rittberger (2012); Parsons (2003). 65 See Finnemore and Sikkink (1998: 895).

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go through this entire “life cycle”; some fail to gain sufficient support to reach even the “norm cascade” stage. If a norm prevails, and gets internalised by a significant number of actors, this happens often through the activism of particularly outspoken proponents of the respective norm, or norm entrepreneurs . This concept is significant for the following analysis, which traces the impact of a small group of MEPs who were especially activist and had disproportionate influence on the EP’s actions and its development prior to 1979. Finnemore and Sikkink (1998) have been the pioneers in conceptualising the study of norm entrepreneurs, initially within constructivist theory in International Relations. Over time, the concept has been applied by numerous scholars in a variety of research fields in the wider area of International Relations and Political Science. Finnemore and Sikkink have defined norm entrepreneurs as agents having strong notions about appropriate behavior in their community [who] are critical for norm emergence because they call attention to issues or even ‘create’ issues by using language that names, interprets, and dramatizes them.66

Norm entrepreneurs (help to) construct cognitive frames through trying by different means to convince their peers of their ideas.67 If they succeed in their persuasion strategies, “agent action becomes social structure, ideas become norms, and the subjective becomes the intersubjective”.68 Norm entrepreneurs can thus exert considerable influence over the development of rules and institutions. It should be emphasised that new norms and ideas promoted by entrepreneurs rarely enter into a normative empty space, but that they have to compete with existing normative frameworks and ideological structures. In that sense, the early years of the EP are a particularly interesting period to be studied: surely, all MEPs came to the EP with ideas of their own, socialised in their home parliaments and in many cases in international organisations and bodies, as well as carrying with them their own perceptions of the European integration project. However, as the majority of interviewed former MEPs confirmed, most delegates had very 66 Ibid.: 896 et seq. 67 See also Parsons (2003). 68 Finnemore and Sikkink (1998: 915).

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few ideas of the EP’s concrete functioning upon entering. Hence, with regard to institutional norms that concerned the specific everyday work of the EP, many new MEPs came to Strasbourg and Luxembourg relatively unprejudiced, or at best with some vague ideas of what to expect. This book discusses how many of these MEPs became convinced to act as Euro-parliamentarians rather than national delegates of a merely consultative assembly, and how some of these MEPs turned into norm entrepreneurs themselves. Indeed, the following chapters confirm the assumption of Finnemore & Sikkink that in order to “challenge existing logics of appropriateness, activists may need to be explicitly ‘inappropriate’”.69 Applied to the early EP, this meant that MEPs had to actively go beyond Treaty provisions and formal institutional rules in order to reach what they considered legitimate and indeed necessary in a mid- and longterm perspective, namely increased powers and responsibilities of their institution. The following chapters identify a number of norm entrepreneurs and examine their involvement in EP and Community policy making. They also analyse to what extent the activism of these norm entrepreneurs became institutionalised in informal and gradually formalised procedures, and what impact these delegates thus had on the EP’s institutional evolution prior to 1979. The embeddedness of these norm entrepreneurs in different institutional settings at Community and national level plays a crucial role in the analysis: amongst others, MEPs could only become norm entrepreneurs if their national parties allowed them sufficient freedom to invest significant time in their second mandate, i.e. in the EP. At Community level, MEPs who became norm entrepreneurs usually developed particularly close ties and broad networks among different Community institutions, notably with the Commission and the Council. These networks helped them in their pursuit of political and institutional aims. The EP’s own internal structure also helped norm entrepreneurs to gather support for the norms and ideas they promoted: the EP party groups brought together MEPs who largely shared a fundamentally similar set of political and ideological ideas, and the EP committees pooled delegates not only connected by their expertise (or at least

69 Ibid.: 897.

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interest) in a specific area, but also by shared political aims, as the vast number of unanimously adopted committee reports suggests.70 It should be noted that this book does not focus solely on the actions of norm entrepreneurs, but also takes into consideration less activist MEPs. While the actions of norm entrepreneurs are central to this analysis, not least because much of the early EP’s output goes back to the activism of these entrepreneurs, the following chapters also shed light on the “average” MEPs who could not afford to spend too much time away from their constituencies and national parliaments. The impact of norm entrepreneurs in the early EP can only be determined by considering to what extent “average” MEPs accepted the norms and procedures introduced and promoted by the entrepreneurs. Indeed, both types of MEP behaviour need to be analysed in connection, since they were to a significant extent mutually dependent. 2.2.3.4 The Impact of MEPs’ Socialisation on Their Behaviour MEPs’ different tasks at Community, national and constituency levels (among others) influenced one another in that they kept individual delegates occupied to different extents, forcing them to limit the time spent on some tasks in order to have the required/desired capacity to deal with others. In addition to studying the results of these mutual restrictions, this analysis traces to what extent MEPs’ different tasks and roles and the respective institutional environments influenced their behaviour, i.e. what impact different aspects and fora of their socialisation had on their actions in the EP. Like the analysis of ideas and norms, the study of actors’ socialisation and its impact on their behaviour is a core element of a sociological-institutionalist analysis.71 Socialisation is here defined with Checkel (2005) as “a process of inducting actors into the norms and rules of a given community”, leading to “sustained compliance based on the internalization of these new norms”, which induces an actor to follow certain logics of appropriateness rather than individual interests.72 In acknowledging and studying the impact of MEPs’ socialisation on the EP’s institutional evolution, this book puts special emphasis on MEPs not as uniform members of a homogenous body, but as individuals, many of

70 This is discussed in more detail in Chapter 3. 71 See i.a. Saurugger (2014: 163 et seq). 72 Checkel (2005: 804).

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whom shared certain experiences which are outlined in the subsequent chapters, but who also must be regarded as being driven by unique sets of experiences, interests and ideas. With regard to shared experiences, this book offers some insight into what connected many of those national parliamentarians who were chosen by their parties and parliaments as delegates to the early EP: common features are, among others, foreign language skills, previous experiences in international organisations such as the assemblies of the Western European Union (WEU) and the Council of Europe, or participation in international trade unions and transnational party organisations. More importantly, the analysis focuses on the socialisation of MEPs into the EP, its groups and committees, and its procedures many of which had been introduced by previous MEPs. The subsequent chapters demonstrate how such procedures were established and institutionalised through “becom[ing] part of actors’ ‘historical memory’”,73 taught and handed on by earlier delegates. Franklin and Scarrow (1999) have made a distinction between shortterm institutional learning—i.e. the rather superficial “adoption of institutional interests” for mostly practical reasons—and long-term socialisation which has the potential to change an actor’s interests, ideas and behaviour more fundamentally.74 In the case of the early EP, both types played a role in MEPs’ integration into the EP’s functioning: new delegates swiftly adapted to established EP routines in order to cope as efficiently as possible with the extra workload, coming on top of their national mandates.75 In the medium and longer term, however, many MEPs became convinced of the EP’s legitimate role as the supranational parliament of the Communities, which meant for them that the EP should hold the respective powers and act accordingly. In consequence, MEPs acted like Euro-parliamentarians not only for reasons of efficiency, but because they had been socialised into the EP’s normative framework.

73 Rittberger (2012: 21). 74 Franklin and Scarrow (1999: 47). 75 Roos (2019) shows this in the context of an analysis on intra-party group unity in

the EP prior to 1979.

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2.2.4

Combining HI and SI in One Hybrid Theoretical Approach

This book is not the first study in the field of HI that incorporates elements of another institutionalist approach. Indeed, Farrell and Héritier (2003) have pointed out that many HI studies lean either in a rationalchoice institutionalist (RCI) or a more sociological-institutionalist direction.76 Mühlböck and Rittberger (2015) go as far as stating that HI studies usually have one or the other emphasis, though they find a higher density of HI-RCI combinations, particularly concerning the EP and the Council.77 This section points out the added value of an HI-SI combination, and discusses how such a combination provides the necessary theoretical basis to answer the research questions underlying the following analysis. From the late 1990s, a group of historical institutionalists have moved away from the initial understanding of “institutions as sources of agents’ preferences—and therefore as sticky and path-dependent”, towards acknowledging the interactive and mutually shaping effects of institutions and ideas.78 This ideational extension of HI included elements of SI as well as of constructivism. Hay (2006) has gone so far as to appeal for a distinct Constructivist Institutionalism, which he embeds in HI. Criticising the more traditional HI approach for focusing— in his view—merely on exogenous path dependencies, lock-in effects and ruptures in institutional development, Hay adds an ideational path dependence, based on the assumption that it is not just institutions, but the very ideas on which they are predicated and which inform their design and development, that exert constraints on political autonomy. Institutions are built on ideational foundations which exert an independent path dependent effect on their subsequent development.79

Constructivist institutionalism, according to Hay, consequently analyses the establishment and codification, as well as the contestation and replacement of ideas as “cognitive filters through which actors come to interpret

76 See Farrell and Héritier (2003: 578); also Hall (2010). 77 See Mühlböck and Rittberger (2015: 11). Hay (2006: 63) identifies the same trend. 78 Blyth (2003: 700) describes this process. See i.a. also Berman (1998); McNamara

(1998, 1999). 79 Hay (2006: 65).

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environmental signals”.80 This filter function of ideas is also traced in the early EP throughout the chapters of this book. Ideas may have an impact on institutional development not only in the long term. Indeed, Capoccia (2016) and Blyth (2002) demonstrate that at momentous events of limited duration, notably in times of (perceived) crisis, politics of ideas also matter: when established institutions cannot provide a sufficient answer to ruptures, actors may enter into ideational battles in order to “impose on other groups a particular definition [for instance] of the crisis, and therefore what institutions it takes to ‘solve’ the crisis”.81 This suggests a further contact point between HI and SI: in addition to the above-mentioned ideational path dependence which Hay defined, an ideational dimension can also be added to critical junctures. Hall (2010) and Steinmo (2016) point out the added value of taking into consideration the role played by normative beliefs in institutional development. Similar to ideas, such normative beliefs can function as filters through which actors perceive, store and organise information.82 Moreover, such beliefs can “be central to the process whereby the leaders of organizations mobilize consent among their followers” when trying to secure agreement, for instance in the process of establishing new institutions or rules.83 This book demonstrates that the analysis of norms and norm-shaping ideas in the institutional development of the early EP is key to understanding MEPs’ behaviour, on which the EP’s gain in power depended to a significant extent. After all, perceptions and beliefs can change how actors behave: Marsh (2009), for instance, concludes with regard to globalisation that “if states and other actors believe that there are high levels of globalisation, then they will act as if that was so and, in doing so, by increasingly competing in that global marketplace, bring about more globalisation”.84 This book produces similar findings with regard to the early EP: the following chapters show that, given that the vast majority of MEPs believed that the EP had a right to have a say in 80 Ibid. In the same vein, another (part-)institutionalist approach studies the impact of ideas on discourses and actors’ behaviour in institutional settings: discursive institutionalism. On this theoretical approach, see e.g. Crespy (2010); Schmidt and Crespy (2010); Schmidt (2008). 81 Capoccia (2016: 97). 82 See Steinmo (2016: 111 et seqq.); Hall (2010: 12 et seq.). 83 Hall (2010: 12). 84 Marsh (2009: 689).

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Community legislation and hold a range of powers usually held by parliaments in liberal democracies, they acted accordingly. Such ideas-driven behaviour contributed to a gradual increase of the EP’s effective influence in Community decision-making procedures. The lasting impact of normative beliefs on an institution’s development can only be measured if tracing their effects over a longer period of time, and if studying the connected and resulting institutional change or stability. To this end, the following analysis combines the SI-based study of norms and ideas with the above-mentioned HI concepts. As mentioned above, this book is not the first study combining elements of HI and SI; it is furthermore not the first study doing so in order to analyse the early EP. Rittberger in particular has combined the two approaches (notably 2012, with Goetze 2010, and with Lindner 2003), though adding HI elements to a predominantly SI analysis rather than applying a combination of SI and HI concepts within a larger HI framework, as this book does. A dominance of SI would in the present case not have allowed for as detailed an analysis of the institutional structures and procedures evolving within the EP, and the politics and contestation around them, as an HI framework does.85 A major distinction between either a pure HI or SI approach in the following analysis would have consisted in approaching MEPs as actors whose preferences and behaviour are first and foremost shaped by the institutional setting in which they work (HI) versus MEPs whose preferences and behaviour are shaped by ideas, norms and socialisation (SI). This analysis finds that both dimensions played an important and interactive role in the EP’s early institutional evolution. MEPs—as well as members of other Community institutions—were influenced in their behaviour by evolving institutional constraints, by the normative framework which MEPs shaped themselves but which limited their choice of action at the same time, and by the ideas which they (had) formed based on their socialisation within and outside the EP. The HSI approach applied here enables the fruitful study of the interdependence of these different factors, thus providing a more in-depth understanding of the EP’s early institutional development than the application of only one of the two underlying institutionalist approaches would have offered.

85 On such limits of SI regarding the analysis of institutional structures and procedures, see Fioretos et al. (2016: 7 et seq.).

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Conclusion

The analysis of the EP’s institutional evolution prior to 1979 demands a theoretical approach which takes into consideration the contemporary circumstances and the changing environment in which the EP was embedded, in order to understand the relatively swift institutional change which the EP underwent during the first three decades of its existence. Moreover, the theoretical approach must allow for the analysis of a variety of informal procedures and of evolving routines, which were only gradually institutionalised, but which significantly shaped the early EP’s role and powers. Furthermore, MEPs’ behaviour which determined these routines and procedures can only be understood if taking into consideration the ideas and norms driving the MEPs’ actions, and the impact of MEPs’ socialisation on their behaviour. Whereas no established theoretical approach allows for this combination of concepts, they can all be found in either historical or in sociological institutionalism, which is why the following analysis applies a hybrid historical-sociological institutionalist approach. Each of the following chapters briefly explains the application of the HSI approach in the respectively examined case. Given that the chapters analyse different factors and processes within the EP’s institutional development, based on the specific cases under examination, the balance of HI and SI elements in the respective analysis varies. Chapter 7 on the EP’s strategic usage of its influence via the ESF, for instance, focuses principally on the path-dependent development and gradual change of certain rules and procedures within the EP’s empowerment. Hence, this chapter makes greater use of HI than SI concepts. Chapter 6 on the EP’s children and youth policy, in contrast, has a stronger ideational dimension than the other chapters: it analyses how MEPs attempted to strengthen a European consciousness and ideological support among future generations of citizens for the European Communities. Consequently, SI tools and concepts play a more important role in the analysis of this case study than concepts from HI. Although in different proportions, all chapters identify processes of gradual institutional change, unintended consequences and path dependencies as well as a noteworthy impact of ideas, norms and socialisation on MEPs’ behaviour. The chapters are structured accordingly, each containing a section discussing the HI-related expectations which have

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been presented above, as well as a section on the SI-related expectations. The interaction of different identified exogenous and endogenous factors, of structural, procedural, ideational and sociological elements and their respective influence on the EP’s overall institutional evolution are discussed both at the end of each chapter and in the conclusion to this book. These conclusions demonstrate the added value of the hybrid theoretical approach developed above for a better understanding of the EP’s gain in power prior to 1979.

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CHAPTER 3

The Institutional Evolution of the European Parliament Prior to 1979

3.1

Introduction

Much of the existing literature on the early years of the European Parliament assumes that its powers corresponded to what the Treaties provided. While this may be true for the very first years—with regard to some aspects even only the first months—of the EP’s existence, this chapter shows that such assumptions constitute a major misconception which hampers a full understanding of the EP’s institutional evolution into the fully fledged Parliament it is today. Building on the historical-sociological institutionalist framework presented in Chapter 2, this chapter demonstrates that a significant gap developed between Treaty provisions and the EP’s real powers from the 1950s. This development was shaped first and foremost by MEPs’ activism, which is analysed below. The chapter opens with a brief chronology of the EP’s institutional evolution prior to 1979, in order to provide the historical context which is necessary to understand MEPs’ behaviour and the consequences of their activism. The EP’s gradual parliamentarisation is then analysed in two parts: Sect. 3.3 focuses in an HI analysis on the emergence of different parliamentary powers, namely the EP’s power of control, its legislative and budgetary power, and its power of initiative. Section 3.4 then discusses in an SI analysis the ideational basis of MEPs’ activism and examines dominant factors in MEPs’ socialisation both prior to and after entering the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Roos, The Parliamentary Roots of European Social Policy, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78233-7_3

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EP. Moreover, this section discusses how a small group of particularly activist MEPs took on the role of norm entrepreneurs, steering the EP’s activities and shaping the norms accepted by the bulk of MEPs as a basis of their behaviour at Community level. Finally, the section discusses the ideational and sociological basis of the EP’s party groups and committees. It explains how they structured MEPs’ behaviour, and thus demonstrates their importance for the EP’s institutional development. With this analysis of the EP’s institutional and ideational fundaments, this chapter provides a guide to the early EP which is necessary in order to understand the case studies presented in subsequent chapters, and their relevance for the EP’s institutional evolution. The chapter thus sheds light on the bigger context within which the case studies are embedded. In itself, this chapter offers a condensed overview of the EP’s empowerment prior to 1979.

3.2 Brief Chronology of the EP’s Institutional Evolution Prior to 1979 The identity of the EP as a supranational parliament was not provided by the Treaties of Paris and Rome, but was constructed by the members of the early EP themselves.1 Indeed, the EP was formally not intended to be anything close to a Parliament when established as the Common Assembly of the ECSC by the Treaty of Paris, which was signed by the foreign ministers of the original six member states on 18 April 1951.2 This Treaty stipulated as the EP’s main—and almost only—task to control the ECSC’s executive, the High Authority. This had been the only institution provided by the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950, drafting the idea of a coal and steel community; there was no mention of an assembly 1 This book refers to the Parliament as well as its predecessor, the Communities’ Assembly, as the European Parliament/EP throughout (and consequently to its members as MEPs), despite the fact that this nomenclature is anachronistic for the very early years, and was only officially acknowledged by the Council in the SEA. On the one hand, the consistent reference to the institution as the EP has been chosen for the sake of easier readability. On the other hand, this title corresponded to the majority of MEPs’ perception of their institution at the time. Given that this book focuses on the delegates and their behaviour, the author considered it apt to adopt their designation of their institution. The history of the EP’s different titles—both its formal ones and those bestowed upon it by its members—is summarised in Sect. 3.4. 2 See Recitals of the ECSC Treaty.

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(nor indeed of a Council or Court of Justice).3 The demands to set up an additional control organ came initially from the smaller countries among the Six, which feared being disadvantaged if the purely technocratic High Authority, possibly dominated by the Community’s bigger member states, ruled unchecked.4 Thus, within the first month of the negotiations, the Dutch delegation declared that it could not accept the High Authority taking final decisions “without the control for instance of an international parliament”.5 The idea of an assembly consisting of members of the national parliaments was swiftly accepted by all delegations, though with a scope of duties strictly limited to the control of the High Authority. The head of the German delegation, Walter Hallstein, would have preferred an institutional solution closer to the US Congress—with the Council and the Assembly as the two chambers of the Community. However, such federalist ideals were not shared by all the governments of the Six.6 Eventually, the “least imperfect solution”7 of an assembly with restricted tasks and duties, on which all member states could agree, entered the ECSC Treaty. This compromise resulted in a number of rather vague Treaty provisions concerning the assembly, which later allowed the MEPs considerable space for interpretation of the Treaty-given rules concerning the EP. On 23 July 1952 the ECSC Treaty entered into force. Two months later, the ECSC’s Common Assembly—the later EP—met for the first time in plenary. From this first session, members of the Assembly rejected the limitations of its minimalist scope as stipulated in the Treaty, starting

3 See Schuman Declaration, 9 May 1950 (https://europa.eu/european-union/abouteu/symbols/europe-day/schuman-declaration_en, last visit 17 February 2021). 4 See Thiemeyer (2001: 29 et seqq.). 5 Compte rendu de la réunion entre fonctionnaires néerlandais, belges et luxembour-

geois, Brussels, 8 June 1950 (https://www.cvce.eu/en/obj/compte_rendu_de_la_reu nion_entre_fonctionnaires_neerlandais_belge_et_luxembourgeois_bruxelles_8_juin_1950fr-93f5ef2a-0dfc-46e4-9c45-1051da6ec167.html, last visit 17 February 2021), p. 2; translated by the author—original quote: “sans contrôle par exemple d’un parlement international”. 6 See Thiemeyer (2001: 31). 7 Translated by the author,

original: “solution la moins imparfaite”. See Memorandum of the French delegation on the Schuman Plan institutions, summer 1950 (https://www.cvce.eu/en/obj/memorandum_on_the_schuman_plan_instit utions_summer_1950-en-174b3b8d-18d5-4157-8697-b0a7224c6d6c.html, last visit 17 February 2021), p. 3.

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with the provision for merely one annual session.8 In order to be able to do more than nodding or shaking their heads at the High Authority’s annual report, the early MEPs decided swiftly that while their annual session would begin, as intended by the Treaty, on the second Tuesday of March, it should last until the second Monday of March of the following year—i.e. the day before the new session would begin.9 This was possible because the Treaty only provided a start, but no end date for the annual session. Consequently, rather than closing a plenary session, the EP President would up to the 1970s officially interrupt it, to be continued some weeks later, thus stretching plenary sessions over an entire year. The individual plenary meetings were then referred to as partsessions.10 In addition to the one stipulated annual session, both the High Authority/Commission and the Council as well as the EP itself were entitled by all three founding Treaties to call for an extraordinary session of the EP, which happened, however, rarely, presumably not least given the already high frequency of part-sessions.11 The ECSC Treaty provided for very little EP action other than the scrutiny of the High Authority’s annual report. MEPs could put questions to the High Authority, and the EP was to be involved if the Community’s competences or the High Authority’s powers needed to be extended based on circumstances unforeseen at the point of the Treaty’s entering into force.12 Prior to 1958, however, this latter provision had hardly any impact on the EP’s work, because Community policy making remained mostly within the remits stipulated by the Treaty. In a similar vein, whereas the Treaty provided for the possibility of the EP being consulted by the Council,13 the ministers never formally did so prior to 1958.14 As

8 See Art. 22 ECSC. 9 See Corbett (1999b: 64). 10 See i.a. Report by the Committee on Cultural Affairs and Youth on a Commission

proposal to the Council for a directive on the education of the children of migrant workers, 12 November 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!JEUN.1973_A0-0375!750010EN_034794), pp. 9 and 22. 11 See Arts. 22 ECSC, 139 EEC, 109 Euratom. 12 See Art. 95 ECSC. 13 See Art. 22 ECSC. 14 See Stein (1959: 239).

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a result, MEPs—unhappy with the limited role intended for their institution—acted mostly on their own initiative prior to the entering into force of the Treaties of Rome. In order to work more efficiently than a literal interpretation of the Treaty articles on the EP would have allowed, the pre-1958 MEPs increased not only the frequency of plenary meetings. They also set up within the first year of the EP’s existence a parliamentary structure, allowing them to cope with their gradually increasing (self-assigned) workload at Community level. This structure was built crucially on two elements: the establishment of parliamentary committees on the one hand, and of party groups on the other. On 10 January 1953, during the EP’s second ever plenary session, a resolution was adopted which provided for the creation of seven permanent committees, among them a committee on social affairs.15 On 16 June 1953, the EP adopted unanimously a resolution enshrining party groups in the Rules of Procedure.16 These groups had begun to form earlier that year, based on the “primary party families of continental Western Europe at the time”.17 Ranging from biggest to smallest, they were the Christian Democratic, the Socialist and the Liberal and Allies Group. The EP’s inner structure from ECSC times was taken over when the Treaties establishing the EECand the European Atomic Energy Community(Euratom) entered into force.18 However, the creation of the EEC and Euratom changed the EP’s scope of tasks and responsibilities. Most importantly, the EP’s previously vaguely defined right of consultation was extended to a number of concrete policy areas.19 Even though Parliament obtained a right to express its opinion before decisions in the respective areas could be made, the expressed opinion had no binding force: the Council was now formally obliged to request the MEPs’ point of view, but it was not obliged to act any differently than it would have done 15 See Resolution on the number, composition and responsibility of committees, 10 January 1953 (AC_AP_RP!ORGA.1952_AC-0002!53-janvier0001DE_0001). 16 See Resolution on the introduction of party groups into the Rules of Procedure, 16 June 1953 (AC_AP_RP!REGL.1953_AC-0010!53-mai0001DE_0001). 17 Hix et al. (2003: 312). 18 See Resolution on

the EP’s Rules of Procedure, 23 (PE0_AP_RP!REGL.1958_A0-0017!580001DE_0001), Chapter VIII.

June

1958

19 See i.a. Arts. 7, 43, 54, 57, 63, 75, 201, 235 and 238 EEC; Arts. 31, 85, 96, 203 and 206 Euratom.

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without consulting the EP. Indeed, as a consequence, members of staff of the Council would routinely check that the EP’s position had been received, but would at times not pay much attention to what exactly the respective EP position proposed or argued.20 Formally, the EP retained all rights and tasks it had been assigned by the ECSC Treaty. Yet, power relations changed with the EECand Euratom Treaty: until then, the most powerful institution in formal terms had been the Community’s executive, i.e. the High Authority. Under the Treaties of Rome, the Communities’ two new executives—the Commissions—had less decision-making power than the new Councils. Thus, the institutions which the EP could control lost influence, which caused vivid criticism among the MEPs already during the Treaties’ negotiations.21 However, MEPs had only a very limited impact in these negotiations, and could merely try to introduce amendments to the draft treaties informally via their national and inter-institutional contacts.22 While the member states agreed to the MEPs’ wishes to have only one Assembly for all three Communities—different from the three Councils and two Commissions plus the High Authority—and to extend the EP’s consultative power, the MEPs did not succeed in establishing any parliamentary control over the Councils.23 Being involved to such a limited and entirely informal extent in the creation phase of the setting of their institution’s rules and powers, MEPs therefore had a strong incentive to try and change these rules in the operational phase,24 i.e. they tried repeatedly to hold the Council(s) accountable in the years and decades after the Treaties of Rome had entered into force, as is further analysed below. Power relations shifted once more with the Merger Treaty of 8 April 1965, which entered into force on 1 July 1967.25 The EP gained some power through this Treaty, since its power of censure over the EEC

20 So described in an interview by Colette Flesch, who worked as administrator in the General Secretariat of the Council from 1964 to 1969 before becoming an MEP. 21 See Piodi (2008b: 9). 22 See Kreppel (2002: 59). 23 See Palmer (1981: 23); Priestley (2008: 120). 24 See Lindner and Rittberger (2003: 453 et seq.). 25 See Treaty establishing a single Council and a single Commission of the European

Communities, 8 April 1965 (OJ 152, 13 July 1967, pp. 2–17).

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Commission now applied to the single Commission created in 1967.26 Whereas the EP had been able to dismiss the ECSC’s High Authority only once a year—following the discussion of the annual report—a vote of censure could now be introduced at any given point in time.27 In the mid-1960s, however, the EP lost significantly more indirect influence than the power it had gained through the Merger Treaty: the conflict between the Commission’s ambitions for more integration—notably in the area of the Communities’ budget, of the financing of the Common Agricultural Policy, and also concerning the EP’s powers therein—and the significantly different idea of France’s President Charles de Gaulle of an Europe des patries led to the “Empty Chair” crisis in 1965. The results of this crisis and the following Luxembourg Compromise of 1966 had a major impact on the MEPs’ pursuit of their political as well as institutional ambitions: while the Compromise changed little in terms of established routines—Ludlow (2001) analyses aptly how the Compromise mostly “establish[ed] the Council’s preferred guide-lines for co-operation between the Commission and the Council”28 —it did put a dampener on pro-integrationist ambitions in the Commission. With the visible discouragement of the Commission as the institution holding the main power of initiative, MEPs had to accept fewer and less ambitious proposals for Community action and legislation.29 Moreover, the imprecise provision of the Compromise that a member state could veto proposals in the Council based on its own “vital interests”30 increased the probability that ambitious projects could be stopped easily at the decision-making stage. This kept the Commission from making ambitious proposals in the first place, assuming a limited chance of success. In the eyes of many MEPs, the crisis and the following compromise created a vacuum. They vividly criticised the Commission for having “relinquished the right of initiative conferred on it under Articles 149 and 155 of the EEC Treaty”, and for 26 Arnaldo Ferragni, at the time Deputy General Secretary of the EP’s Christian Democratic Group, recalls that his group—and the EP more generally—played “un rôle d’une importance primaire” in the negotiations. More specifically, Ferragni recounted that in the context of the Merger Treaty, Commissioners and heads of state from the Christian Democratic party family participated in meetings of the EP’s Christian Democratic Group. 27 See Westlake (1994: 85). 28 See Ludlow (2001: 251); also Ludlow (2006a, 2006b). 29 See Kreppel (2002: 69 et seqq.). 30 See i.a. Palayret (2006).

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turning into “a kind of secretariat for the Council”, only submitting to the Council “proposals that the latter is likely to approve”.31 As a reaction, the 1960s and 1970s witnessed an abundance of informal activism within the EP. During the 1970s, the EP’s powers were once more formally increased, to some extent as a result of MEP activism: the two budget treaties of 1970 and 1975 granted the EP significant influence on the Community budget, notably with the 1975 treaty allowing the EP to reject the budget as a whole. Moreover, alongside this latter treaty, a conciliation procedure was introduced which granted the EP some decision-making power on budget-related issues. Even though the Council retained the last word,32 this procedure became crucial in the evolution of the EP’s co-legislative power.33 Table 3.1 provides an overview of the powers and tasks formally attributed to the EP in the different treaties prior to 1979.38 Equally crucial, albeit for the EP’s overall legitimacy rather than for its parliamentary powers, were the first direct elections in June 1979, which had been mentioned already in the ECSC Treaty and specifically provided for in the Treaties of Rome.39 These elections had been a contested issue for years: the MEPs struggled not merely to obtain the support of the Council for the implementation of direct elections, but also to reach unity on the matter among themselves. Namely, the MEPs were divided over the chicken-and-egg question of whether the EP should obtain more parliamentary powers first, so that the Communities’ citizens would know why to vote and what to vote for, or whether direct elections would automatically bring an increase of powers.40 Eventually, the supporters of the latter assumption asserted themselves, and in 1976 the Council officially

31 Report drawn up on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture on the conclusions to

be drawn from the proceedings of the Seminar held by the Committee on Agriculture in Echternach, 4 May 1979 (PE0_AP_RP!AGRI.1958_A0-0128!790010EN_092724), p. 96 and 103. See also written question 603/71 by Hendrikus Vredeling to the Commission, 22 February 1972 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0603!710010DE_161159). 32 See Corbett (1999a: 95). 33 See Chapter 7. 38 This table is an extended version of the table included in Roos (2020: 1419). 39 See Arts. 21 ECSC, 138 EEC, 108 Euratom. 40 See Duvieusart (1968: 71 et seq.); Lodge (1998: 193 et seq.); Corbett et al. (2003: 355).

• Power to dismiss the Commission (weaker than the Council in decision-making)—at any given point (Art. 144 EEC, Art. 114 Euratom) • Power to put questions to the Commission (Art. 140 EEC, Art. 110 Euratom) • Power of consultation (numerous articles in both the EEC and the Euratom Treaty) • Power over its own Rules of Procedure (Art. 142 EEC, Art. 112 Euratom) • Power to propose amendments to the budget (non-binding; Art. 203 EEC, Art. 177 Euratom) • Right to ask the Commission to draw up reports on arising social issues (Art. 122 EEC) • Task to draw up proposals for direct elections (Art. 138 EEC, Art. 108 Euratom)

• Power to dismiss the High Authority (Community institution with the highest decision-making power)—once a year (Art. 24) • Power to put questions to the High Authority (Art. 23) • Vague right of consultation (Art. 22) • Power over its own Rules of Procedure (Art. 25)

• [Treaties of Rome still apply, if not changed by the budgetary Treaties] • Power to amend and reject the common budget of the Communities, and to grant a discharge to the Commission for the implementation of the budget (Art. 1–9/1970; Art. 2, 4, 9, 12–13, 17, 20–21 and 25/1975) • Power to initiate a conciliation procedure (in case of disagreement with Council)37

Budget Treaties (1970, 1975)36

tent/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:11957A/TXT (last visit 17 February 2021). 36 See Treaty amending certain budgetary provisions of the Treaties establishing the European Economic Communities and of the Treaty establishing a single Council and a single Commission of the European Communities (OJ L 2, 2 January 1971, pp. 1-11); and Treaty amending certain financial provisions of the Treaties establishing the European Economic Communities and of the Treaty establishing a single Council and a single Commission of the European Communities (OJ L 359, 31 December 1977, pp. 1–19). 37 This is not implied in the budget treaties themselves, but in a Joint Declaration of Parliament, Council and Commission from 4 March 1975 (OJ C 89, 22 April 1975, pp. 1–2).

34 See https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:11951K/TXT (last visit 17 February 2021). 35 See https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A11957E%2FTXT and https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-con

EEC and EuratomTreaties (1957)35

The evolution of the EP’s formal powers prior to 1979

ECSC Treaty (1951)34

Table 3.1

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agreed to direct elections, which were—after a final postponement from 1978 to 1979—held on 7–10 June 1979.41

3.3 Parliamentary Powers, and How They Were Obtained This section analyses with the toolbox of HI the institutional evolution of the EP based on the parliamentary powers demanded and pursued by MEPs prior to 1979. In particular, the section examines the EP’s power of control, its emerging legislative power, its budgetary power and the first steps towards a power of initiative. The EP’s (and its members’) changing relations with other Community institutions, first and foremost with the Commission and the Council, constitute a focal aspect in the EP’s institutional evolution. The following subsections show that all empowerment of the EP, as well as all stagnation and each step backward, depended to a significant extent on the attitudes and willingness (or lack thereof) on the side of the Commission and the Council to compromise on concessions to the EP. First and foremost, however, the section demonstrates how the MEPs’ persistent activism in their pursuit of more influence in Community policymaking contributed to the gradual empowerment of the EP. 3.3.1

Power of Control

Prior to any other parliamentary tasks and powers, the EP held the power of control over the Community’s executive. After all, it had initially been created to control the ECSC’s High Authority.42 The sharpest tool in the MEPs’ hands to do so was the power to dismiss the executive through a motion of censure (note: as a whole; none of the founding Treaties granted the EP the right to dismiss individual members of the executive, nor did the EP have a say in the executive’s composition). Yet, the power to dismiss the High Authority/Commission, as the only binding tool of control in the hands of the MEPs, was never fully used—neither in the 41 For meticulous accounts of the coming into being of the EP’s direct elections, see Tulli (2017) and Koen van Zon’s doctoral thesis “Assembly Required. Institutional Representation in the European Communities” on the contestation of political legitimacy by different European Community institutions in the 1950s and 1960s (Radboud University Nijmegen, 2020). 42 See Art. 20 ECSC.

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period examined here nor thereafter. Indeed, a motion of censure was rarely discussed seriously in the EP until the 1970s.43 Krumrey (2018) explains MEPs’ reluctance to resort to this drastic measure with the fact that the actual use of the motion of censure was considered. too damaging to the idea of supranationalism [...] especially as the two supposed antagonists relied on one another to present themselves as what they believed they rightfully should be: a sovereign European government and a full-fledged European parliament.44

Only in 1972 did the French Socialist Georges Spénale introduce the first formal request for a motion of censure, related to the delay of the Commission in proposing a strengthening of the EP’s budgetary power.45 According to the 1970 Budget Treaty, the Commission would have had to submit a proposal on the new Community budget and on the connected increase of EP budgetary power within two years after the Treaty had been adopted. Seeing no such proposal to be forthcoming, Spénale tabled a motion of censure on 16 November 1972.46 The motion was eventually withdrawn and replaced by a much less dramatic resolution leading to a compromise with the Commission; yet it sent a sign to the Commission that the EP was willing to resort to this tool if it did not see another way to reach important political or institutional aims.47 Indeed, Spénale’s attempt can be considered a critical juncture for this control tool of the EP. Tabled by an experienced and highly respected

43 Haas (2004: 436) and Krumrey (2018: 133) discuss, for instance, that the Socialist Group criticised the High Authority harshly in 1956/57, including during the general debate on the Fifth Annual Report in 1957 (which would have allowed for a motion of censure, under Art. 24 ECSC). Yet, it refrained from making a formal censure motion, for which the group was criticised by E. M. J. A. Sassen, President of the Christian Democratic Group. 44 Krumrey (2018: 133). 45 See Directorate-General for Research (1994): From European Coal and Steel

Community to European Union. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, p. 27. 46 See European Parliament (July 1975): The Sittings. Information Series. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, p. 16. 47 See Sasse (1976: 34 et seqq.).

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figure in the EP,48 and leading to visible results—namely a compromise with the Commission, and in the longer term the significant increase of the EP’s budgetary power through the 1975 budget treaty49 —Spénale’s initiative demonstrated to fellow MEPs and successors that a well-timed motion of censure was feasible, did not necessarily impede good relations between the EP and the Commission, and could indeed result in political and institutional change even without going as far as the dismissal of the Commission. In the second half of the 1970s, three further—unsuccessful—attempts to initiate a motion of censure were made.50 They were proposed not only under the influence of the preceding motion by Spénale, but also in view of the EP’s imminent first direct elections. With its potential to increase public visibility of EP action, a motion of censure had by the mid- to late 1970s become to constitute not merely an instrument of control, but a display of parliamentary power. With HI, such a shift in the impact and relevance of an established procedure due to changes in the respective environment is defined as a drift, leading in this case to an elevated number of attempts to initiate a vote of confidence. Instead of resorting to this highly confrontational measure, however, the EP usually worked so closely with the Commission that Parliament’s scrutiny of the Community executive’s action had the appearance of cooperation rather than control. MEPs were encouraged to collaborate with rather than confront the executive already by the High Authority’s first President, Jean Monnet, who involved the EP in policy making “to a

48 The interviewee Jean-Pierre Cot called Spénale one of the “pillars of the European Parliament” (original quote: “pilliers du Parlement européen”) before 1979. Colette Flesch and Alain Terrenoire also emphasised his outstanding importance particularly for the EP’s budgetary power. 49 The concrete result in this case was a Commission proposal on the Community budget and the EP’s related empowerment on 12 June 1973, which eventually led to the EP’s gain in budgetary power through the 1975 Treaty. See European Parliament (July 1975): The Sittings, p. 16. 50 See Herman and Lodge (1978: 51 et seqq.).

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far greater extent than formally necessary”.51 This climate of cooperation comprised a voluntary extension of the EP’s power of control by the High Authority, which in 1955 agreed to the EP demand that every new President of the High Authority would outline before the EP the policy lines he or she wanted to pursue.52 Thus, the EP’s scope of control was extended from a mere ex-post to an ex-ante scrutiny of the High Authority’s actions. Another form of ex-ante control—more effective yet less public—was exercised from the 1950s by the EP’s committees, both in their frequent contacts with commissioners and Commission officials, and in their in-depth assessment of the executive’s actions, proposals and plans, which allowed the EP as a whole to be more specific in its judgement of the executive’s performance.53 The 1950s thus laid the foundation for a path-dependent development of cooperation rather than confrontation, with only rare occasions of fundamental clashes such as Spénale’s motion of censure. It has been mentioned above that the EP’s power of control over the executive lost some of its formal significance when the Treaties of Rome made the Council rather than the Commission the most powerful Community institution with regard to decision-making. This change in the impact of the EP’s control power, based on shifts in the institutional environment—or drift, in HI terminology—induced MEPs to try from the Treaties of Rome to gain some control also over the Council. The delegates never formally succeeded in this quest prior to 1979.54 Informally, however, the MEPs developed a number of strategies to hold the Council accountable.

51 Directorate-General for Research (1994): From European Coal and Steel Community to European Union. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, p. 18. See also, for instance, the speech by Jean Monnet during the EP’s inaugural plenary session in September 1952 (FJME, AMH 10/6/11), in which Monnet said: “It is our two institutions, their action, the relations they entertain on which the proper functioning and future of our Community depends first and foremost” (original quote: “C’est de nos deux institutions, de leur action, des rapports qu’elles entretiendront, que dépendront avant tout la bonne marche et l’avenir de notre Communauté”). 52 See Vergès (1966: 62). 53 See Ripoll Servent (2018: 9); Herman and Lodge (1978: 44). 54 The only leverage which the MEPs held over the Council was, as a last resort, to

refer the Council to the Court of Justice for failing to act according to the Treaties. See Arts. 175 EEC and 148 Euratom. However, this naturally only allowed for complaints concerning rules and procedures which the Treaties provided.

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One of the first tools through which MEPs attempted to scrutinise the Council’s policymaking was the use of parliamentary questions. Whereas the High Authority/Commission was obliged by all founding Treaties to answer MEPs’ questions,55 the Treaties contained no such provision for the Council. Nonetheless, the delegates tried to persuade the Council to justify its actions before Parliament from the negotiations of the Treaties of Rome,56 when it became clear that the Council would be empowered without a parallel increase of parliamentary accountability. Given that no clause was added to the EEC and Euratom Treaties obliging the Council to answer parliamentary questions, MEPs pushed the Council to reply outside Treaty provisions to their written and oral questions, to which the Council agreed as early as 1958.57 However, the Council set the precondition that these questions had to deal with issues already on its agenda. Furthermore, the EP was initially not allowed to adopt a resolution directly after and in relation to an oral question with debate to the Council—which the EP could do in the case of questions to the Commission.58 Thus, the Council tried to prevent MEPs from instrumentalising the question from being a tool of mere information exchange and democratic legitimacy through transparency to an emerging tool of broader (publicly visible) parliamentary control. In order to establish some form of pressure to make the Council answer to MEPs’ questions—which remained voluntary—it was decided that both questions and answers would be published in the Communities’ Official Journal (OJ); and if the Council did not provide a response within two months, the respective questions would be published unanswered, which allowed to some extent for naming and shaming. Whereas MEPs swiftly learned to appreciate the inter-institutional exchange through

55 See Arts. 23 ECSC, 140 EEC, 110 Euratom. 56 Prior to the EEC and Euratom Treaties, no parliamentary question was addressed

to the Council, according to Stein (1959). Krumrey (2018: 134) states that MEPs tried to submit questions to the Council already during the 1950s, but does not elaborate or name examples. According to Stein, one MEP tried to submit a written question, but the EP’s Committee on Procedures ruled that it could not be transmitted to the Council because of the insufficient ECSC Treaty basis. See Stein (1959: 244). 57 See Freestone and Davidson (1988: 81); Bieber (1974: 49); Stein (1959: 244 et seq.). 58 See Bieber (1974: 50); Stuart (1971: 88 et seq.).

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questions,59 they criticised a lack of timeliness in the answers, which often arrived only after several months. This perception of the existing tool of scrutiny being insufficient led MEPs to introduce a new procedure alongside the written and oral questions to the Council, a process of gradual institutional change defined by HI as layering : in January 1973, a regular Question Time was established as part of almost each plenary session. This new procedure, based on a model which many MEPs knew from their home parliaments,60 allowed for immediate follow-up questions and thus for direct and topical debates. Indeed, Question Time developed into a successful tool of scrutiny so swiftly that, after just three years of existence, its standard length was doubled from one and a half to three hours.61 The MEPs’ effective gain of information through questions was relatively limited, since the Council’s answers typically constituted a compromise upon which all its members had agreed beforehand, which made these answers little more revealing than press communiqués.62 Moreover, MEPs discussed current policy issues with Commissioners in more depth (and honesty) during non-public committee meetings. On some issues, MEPs had in fact more expertise than Council members (i.e. national ministers), notably through their double mandates which provided them with a wide variety of input, through the meticulous preparatory work of EP staff63 and also through previous occupations in other Community institutions which some MEPs had held prior to their European mandates.64 Rather than serving as an open exchange of information, 59 See Stein (1959: 245). 60 Medefind (1975: 64) says that Question Time was adopted based on the model from

the German Bundestag ; Freestone & Davidson (1988: 80 et seq.) and Philip (1981: 107) see a similar procedure in the British House of Commons as inspiration, Philip moreover mentions the “questions d’actualités à l’Assemblée nationale en France” (107). 61 See Westlake (1990: 17). 62 See Bieber (1974: 49 et seq.) 63 See i.a. interviews with Fionnuala Richardson, Arnaldo Ferragni, John Corrie, Charles McDonald, Hans-Werner Müller and Arie van der Hek; Priestley (2008). 64 A striking example was recounted by Colette Flesch, who worked as administrator in the General Secretariat of the Council before entering the EP. Shortly after taking up her mandate as MEP, she put a question to the Council in the area of agricultural policy, in which she had become an expert during her time as Council staff member. When the Council answered to her parliamentary question, “a colleague of mine in the Council who had been my boss there said: ‘We wondered whether we should not write in our answer: Ms Flesch probably knows the answer to this question better than we do. But then we

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questions thus enabled MEPs mainly to put pressure on the Council to justify its actions—or inactivity—with regard to specific issues in a public setting.65 The parliamentary question was the most visible and most frequently applied tool of parliamentary scrutiny over the Council, but it was not the only one. In the late 1950s, a report by the current Council presidency before the EP plenary was introduced. Like the question, a similar routine had initially been established as part of the EP’s control tool over the executive, and was subsequently transferred in a conversion process to inter-institutional exchanges with the Council. The initially informal procedure became gradually institutionalised, as a quote by the German Christian Democrat Egon Klepsch in a 1977 plenary debate demonstrates: [I]t has already become a tradition for this House to debate the programme of action of the new President-in-Office of the Council, and we have genuinely welcomed the opportunity of commenting on what will be the Community’s policy during the next six months.66

This institutionalised inter-institutional exchange thus allowed the EP another form of scrutiny over the Council’s actions. Other than parliamentary questions, these exchanges gave MEPs an opportunity to comment on Council policymaking before it took (or should have taken) place. With an annual colloquium of the EP, the Council and the Commission, an additional tool of parliamentary scrutiny was introduced in November 1957, i.e. just before the Treaties of Rome entered into

were not allowed to write that’”. (Original quote: “Und dann hat ein Kollege von mir im Rat, der mein Chef im Rat war, der hat gesagt: ‘Wir haben überlegt, ob wir in der Antwort nicht sagen sollen: Die Frau Flesch kennt die Antwort zu dieser Frage sicherlich besser als wir. Das haben wir aber dann nicht schreiben dürfen’”.) See interview with Colette Flesch. 65 See Schwed (1978: 39 et seq.). 66 Speech by Egon Klepsch

during plenary debate on 6 July 1977 (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19770706-019900EN_9394669), p. 150; see also speech by Pierre Bertrand during the same debate, who stated: “As President of the Council of Ministers of Transports I was the first minister to come to this Parliament to explain the decisions of the Council of Ministers of Transport” (p. 166).

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force.67 This colloquium was initially intended as an informal exchange on current issues, but developed into an opportunity for non-public parliamentary questioning.68 The Council had initially demanded to limit the topics on the agenda to issues directly or indirectly linked to the Treaties. However, the EP succeeded in broadening the agenda of the colloquia, for instance to include a discussion of the Fouchet Plan and the future of the Communities in the early 1960s.69 After the Empty Chair crisis, and with the increasing involvement of the EP through consultation in the second half of the 1960s, the colloquium lost in significance as forum of parliamentary scrutiny. It was not prepared as extensively as before, the number of participating representatives decreased, as did the depth of the discussions, and in 1973 no colloquium took place for the first time since 1957.70 An entirely informal tool available to MEPs to scrutinise Council members lay in the delegates’ double mandate: they could seek to exercise some control over their respective national ministers in informal talks, or with the support of their national parliaments or parties.71 Whereas this tool allowed MEPs at best to put pressure on their own ministers, but not the Council as a whole, MEPs occasionally coordinated their national-level action at Community level, whereby indirect pressure on the Council could be increased.72 According to the interviewee Lothar Ibrügger, for instance, MEPs prepared parliamentary questions on

67 See Krumrey (2018: 137 et seq.); Cocks (1973: 26). 68 See Forsyth (1964: 105 et seq.). 69 See Krumrey (2018: 141). 70 See Bieber (1974: 48 et seq.). 71 See i.a. interviews with Renato Ballardini, Jean-Pierre Cot, Astrid Lulling, Charles McDonald, Fionnuala Richardson and Horst Seefeld. See also Haroche (2018), who calls national parliaments and national parties “the missing link between governments and the EP” (p. 1012) in the analysis of why governments allowed for the EP’s gradual gain in power: he argues that national parliaments considered the EP’s empowerment to be an effective compensation for their own lost powers in case of a transfer of competences to the European level. Haroche examines in his article on “how national parliaments empowered the European Parliament” (second part of the article’s title) the EP’s gain in budgetary power in the 1970s, and in legislative power through the SEA. 72 See i.a. Report by the Committee on Social Affairs concerning the implementation of Art. 119 EEC in the member states, 25 June 1963 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A00046!630010DE_00700015), which contains questions of Belgian, Dutch and German MEPs to their national governments concerning the implementation of equal pay.

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Community issues in committee sessions, which they then took into their national parliaments—“and then we took our ministers in the Council to task if their answers did not satisfy us”.73 The German Socialist MEP Horst Seefeld recalled a specific case: he once reported at a meeting of his national parliamentary group, the SPD (which was at the time in government), how a German minister behaved as Council representative towards the EP. In reaction, the SPD’s chairman Herbert Wehner, himself a former MEP (1952–1958) and well-known for his hot temper, yelled at the respective minister there and then and demanded a justification for the minister’s behaviour. According to Seefeld—who did not, however, specify any further—this had an effect on the minister’s further behaviour towards the EP.74 Such strategies of using multilevel contacts in order to increase parliamentary pressure on the Council can be considered with HI as another process of layering : MEPs installed informal routines of exchange on top of procedures such as parliamentary questions and inter-institutional exchanges in plenary or committee sessions in order to improve their position in the Communities’ institutional system. 3.3.2

Legislative Power

Prior to the SEA, the EP’s formal involvement in Community legislation was consultative at best, and indeed non-existent in numerous policy areas. However, even though the Treaties provided for no binding influence of the EP on Community legislation but merely for the “power of deliberation”,75 MEPs could (and did with increasing frequency) amend Commission proposals and consequently Community law from the 1950s, as is demonstrated on a number of examples in the following case studies. Such successful involvement crucially resulted from MEPs’ supranational activism.76 This activism led to the evolution of mutually accepted and gradually institutionalised procedures, mainly because the Council made the visible and increasingly formalised involvement of the EP a “habitual 73 Translated by the author; original quote: “und dann haben wir uns unsere Minister im Ministerrat vorgenommen, wenn die Antworten nicht in unserem Sinne waren”. See interview with Lothar Ibrügger. 74 See interview with Horst Seefeld. 75 See Art. 137 EEC, 107 Euratom. 76 This applies not only to the area of social policy; Meyer (2011, 2014), for instance,

analyses EP activism in the area of environmental policy.

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response to the legitimacy deficit caused by the delegation of national competences to the [Community] level”.77 Lodge (1998) argues that until the late 1980s, democratic legitimacy at Community level was seen as the EP’s preserve (only then was it gradually understood as being divided between member state governments and the EP), not least based on the image of the EP which its members propagated.78 MEPs’ strategy to present an increase of the EP’s parliamentary powers as the most evident and logical answer to a lack of democratic legitimacy and to institutional imbalance79 can be defined with Schimmelfennig (2001) and Rosén (2016) as “rhetorical entrapment”80 : since member states did not want to suffer the political costs of advocating procedures generally perceived as illegitimate, they agreed to the MEPs’ argumentation about the necessity of involving the EP.81 This “rhetorical entrapment” led the Council already from the 1950s—though initially to a rather limited extent—to consent to the introduction of procedures for which the Treaties did not provide, and to the extension of procedures with an initially narrow scope. The most notable case of such an extended procedure was the increasing involvement of the EP in Community decision-making via consultation. The EP’s incremental gain in legislative influence through consultation can with HI be identified as a case of gradual institutional change through conversion: the established procedure of consultation was interpreted and enacted by MEPs in different ways than initially intended. Trying to push the narrow boundaries of the Treaty provisions on consultation, MEPs demanded as early as November 1959 in a resolution that the Council extend EP consultation to “all important [policy] issues”, even where no consultation was mandatory according

77 Rosén (2016: 1452). See also Goetze and Rittberger (2010) and Rittberger (2003, 2012). 78 See Lodge (1998: 193). 79 See i.a. Resolution on

the competences and powers of the EP, 27 June 1963 (PE0_AP_RP!POLI.1961_A0-0031!630001FR); Resolution on juridical problems concerning the consultation of the EP, 17 October 1967 (PE0_AP_RP!JURI.1961_A00110!670001DE_0001). 80 See Schimmelfennig (2001: 48); Rosén (2016: 1452). 81 Chapter 4 discusses such a case of rhetorical entrapment in the case of the EP’s

involvement in Community policy on the free movement of workers. See also Héritier (2007).

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to the Treaties.82 The Council approved this resolution at a session in spring 1960.83 In 1964, the Council agreed after intense pressure from MEPs to further extend the scope of EP consultation to all legislative texts, excluding only technical issues and those of temporary relevance.84 Four years later, non-legislative texts were added, including Commission memoranda and Council resolutions, neither of which was legally binding, but constituted guidelines for future legislation.85 EP documents from the examined period show that although the frequency of EP consultations beyond Treaty paragraphs steadily increased, the Council was far from always keeping its word; i.e. it often did not consult the EP, or consulted it without taking the expressed opinion and proposed amendments into consideration. Nonetheless, these declarations of goodwill and their partial implementation represent a general openness among Council members to change the EP’s institutional role and position beyond Treaty provisions. Another striking example of the EP’s increasing legislative power in addition to consultation—and indeed another example of conversion of an initially narrowly defined procedure—is the conciliation procedure: introduced alongside the budget treaty of 1975, this procedure was swiftly applied by MEPs to non-budget-related issues.86 The strategy to transfer a rule or procedure which was provided for by the Treaties to other policy areas proved to require less effort and promised a higher level of success than the introduction of entirely new rules and procedures.87 New procedures which the MEPs attempted to establish at Community level usually resembled existing procedures at national level, which facilitated the process of convincing Commission and Council members of their efficiency and adequacy. Among others, the EP called from the mid-1960s for a procedure resembling the second reading of legislative proposals: if 82 See Resolution on the relations between the European Parliament and the Councils of the European Communities, 27 November 1959 (PE0_AP_RP!DEVE.1958_A00080!590001DE_0001). 83 See Héritier (2007: 71); Corbett (1998: 113). 84 See Héritier (2007: 71). 85 See Corbett (1998: 113 et seq.). 86 See i.a. interviews with Colette Flesch and Fionnuala Richardson; this is analysed in

more detail in Chapter 7. 87 This confirms and substantiates the theoretical framework of institutional change developed by Rittberger (2012).

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a proposal on which the EP had been consulted was significantly changed during the legislative process, the EP insisted on being consulted again.88 As in the above-mentioned case of consultation, the Council agreed to the principle of re-consultation,89 but did not always act accordingly. The second reading was formally introduced only with the SEA.90 MEPs had little leverage on the Council to make it abide by the concessions it had once made, or to make sure the Council seriously considered what the EP proposed or criticised. Based on the Treaties, the delegates had notably one soft political tool to push the Council in their desired direction: if the Treaties provided for EP consultation, the Council was obliged to wait with the adoption of a proposal until the EP had submitted its opinion. In case of absolute disagreement with the Council, the EP could hence “refuse totally to deliver an opinion, whenever this seem[ed] necessary, so as to block completely the passage of a proposal”.91 However, this rarely happened prior to 1979, since the Council often acted too slowly and hesitantly in the MEPs’ view already, so that the delegates usually did not want to delay decisions any further. To some extent, MEPs could balance the lack of leverage over the Council through their good relations with the Commission. The French Progressive Democrat Alain Terrenoire, for instance, reflected in an interview that “the Council sought to restrict the EP in its institutional competences, whereas the Commission sought to extend its own competences with the help of the EP”.92 In other words, MEPs and members of the Commission were both aware that working together against the

88 See Resolution on the position of the EP with regard to the recent institutional development of the European Communities, 20 October 1966 (PE0_AP_RP!POLI.1961_A00118!660001DE_0001); Resolution concerning the consultation procedure of 17 October 1967 (OJ No. 268, 6 November 1967, p. 8). 89 See Resolution on the further consultation of the EP on proposals amended or withdrawn by the Commission, 12 October 1976 (PE0_AP_RP!JURI.1961_A00239!760001EN_0001). 90 See Westlake (1994: 81); Rhodes (1995: 98). 91 Resolution on the conclusions to be drawn

from the proceedings of the Seminar held by the Committee on Agriculture in Echternach, 5 June 1979 (PE0_AP_RP!AGRI.1958_A0-0128!790001EN_0001). 92 Translated by the author; original quote. “Le Conseil cherchait à concentrer le PE dans ses compétences institutionnelles, tandis que la Commission cherchait à élargir les siennes avec l’aide du PE”. See e-mail from 9 October 2017 by Alain Terrenoire to the author.

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Council made it easier for both of them to reach their—often shared or at least connected—policy and polity ideas.93 Indeed, the EP depended upon the Commission with regard to its legislative power in so far as the Commission was the only institution able to propose legislation. Moreover, the Commission could change its proposals up to the moment of adoption by the Council. Consequently, as the Luxembourg Liberal MEP Colette Flesch remarked, there was more to be got out of the Commission, since it was much easier to impress the Commission before the entire [legislative] procedure had been concluded. Also, it is considerably easier to have influence if the package or proposal is just being prepared.94

Arnaldo Ferragni, former Secretary General of the EP’s Christian Democratic Group who was frequently in contact with Commissioners’ cabinet members in order to help MEPs prepare positions, also recalled: As a matter of fact, once the draft regulations or directives arrived at the Council, the die was cast, so that it was normal and functional to enter into a dialogue with the Commission in the preparation of drafts, and before the texts reached the EP.95

To that end, EP committees swiftly developed into crucial access points. They became fora where Commissioners and Commission officials felt comfortable to discuss initiatives for proposals not yet drafted, and where MEPs could in turn both comment on such initiatives, and present their own ideas.96 The EP administrator Claude Lassalle stated in 1964 that as a result, the texts of Commission proposals submitted via formal 93 Discussed in more detail in Sect. 3.4 below, and also in Chapter 5 for the case of equality policy. 94 Translated by the author; original quote: “Bei der Kommission war mehr zu holen, auch weil es im Vorfeld viel einfacher war, die Kommission zu beeindrucken, bevor das ganze Prozedere abgelaufen war. Also, es ist ja viel einfacher, einzuwirken, wenn das Paket erst vorbereitet wird, der Vorschlag”. See interview with Colette Flesch. Confirmed also by Arie van der Hek. 95 Translated by the author; original quote: “En effet, quand les projets de règlement ou de directive arrivaient au Conseil, les jeux étaient faits, tandis que c’était normale et fonctionnel dialoguer avec la Commission en préparation des projets et avant que les textes arrivent au PE”. See interview with Arnaldo Ferragni. 96 See i.a. Kornerup (1978: 231).

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consultation “never constituted a novelty” for the MEPs.97 A further important preparatory stage in the MEPs’ endeavour to influence legislation were informal contacts of EP civil servants with Commission staffmembers. Through these different channels, MEPs could receive valuable information on. what type of decision-making was going on, what type of amendment was possible, what type of proposals would come up, what the visions of the European Commission were [...] – so that the committees of the European Parliament were in this informal way rather well informed about the opinion-making within the European Commission.98

By providing MEPs with relevant background knowledge, such informal procedures of inter-institutional exchange had an impact on how MEPs could influence legislation in more formal procedures, such as consultation. The establishment of these informal procedures can hence be identified as a layering process, improving the MEPs’ standing in established procedures by putting them in a more informed and better inter-institutionally connected position. The benefit of these informal procedures was not one-sided: the importance which the Commission attached to exchanges with the EP is visible in the high frequency with which Commission representatives joined EP committee meetings, implying that the exchange was also in the Commission’s eyes more than a mere expression of good interinstitutional relations. Several of the former MEPs interviewed for this research confirmed that Commission representatives were present in virtually all committee meetings, regardless of the policy area, and were willing to participate in a genuinely open exchange of views.99 Some noteworthy results of EP influence on Community legislation through such exchanges in committees are discussed in the following chapter on the EP’s involvement in the establishment of the free movement of workers.

97 Lassalle (1964: 34 et seq.). See also Gfeller et al. (2011: 11). 98 Quote from the interviewee Arie van der Hek. Confirmed also by Horst Seefeld. 99 See i.a. interviews with John Corrie, Colette Flesch, Hans-Werner Müller, Heinz

Schreiber, Horst Seefeld and Werner Zywietz.

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3.3.3

Budgetary Power

The EP’s gain in budgetary power through the two budget treaties of 1970 and 1975 is one among few aspects in the EP’s pre-election history which appears on a regular basis in academic literature on the EP’s institutional development. This subsection—together with Chapter 7 of this book—argues that whereas the budget treaties constituted a significant increase of the EP’s formal and binding powers, the institutional procedures which they established were not as fundamentally new as assumed in much of the literature. Instead, the two treaties formed parts of the path-dependent process gradually establishing the EP’s budgetary power which began in the 1950s. In short, the EP’s budgetary power can be understood as a product of: • MEP activism, based notably on the delegates’ shared polity idea of the need for stronger EP involvement in order to guarantee democratic legitimacy of Community expenditure; • path-dependent developments beginning formally with the consultation of the EP on Community expenditure as provided in the Treaties of Rome, propelled through informally evolving interinstitutional procedures which proved so effective and logical in the pursuit of democratic legitimacy and accountability of Community expenditure that they were gradually formalised; and • unintended consequences in the establishment and regulation of the Community budget, not least through a number of “poorly specified” provisions in the budget treaties based on disunity among the member states leading to vague compromises, which “allowed for competing interpretations” in the implementation phase among the actors involved in the Communities’ budgetary procedure on which MEPs could subsequently capitalise.100 The roots of the path-dependent process leading up to the EP’s formal gain in budgetary power must be sought already in ECSC years: almost from the establishment of the EP did MEPs ask to be involved in the adoption of the Community budget.101 From 1956, first interinstitutional exchanges on the budget including MEPs were established, 100 Lindner and Rittberger (2003: 460). 101 See Stein (1959: 248).

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namely between the ECSC’s Committee of Presidents (of the High Authority, Council, Court of Justice and EP) and the EP’s Auditing and Administrative Committee. In the same year, the so-called Spaak Report was published, drafting provisions for the establishment of a Common Market and for the institutional structure of the future Community. This report also provided for budgetary power of the EP.102 Although this provision was not implemented in the Treaties of Rome, the fact that the Spaak Report provided for parliamentary budgetary oversight demonstrates that the issue of EP budgetary power had noteworthy support at Community level and also among governmental actors. The Treaties of Rome constituted the first major step towards the formalisation of the EP’s budgetary power: Arts. 203 EEC and 117 Euratom provided for EP consultation on and allowed the EP to propose modifications to Community expenditure, fulfilling to some extent the demand expressed by MEPs for budgetary power as a “first prerogative of democratic assemblies”.103 Importantly, the Treaties moreover included a provision on the creation of a Community budget in which the initial pool of member states’ contributions would be replaced by Community own resources.104 When the debate on the introduction of such a Community budget officially began in the 1960s, the EP’s involvement swiftly became a central issue: according to the Treaties, the EP had to be consulted on the re-shaping of the Community budget, and once again its members advocated vigorously more budgetary power for their institution. A crucial matter of debate was the question of accountability and legitimisation of the future Community expenditures. The logical answer— promoted strongly by the Commission and supported by most member states—seemed to be to give the EP budgetary oversight, taking on the role of national parliaments which had held some influence on the previous member state contributions, but which had no say on the envisaged form of Community expenditure.105 This EP empowerment was, however, rejected by the French government, which feared a loss of funding from the Common Agricultural Policy—by far the biggest section 102 See Thiemeyer (2001: 42). 103 See General Secretariat of the European Parliament (1969): The first ten years

1958–1968. Luxembourg: Directorate-General of Parliamentary Documentation and Information, p. 18. 104 See Arts. 201 EEC and 173 Euratom. 105 See Rittberger (2003: 213 et seq.).

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of the Community budget—for French farmers through the involvement of an additional actor pursuing supranational rather than national interests.106 One of the causes of the Empty Chair crisis in 1965, this dispute had the potential to become a critical juncture in the evolution of the EP’s budgetary power, and thus—in retrospect—its gain in parliamentary powers more generally, considering how significantly for instance the EP’s legislative power increased from the 1970s through the EP’s enhanced budgetary power. The French government’s eventual relenting, and the predominance of the perceived necessity to guarantee democratic legitimacy through strengthened EP involvement, secured the continuation of the EP’s path-dependent empowerment in the area. The issue of the EP’s involvement in the Community budget was resolved at the Hague Summit in December 1969, at which the Six governments agreed to give the EP a say only over parts of the budget, not including the CAP. This agreement resulted in the Treaty on Own Resources of April 1970, which granted the EP the last word on noncompulsory expenditure and a right of consultation on the compulsory part—the bulk of the Community’s expenditure—for which the EP could propose modifications, though without any binding force.107 From the late 1960s, the perception that more democratic legitimacy of Community policy making was necessary in order to gain public support for European integration had increased among governments and Community institutions alike.108 Particularly the French government—which had previously strictly opposed an empowerment of the EP—underwent a change of position in the time of the budget treaty negotiations, coming to accept that the EP had “a legitimate claim to authority under circumstances in which the democratic credentials of the Community [were] under stress”.109 The perceived need for more democratic legitimacy was also the main factor leading to another strengthening of the EP’s role in the Budgetary Powers Treaty of July 1975: in a major change to the

106 See Lindner and Rittberger (2003: 456 et seq.). 107 See Treaty amending certain budgetary provisions of the Treaties establishing the

European Communities and of the Treaty establishing a Single Council and a Single Commission of the European Communities, 22 April 1970, Arts. 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, and 8. 108 See Héritier (2007: 76); Kreppel (2002: 70). 109 Goetze and Rittberger (2010: 47).

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previous budget treaty and the Community Treaties, the EP received the power to reject the Community budget in total.110 This extension of budgetary power constituted not only a significant formal leap forward in the EP’s evolution towards a fully fledged supranational parliament, but it also provided the MEPs with new tools of influence. In so doing, it contributed to the EP’s gain in other parliamentary powers through the conversion of procedures established for the area of the Community budget, which were transferred and adapted to a wider variety of policy areas. Among others, the new budget provisions gave MEPs more leverage in attempts to initiate Community action, in that the delegates could introduce items to the budget that had not previously figured in it, and threaten to delay the adoption of the budget if these items were not agreed upon. Moreover, the EP gained some control over the Council’s agenda (though not over the institution itself) via its now binding budgetary power. Arguably the most far-reaching gain in additional parliamentary power resulting from the budget treaties was the increase in legislative power. Several of the MEPs interviewed for this research who were members of the EP’s budget committee confirmed that MEPs used the budget in order to gain a say on policy issues in which the EP was not supposed to be involved according to the Treaties.111 Given that the Council was not only obliged to listen to the EP in budgetary matters, but also to get the EP’s approval, budget-related debates gave the EP an entirely different fighting weight than it had in any other decision-making procedure. Whereas MEPs did not fundamentally change their actions as a result—they pushed for more integration based on the same ideas and arguments, and with the same political tools as previously—they had now one decisive new lever: as Jean-Pierre Cot put it, by rejecting the overall budget, “we could really mess up things on certain projects if we wanted to”. Cot referred to this strategy as the EP’s “power of nuisance”, which MEPs could exert particularly on their own governments by pointing out specific difficulties which they saw in Community policies, and by hinting 110 See Treaty amending certain financial provisions of the Treaties establishing the European Communities and of the Treaty establishing a single Council and a single Commission of the European Communities, Arts. 2, 12, 20. See also Sasse (1976: 43 et seq.) and Priestley (2008: 33 et seq.) on the negotiations of the Treaty. 111 See i.a. interviews with John Corrie, Jean-Pierre Cot, Ole Espersen, Colette Flesch, Hans-Werner Müller, Jacques Santer and Heinz Schreiber.

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at the options of action available to MEPs to pursue their aims.112 The Irish former MEP Charles McDonald confirmed that the EP’s power to reject the budget “was always held there as a last resort”.113 Fionnuala Richardson, who as a staff member of the Socialist Group also sought ways to reach political and institutional aims and found the EP’s budgetary power a helpful means of leverage, similarly recalled that “we always knew [the rejection of the budget] was kind of the nuclear option”.114 Prior to the EP’s first direct elections, however, this “nuclear option” was never fully exercised.115 The EP rejected the Community budget for the first time half a year after its first elections.116 Instead of pushing all the way by blocking the entire Community budget, MEPs mostly attempted prior to 1979 to have an impact on Community policies by reference to specific budget sections. The former German Socialist MEP Horst Seefeld explained in an interview with the author that it was already considered an important achievement for the MEPs “to change percentages of different policy areas”, thus shifting the weighting of some areas and concrete issues in comparison to others.117 While the EP’s gain in legislative influence through references to the Community budget remained a tool of indirect leverage, the budget treaties also brought with them a concrete change to formal legislation procedures through the newly introduced conciliation procedure. This procedure was established in a Joint Declaration of the EP, the Council 112 See interview with Jean-Pierre Cot. 113 See interview with Charles McDonald. 114 See interview with Fionnuala Richardson. 115 For the first escalation of budgetary tensions in late 1978 about the 1979 budget, see Lindner and Rittberger (2003). 116 The EP’s first rejection of the Community budget was based on the activism and leadership of MEPs who had been in the EP already prior to 1979, who benefitted from their previous experience at Community level, and who had been socialised in their activism in the pre-1979 EP. Priestley (2008) offers a detailed account of this incident, in which he was directly involved as a member of staff of the EP, working for the budget committee. He names Erwin Lange (German Socialist MEP from 1970 to 1984) and Piet Dankert (Dutch Socialist MEP from 1977 to 1989, and from 1994 to 1999) as the two main actors in the budget rejection. 117 Translated by the author; full original quote: “Da konnten wir dann auch anfangen, die Prozentsätze zu verändern für andere Politikbereiche”. See interview with Horst Seefeld.

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and the Commission, adopted in the run-up to the 1975 budget treaty, “for Community acts of general application which ha[d] appreciable financial implications” in case the Council “intend[ed] to depart from the Opinion adopted by the European Parliament”.118 While the conciliation procedure was formally expressly linked to budgetary matters, MEPs swiftly attempted—with increasing success—to apply it to non-budgetary matters over which the Council and the EP were in disagreement. The adaptation of the consultation procedure thus constituted another case of a successful conversion in HI terminology. In most of the cases in which the procedure was initiated, the two institutions did not fight their way through the entire provided proceedings, but found compromises before the full procedure was executed, not least through contacts of MEPs with member states’ permanent representatives.119 It should be noted that, similar to the EP’s involvement in budgetary procedures more generally, the conciliation procedure was not an invention of the 1970s. Rather, the budget treaties and the Joint Declaration formalised informal procedures which had evolved from the 1950s. Fionnuala Richardson remembered that this “kind of hearing […] where Commission officials would be asked along” to act as mediator between the Council and the EP existed already before 1975, but were not called “conciliation procedure”.120 A pre-stage to these inter-institutional exchanges were informal talks of MEPs with ministers and Coreper members, which also took place from the 1950s, with the aim to reconcile EP and Council positions, and find common ground in amended Commission proposals.

118 Joint Declaration of the EP, the Council and the Commission concerning the institution of a conciliation procedure between the EP and the Council, 4 March 1975 (OJ C89, 22 April 1975, pp. 1–2). 119 Bourguignon-Wittke et al. (1985: 47) note 42 requests of the EP for conciliation with the Council between 1975 and 1983, but report that only eight cases saw the full formal procedure. See also interview with Colette Flesch on inter-institutional contacts between the EP and Coreper. 120 See interview with Fionnuala Richardson.

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3.3.4

Power of Initiative

The Treaties provided the EP with no power of initiative. Even today, the EP holds only a partial power of initiative, still relying on the Commission to support EP proposals in order to put them on the EU agenda.121 Nonetheless, this parliamentary power deserves some attention, given that MEPs repeatedly tried prior to 1979 to initiate Community legislation or action, and attempted to institutionalise the EP’s power of initiative. Particularly in the EP’s first years of existence, self-initiated activity constituted a significant amount of MEPs’ work, given the low workload of the EP in the 1950s and much of the 1960s. Frequently dissatisfied with Community legislation not going far enough, being too vague or coming too late,122 MEPs often adopted proposals pursuing concrete steps towards closer integration. At times of low public and national party interest in MEPs’ work, the threshold of such proposals with regard to profoundness and feasibility was not always very high. The former Luxembourg Christian Democratic MEP Jacques Santer remembered that “when a colleague had a good idea in a committee, [the other members] said directly: let’s make this a resolution, it doesn’t hurt”.123 Whereas some of the MEPs’ initiatives built on extensive preparatory work and provided in-depth background material, for instance based on study trips, others aimed simply to put more general ideas for potential future initiatives on the Community agenda.124 In that latter endeavour, 121 Art. 225 of the TFEU states: “The European Parliament may, acting by a majority of its component Members, request the Commission to submit any appropriate proposal on matters on which it considers that a Union act is required for the purpose of implementing the Treaties. If the Commission does not submit a proposal, it shall inform the European Parliament of the reasons”. (OJ C 326, 26 October 2021, pp. 47–390; here: p. 150). 122 Plenty of examples for such complaints can be found in Chapters 4–7. 123 Translated by the author; original quote: “Wenn ein Kollege in einem Ausschuss

eine gute Idee hatte, wurde direkt gesagt: Wir machen eine Resolution draus, das schadet ja nicht”. See interview with Jacques Santer. 124 For an example of a detailed EP proposal of initiative, see Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on the free movement of workers within the Community, November 1957 (AC_AP_RP!ASOC.1953_AC-0005!57-novembre0010DE_00001000), which recommends a number of policy measures based on a profound analysis of the contemporary situation. For a rather general and superficial EP initiative, see speech by Clara Edele Bengta Kruchow during Question Time on 14 January 1976 (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H-0152!750015EN_01384413), proposing the establishment of kindergartens attached to the Communities’ institutions in order to reach an increase of female applicants for staff positions.

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MEPs had one notable official tool at hand: the parliamentary question. Questions were used by MEPs not least when they considered swift Community action, rather than lengthy legislative procedures, to be necessary. Such perceived needs for immediate Community intervention arose particularly in the context of events not anticipated by the authors of the Treaties, such as crises, accidents or catastrophes.125 Even if remaining at times rather general, MEPs’ proposals disguised as questions could sometimes “boost certain political ambitions to an extent that they resulted in measures”.126 While attempts to initiate Community legislation or action can be traced throughout the entire period under consideration, the proportion of initiatives in the MEPs’ overall work shifted over time. With HI, this change can be identified as a drift, namely a change in the application and impact of procedures based on shifts in the respective environment. In this case, the drift was based on the growing willingness of notably the Council to increasingly involve the EP in Community policymaking towards the 1970s. The more the number of EP consultations increased, the lower the percentage of own initiatives in the EP’s overall output became.127 After all, consultations offered a much better chance at successfully influencing Community legislation than the MEPs’ own initiatives. The EP’s everyday work was hence increasingly aligned to Commission proposals and consequently also the Communities’ policy agenda,128 leaving less parliamentary capacity for self-initiated activism.

125 Jacques Santer, for instance, recalled in an interview that the MEPs’ repeated demands for interim arrangements for unemployed during the 1970s crisis had a significant impact on the so-called “Davignon Plan” (1977), to which consequently a stronger social component concerning unemployed persons was added (see interview with Jacques Santer). Further examples are listed in the following case studies. 126 See interview with Lothar Ibrügger. Translated by the author; original quote: “bestimmte Absichten politisch so zu verstärken, dass sie zu Maßnahmen führten”. Fionnuala Richardson recounted in an interview that she helped draft an initiative in the form of a question on the education of young workers, which contributed to the introduction of special support for such young workers at Community level. Richardson saw a causal connection between the question and the introduced measures because the Commission (and also the EP) frequently referred to this parliamentary question in the process of adopting the measures. 127 See Sasse (1976: 49). 128 This is discussed specifically for the case of free movement in Chapter 4.

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Whereas the frequency of EP initiatives in connection to EP consultations changed over the course of the 1960s and 1970s, their main addressee remained the same. Given the Commission’s monopoly on proposing legislation and its openness to collaborate with the EP—as opposed to the Council’s general reluctance to grant the EP more influence—MEPs’ attempts to initiate legislation or action were almost always directed at the Communities’ executive.129 MEPs could propose an initiative via parliamentary instruments such as a resolution, report or question. In addition, the delegates could provide political stimulus less formally by approaching Commission officials and commissioners in committee meetings and in personal talks.130 At times the Commission even joined in the preparation of MEPs’ initiatives: the German Socialist Lothar Ibrügger, for instance, remembered that MEPs who were assigned a rapporteurship could undertake travels to gather information for their reports. On these travels, they were often accompanied by staff not only from the EP, but also the Commission, all of whom would then work together in the preparation of a draft report.131 Ideas which were shared between MEPs and the Commission—not least about more integration and better social protection of the Communities’ citizens—were an important factor in the EP’s evolving power of initiative. In order to reach common aims based on such shared ideas, the Commission generally supported the EP’s growing influence, not least by “creatively framing issues in a way that they would fall within EC competences”.132 MEPs themselves made sure that their initiatives did not contravene Treaty provisions, neither with regard to their content nor the form in which they were proposed. The EEC Treaty offered the 129 One exception is the EP initiative to introduce a European sports badge. While

initially addressed to “the institutions of the European Communities, governments and responsible administrations of the member states” (Motion for a resolution on the creation of a European sports badge, 21 January 1965, PE0_AP_RP!RECH.1961_A00012!660020DE_001075), the eventually adopted resolution was directed solely at the Council (Resolution on the introduction of a European Sports Badge, 10 March 1966, PE0_AP_RP!RECH.1961_A0-0012!660001DE_0001). The initiative was not successful, as discussed in more detail in Chapter 6. 130 See Schwed (1978: 40). 131 See interview with Lothar Ibrügger. 132 Meyer (2014: 241). Meyer demonstrates that also in the area of environmental

policy, the Commission was open to EP proposals, and allowed for increasing EP influence in the area of agenda-setting.

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delegates two articles as a legal basis, namely Arts. 100 and 235 EEC, according to which the Commission could propose provisions for matters not covered by the Treaty.133 One Treaty article hinting directly in the direction of an EP right (rather than power) of initiative was Art. 122 EEC, which stipulated that the EP could invite the Commission to draw up reports on specific social action. Whereas the article had no legislative dimension, it provided the EP with a tool to put items on the Communities’ agenda in the area of social policy.134 Staff members of EP party groups and the EP’s library service helped check the compatibility of ideas which MEPs wished to turn into initiatives with the Treaties.135 The former Irish Christian Democratic MEP Charles McDonald recalled that, moreover, he and his colleagues usually tried to connect their initiatives to issues that were already on the Community agenda, because that increased their prospect of success. Although many of the proposals made by MEPs went beyond Treaty paragraphs in their policy aims, the delegates did not explicitly try to break out of the institutional framework set by the Treaties with regard to the EP’s power of initiative. In the instances where MEPs expressed a wish to formalise this power of the EP, they emphasised that no Treaty change was required.136 Indeed, the delegates saw the range of tools available to them as sufficient to propose legislation—the only major issue was that the Council and Commission could reject or simply ignore EP initiatives.

133 See interview with Heinz Schreiber; Rhodes (2010: 290); Vogel-Polsky (1997: 51 et seq.); Schulz (1996: 36 et seq.); Sintes (1996: 34 et seqq.). 134 Forsyth (1964: 132) discusses that the EP strove with noteworthy success for a right of initiative in the area of social policy, and also in transport policy—an area to which the EEC Treaty dedicated similarly vague provisions as to social policy. 135 See interview with Fionnuala Richardson. 136 See i.a. Resolution on European Union, 10 July 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!POLI.1961_

A0-0174!750001EN_0001); Report drawn up on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture on the conclusions to be drawn from the proceedings of the Seminar held by the Committee on Agriculture in Echternach, 4 May 1979 (PE0_AP_RP!AGRI.1958_A00128!790010EN_092724), p. 104.

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3.4 The Impact of MEPs’ Shared Ideas and Socialisation MEP activism was strongly driven by a variety of shared ideas, notably on an extension of the Communities’ policy competences, and the empowerment of the EP. The aspiration shared by most MEPs to turn the EP into a fully fledged supranational Parliament can be traced not least in MEPs’ references to their institution. In the Treaties of Rome, the ECSC’s “Common Assembly” became the Assembly of all three Communities. In the inaugural plenary session of this enlarged Assembly on 19 March 1958, the MEPs adopted a resolution mirroring their self-understanding as Euro-parliamentarians: the “Assembly”, to which the Treaties referred, was renamed by the EP itself the “European Parliamentary Assembly” in French and Italian (Assemblée parlementaire européenne / Assemblea parlamentare europea).137 In German and Dutch, MEPs went yet another step further by officially calling their institution the Europäisches Parlament /Europees Parlement, since in these languages the term of an assembly lacked the necessary significance and prestige which the EP deserved in the delegates’ view.138 During a plenary session on 30 March 1962, in an “informal change […] of major symbolic importance”,139 the EP adopted a resolution officially renaming the Parliamentary Assembly as the European Parliament in all Community languages.140 This resolution had, like all EP resolutions, no legally binding character and constituted merely an expression of the MEPs’ self-understanding.141

137 This is discussed for instance by Krumrey (2018: 128 seq.). 138 See Manzanarès and Quentin (1979: 30); Broicher (1960: 95). Krumrey (2018:

139) writes that Walter Hallstein, first President of the EEC Commission, directly adopted the new title and addressed the EP as the European Parliament in his native German in a speech before the EP on 20 March 1958. 139 Judge and Earnshaw (2008: 35). 140 See Resolution concerning the designation of the Parliament, 30 March 1962

(PE0_AP_PR_B0-0012!620001DE_0001). 141 Whereas the Commission swiftly took over this new designation, the Council offi-

cially adopted the name “European Parliament” only with the Single European Act (1986). It should be noted, however, that many national ministers—with French and British ones forming the only occasional exception—increasingly referred to the EP as European Parliament already prior to 1986. See Krumrey (2018): 139; van Middelaar (2009): 384 et seq.

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This self-understanding, however, was a driving factor behind the early MEPs’ activism: the EP’s gain in power cannot be understood without taking into consideration the ideas which many of the early MEPs shared, and some common elements in their socialisation. In an SI-based analysis, this section therefore examines what drove a number of national parliamentarians to invest considerable time and effort far beyond Treaty provisions into an institution which promised no significant political impact, no career improvement and no acknowledgement by voters. The section also discusses the impact of MEPs’ ideas and socialisation on the EP’s functioning and gradual parliamentarisation. It examines furthermore how the EP’s institutional structure—namely its party groups and committees—shaped MEPs’ ideas and behaviour. Moreover, it discusses the important role played by particularly activist MEPs who became norm entrepreneurs and developed a significant impact on the norms and ideas determining other MEPs’ actions in the EP prior to 1979. 3.4.1

Preparing the Ideational Ground: What Induced MEPs to Become Engaged in the EP Prior to 1979?

Given the EP’s weak role as provided by the Treaties, MEPs could not and did not expect any career gain from investing time in the EP beyond the personal gain of a better understanding of European politics and policies upon entering the EP. Rather to the contrary: the issue of combining the national and the European mandate was not easy to solve for many of the MEPs. Some struggled to convince their voters that the time spent away both from the constituency and the national parliament was spent in a meaningful and relevant way.142 Others had to convince their fellow parliamentarians at national level of the same thing.143 For many national parliamentarians, going to the EP seemed “a waste of time”144 in the 142 See i.a. interviews with Dick Taverne, Maarten Engwirda and Werner Zywietz. 143 See i.a. interviews with John Corrie, Maarten Engwirda, Charles McDonald and

Vera Squarcialupi. 144 So expressed by Ole Espersen, who said in context: “From a career point of view, it was a waste of time”. In June 1976, the German Chancellor—and former MEP (1957– 1961)—Helmut Schmidt chose even more drastic words in a conversation with the British Prime Minister James Callaghan: he called the EP, to which he still referred as “the Assembly”, to be “a ridiculous waste of time and money”. See TNA:PRO/PREM16/894, Note of conversation between the PM and FRG Chancellor after lunch in the Chancellary [sic!] in Bonn, Wednesday 30 June 1976.

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first place; after all, careers were made at national level. MEPs’ significant investment of time and effort in EP-related work led a number of interviewees to consider their European engagement as “mandateendangering”145 rather than conducive to their careers. The Dutch MEP Maarten Engwirda experienced this very concretely “because I was one week [per month] away from the national scene, and therefore did not meet as many party members as before, and therefore I started my career as no. 6 on the party list, and in the next elections in [19]73 I was no. 9”.146 The German Christian Democrat Hans-Werner Müller recalled that because of his EP mandate, he lost out on a concrete opportunity in his national career: at one point during his time as MEP, his national party leader offered him a—highly competitive—seat in the Bundestag’s budget committee, because another party colleague wanted to go to the EP. Müller, who appreciated his European mandate more, refused, but later realised that “had I served a few years in the budget committee, I would have had the chance to become state secretary. Because the budget committee – that is the stepping stone. But I did not know that back then”.147 Some delegates were thus made to feel the impact of their EP engagement on their political careers. Given that MEPs’ intensive engagement at Community level cannot be fully explained by career-related motives, reasons for it need to be sought elsewhere. This analysis traces such reasons in a sociologicalinstitutionalist analysis: all interviewees identified ideational motives and certain experiences in their past, i.e. their socialisation, as driving forces to enter and become engaged in the EP. Such ideational and sociological factors already played a role in the selection of parliamentarians who were delegated to take up an EP mandate. All interviewees confirmed that only very few delegates who were not generally in favour of closer integration, and of an important role played by the EP therein, agreed to go to the

145 Translated by the author; original quote: “mandatsgefährdend”. See interview with

Werner Zywietz. 146 See interview with Maarten Engwirda. 147 Translated by the author; original quote: “Hätte ich […] ein paar Jahre im

Haushaltsausschuss gedient, dann hätte ich vielleicht die Chance gehabt, Staatssekretär zu werden. Denn der Haushaltsausschuss – das ist das Sprungbrett. Das wusste ich da aber nicht”. See interview with Hans-Werner Müller.

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EP in the first place.148 An important basis of the MEPs’ openness to get involved and socialised into the EP, its institutional structure and working procedures lay hence in MEPs’ mindsets upon entering, which was based on their socialisation prior to taking up their EP mandates. While every MEP was evidently shaped by individual experiences and previous occupations, some recurring aspects can be traced in the MEPs’ pre-EP socialisation. First, the vast majority of delegates who sat in the EP prior to 1979 had active memories of the Second World War, a considerable number even from the First World War.149 Based on their war experiences, the MEPs were united in fundamental agreement that Europe should never see such a war again.150 Driven by this greater objective, many of the MEPs had become engaged at trans- and international level already before being delegated to the EP, among others in different international assemblies such as those of the Western European Union, NATO or the Council of Europe, in transnational trade

148 This has also been confirmed for the 1950s by Haas (2004: 437). Krumrey (2018: 115 seq.) states that those MEPs who were sent to the EP in the 1950s “were the parties’ European experts and often prone to federalist attitudes”, making the EP “a congregation of self-avowed Europeans”. The interviewee Arnaldo Ferragni said also about the EP’s staff members that “before the entry of the UK, all staff members of the EP were pro-European. From the Secretary General to the last usher or driver, everyone considered themselves engaged in the construction of Europe. Of course, it already existed physically, but everyone had the impression to work on building something new. We had the feeling of being protagonists of a historic undertaking, and based on that fact, our engagement went beyond the simple professional level” (original quote: “avant l’entré du Royaume Uni, tout le personnel qui travaillait au PE était pro-européen. A partir du secrétaire général au dernier huissier ou chauffeur, tous se considéraient engagés dans la construction de l’Europe. Bien sûr, elle existait déjà physiquement, mais tout le monde avait l’impression de travailler pour bâtir quelque chose de nouveau. On avait le sentiment d’être les protagonistes d’une entreprise historique e de ce fait notre engagement dépassait le simple niveau professionnel”). After the UK’s entry, Ferragni recalled that some British staff members told him openly that they did not care about Europe. 149 All parliamentarians who held an EP mandate prior to 1979 were born before or— in two cases—in 1945; only about a dozen were born in the 1940s (this information stems from the above-mentioned informal list of MEPs from the period 1952–1979 provided by the Historical Archives of the EP). More than 150 parliamentarians who held an EP mandate in that period were ten years old or older when the First World War ended in 1918. Given that all member states were involved in both World Wars, it can be safely assumed that all those MEPs old enough to remember either of the wars had active memories of the war years. Such memories were confirmed by the majority of interviewees. 150 See i.a. interviews with Lothar Ibrügger, Charles McDonald, Alain Terrenoire and Werner Zywietz.

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union organisations, or in party associations like the Socialist International.151 Moreover, many spoke one or more foreign languages, often based on experiences in other European states during their school or university education.152 In short, the EP itself was not the first experience of international cooperation and exchange for many of the MEPs. In other words, the ground of a fundamental openness to cross-border policy making was already laid among MEPs for the norms and shared ideas of closer political and institutional integration, with which the delegates were confronted upon entering the EP. While not all MEPs turned into fervent activists for more integration and EP powers, the vast majority of those who got actively involved in the EP’s work accepted and internalised the ideas of closer integration promoted in and by the EP. Such ideas—analysed in more detail below, and in the following chapters—in turn induced MEPs to strive for more influence of their institution. That applies even to a number of MEPs who entered the EP rather sceptically vis-à-vis European integration, and who consequentially went through a more significant ideological change than the majority of MEPs who had held pro-European opinions in favour of closer integration already prior to entering the EP. The British delegate John Corrie, for instance, voted against Britain’s continued Community membership in the 1975 referendum “because I did not know enough about it”. However, “having been there [in the EP] for a short time, I could see the whole principle and ideals were absolutely right, if you kept it at sort of trade level and co-operation as we now have”.153 The Danish MEP Ole Espersen equally confirmed that “I was very sceptical in the beginning. I voted against being a member of the European Communities, but by and large I became convinced”.154 The process of uniting MEPs behind certain positions, and of socialising them into taking on certain ideas, was steered by a small group of particularly activist MEPs, as the following subsection discusses. 151 This international experience induced some national parties to delegate the respective parliamentarians, treating them as responsible for all things international. See i.a. Cohen (2012: 22) on members of the Assemblies of the Council of Europe and of the WEU; Knudsen (2014) for a meticulous overview of the British MEPs prior to 1979. 152 See i.a. interviews with Karen Dahlerup, Hans-Werner Müller, Vera Squarcialupi and Werner Zywietz. 153 See interview with John Corrie. 154 See interview with Ole Espersen.

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“We Turned It into a Parliament”: The Impact of Norm Entrepreneurs

The multifaceted gradual empowerment of the EP was propelled by a small group of MEPs who learned to use the political tools available to them, their multilevel contacts and their increasing knowledge of procedures, institutional structures and Community policies to pursue their political and institutional aims. These particularly activist MEPs taught new delegates how to make use of the opportunities coming with their EP mandates to influence Community decision-making through their exemplary behaviour, and by involving other delegates in their activism. First and foremost, they took on a leading role in the transfer of norms and ideas. They advocated both in their speeches and through their activism the stronger and more parliamentary role of the EP which they pursued, as well as closer political integration. Inexperienced delegates who entered the EP with few concrete expectations—i.e. the majority of new MEPs, according to the former MEPs interviewed for this research—were heavily influenced by such pre-eminent figures. Given the role they played in the “construction of cognitive frames” in the EP, this small group of activist MEPs can with SI be considered norm entrepreneurs within the EP, i.e. “agents having strong notions about appropriate behavior in their community” who were “critical for norm emergence because they call[ed] attention to issues or even ‘create[d]’ issues” through the verbalisation and dramatisation of their aims, and through their action in the EP.155 The fundamental set of pro-integrationist ideas the majority of MEPs shared allowed the norm entrepreneurs to pull the bulk of MEPs into activism beyond Treaty articles, which they regarded as necessary to achieve their political and institutional aims. The value of the EP as a political “learning space”156 in which delegates could benefit from more experienced colleagues has been emphasised by several MEPs interviewed for this research.157 When naming

155 All quotes: Finnemore and Sikkink (1998: 896 et seq.). 156 Jacques Santer spoke in an interview with the author of a “learning space for

exchange, for European meetings etc.”(original quote: “Lernstube für die Auseinandersetzung, für europäische Begegnungen usw.”). 157 See i.a. interviews with Jean-Pierre Cot, Colette Flesch, Charles McDonald and Jacques Santer.

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examples of particularly influential personalities, the interviewees pointed to those MEPs who dared the most, who took the strongest positions vis-à-vis the Council and occasionally the Commission, and who seemed to the interviewees the most skilled in developing strategies to improve the EP’s influence. Some of the interviewees themselves developed into norm entrepreneurs within the EP, among them Astrid Lulling and Vera Squarcialupi, who left their mark in the area of equality policy,158 and Horst Seefeld, who initiated the first successful lawsuit of the EP against the Council shortly after the EP’s first direct elections, based on his pre1979 experience and socialisation.159 These activist MEPs pursued the gradual empowerment of the EP based on the conviction that further integration—which was perceived by the majority of the MEPs as a given—would require strengthened democratic legitimacy of Community policymaking through a directly elected parliamentary institution able to hold the Commission and the Council to account, to initiate legislation, to control the budget and to co-decide on legislation.160 As Horst Seefeld reflected, “[w]e parliamentarised Parliament. We turned [the EP] into a parliament in the first place”.161 Seeking to strengthen the EP’s different parliamentary powers, MEPs in the role of norm entrepreneurs faced no big obstacles in the process of convincing their peers to join their activism: to generally pro-European parliamentarians, the promoted ideas of more EP parliamentary powers seemed appropriate for the only parliamentary institution at Community level. Even though the normative claims of a need for more legitimacy through an empowerment of the EP had no direct Treaty basis, these

158 See Chapter 5. 159 In January 1983, on the initiative of Seefeld as chairman of the EP’s Committee on

Transport, the EP filed a legal action under Art. 175 EEC that the Council would have infringed a number of EEC Treaty provisions by failing to introduce a common transport policy, and to reach a decision on a number of Commission proposals concerning the area of transport policy. See Judgement of the European Court of Justice of 22 May 1985, case 13/83 (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:61983C J0013&from=DE, last visit 17 February 2021); interviews with Horst Seefeld. 160 See i.a. EP Resolution on European Union, adopted on 10 July 1975, and preparatory documents by the EP Committee on Political Affairs, and the EP party groups. 161 Translated by the author; original quote: “Wir haben das Parlament parlamentarisiert. Wir haben aus dem Parlament überhaupt ein Parlament gemacht”. See interview with Horst Seefeld.

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norm entrepreneurs could thus refer to the norm of parliamentary legitimacy which was generally accepted in all member states. This broad acceptance facilitated the establishment of similar institutional norms at Community level.162 The possibility of references to an established norm system at the national level was also helpful in the process of convincing members of other Community institutions as well as the member state governments of the appropriateness—if not of the need—to empower the EP. MEPs’ socialisation into Parliament under the influence of the norm entrepreneurs’ activism might be expected to have been significantly constrained by the delegates’ double mandate, considering that national parties might have expected their delegates to act in a certain way or represent certain positions at Community level. To the contrary, however, the EP offered fertile ground in this regard for the norm entrepreneurs’ activism influencing MEPs’ socialisation into the EP. First, the pressure of control by MEPs’ national parties was weak, because the interest of most of the MEPs’ national colleagues in EP activities was low to non-existent.163 Consequently, MEPs adjusted their actions mostly to logics of appropriateness determined by the EP’s own structure—first and foremost its party groups, and also its committees—and their own conscience. Second, the control by MEPs’ electorates as well as their respective national and regional media was similarly weak: unless MEPs themselves approached them on their own initiative, it was rather unlikely that either their constituents or the media would show particular interest

162 This confirms the findings by Finnemore and Sikkink (1998: 908) about norm entrepreneurs being able to establish new normative claims more easily if being able to refer to existing norms. 163 Jean-Pierre Cot said in an interview with the author that his national party had “aucun” interest in what he was doing in the EP. Ole Espersen said that “I felt that I had full freedom” in his activities in the EP, since the interest of the Danish Parliament in what the EP did was “very small”, and he was “not at all” controlled by his party with regard to what he did in the EP. Lothar Ibrügger stated that his national party colleagues’ interest in the EP’s activities depended on the issues discussed at Community level, and on the situation in their own constituencies: whether, for instance, the constituency was close to a border, or whether a specific European regulation had a significant impact in that region. Low/no interest was also confirmed in interviews by Renato Ballardini, John Corrie, Hans-Werner Müller, Vera Squarcialupi and Werner Zywietz. However, Georges Clerfayt, Doeke Eisma and Heinz Schreiber reported at least some interest of their national party colleagues in their work at Community level.

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in what EP delegates were doing on a regular basis.164 MEPs merely needed to ensure that their mandates did not (visibly) absorb too much of their time, and possibly hinder them from fulfilling the tasks coming with their national mandates. Third, based on these two preconditions, MEPs prior to 1979 could afford to focus on desired outcomes of their EP activism not only in the short, but also in the mid and long term. Given that they were not re-elected based on their Community-level activities, the delegates did not have to focus on the respective next elections and the attractiveness of their actions in the EP for their electorate. This applies evidently only to the time prior to the EP’s first direct elections. Indeed, a change of argumentation in EP debates on several social policy issues is visible with regard to the “saleability” of this or that political action to the voters in the run up to the elections in 1979.165 MEPs could afford a long-term perspective not only because of the absence of control from their national parties and electorates, but also because their institution initially did not have much to lose in the short term, given its weak formal role. Acting in a long-term perspective implied that MEPs accepted not to reap the fruit of the bigger changes they tried to initiate during their own mandates. This was the case on the one hand because MEPs, particularly the norm entrepreneurs, envisaged developments which they knew would take years to be achieved. On the other hand, while some delegates stayed in the EP for many years, the majority expected to hold their double mandates for only a limited period of time, given factors like the additional workload, national elections which—if resulting in a loss of votes for an MEPs’ national party—could cost them their seat both in the national parliament and the EP (since the latter was inextricably linked with the former), or changing government constellations at home calling MEPs to get involved at national level to a greater extent than before. The average duration of an MEP’s mandate prior to

164 Arnaldo Ferragni emphasised on that note that the EP’s gradual empowerment prior to 1979 “took place without pressure from public opinion or the media, which at the time – as today – did not have the Community institutions on their list of priorities” (original quote: “a eu lieu sans la pression de l’opinion publique et des media, qui à l’époque, comme actuellement d’ailleurs, n’avait pas les problèmes des institutions communautaires sur leur liste de priorités”). See interview with Arnaldo Ferragni. 165 A number of examples are discussed in Chapter 6 on the EP’s children and youth policy.

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Fig. 3.1 Distribution of the duration (in days) of EP mandates prior to 1979, sorted in quartiles

1979 was 1663.39 days, or about four and a half years.166 The shortest mandate (of the Danish Socialist Poul Nyboe Andersen) lasted two days, the longest (of the Italian Christian Democrat Mario Scelba) twenty years, almost the entire period from the Treaties of Rome’s entering into force up to the EP’s first direct elections. Figure 3.1 shows that EP mandates tended to be shorter rather than longer within this range, and that there were far fewer very long mandates than there were very short ones. Given the limited time individual MEPs spent in the EP, and the fact that the European mandate was not their main occupation, few MEPs gained a full or near-perfect understanding of the institutional environment in which they found themselves at Community level.167 This lack of comprehensive knowledge further induced delegates to follow opinion leaders and norm entrepreneurs, a process through which dynamics put into motion by the more activist and experienced MEPs became gradually enforced. 166 This average was calculated based on an unofficial list containing information on all MEPs prior to 1979 with regard to name, sex, country of origin, birthday, date of EP entry and exit and party-group membership, which was provided by the Historical Archives of the EP and which was repeatedly checked for correctness and completeness by the author, but which may nonetheless contain some flaws. 167 On the effects of incomplete information about an actor’s institutional environment on that actor’s behaviour, see Hay (2002); Hay and Wincott (1998).

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The lens through which less experienced MEPs thus saw the EP, and Community policymaking more generally, determined their interpretation of applying rules and procedures. The interviewees Renato Ballardini and Doeke Eisma, for instance, expressed the conviction that the EP had at the time of their mandates no formal control whatsoever over the Council—which was formally correct. These two interviewees also stated, however, that the EP also had no control over the Commission, which was factually wrong. Nevertheless, both of them got involved in the EP’s way of working, including formal and informal control procedures directed at the Commission, because both had become convinced that the EP deserved a better position and more parliamentary power.168 In other words, both Ballardini and Eisma interpreted EP control over the Commission to be legitimate, rather than knowing that they as MEPs had in fact possibilities to exert control over the Communities’ executive. In comparable cases, Hans-Werner Müller, Horst Seefeld and Heinz Schreiber stated in interviews with the author that the Council had to answer to the EP, and had to be present during both plenary and committee meetings.169 This equally constitutes an interpretation of the EP’s role and powers rather than a correct representation of the letter of the Treaty, as discussed above. Yet, this interpretation had the same effect on the EP’s institutional evolution as Ballardini’s and Eisma’s underestimation of EP powers, in that it induced the respective MEPs to act according to what they perceived as just and legitimate, or—in SI terminology—according to a shared logic of appropriateness, i.e. in this case to hold the Council accountable. This demonstrates once more the far-reaching impact of established norms and shared ideas on the EP’s institutional evolution prior to 1979. 3.4.3

Parliamentary Powers Through a Parliamentary Institutional Structure: Party Groups and Committees

Fulfilling the EP’s original task of holding the High Authority and later the Commission accountable once a year would not have required the formation of party groups, nor strictly of committees. The fact that

168 See interviews with Renato Ballardini and Doeke Eisma. 169 See interviews with Hans-Werner Müller, Horst Seefeld and Heinz Schreiber.

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MEPs decided as early as 1953 to establish such an institutional structure is therefore a strong indication of the delegates’ self-conception as Euro-parliamentarians, and of their polity idea of the EP as a fully fledged supranational parliament-to-be.170 Although all three founding Treaties only mentioned the national parliaments’ delegations as units out of which the EP was to be composed, MEPs organised most aspects of the parliamentary everyday work based on party-group and committee membership throughout the period under consideration. The EP thus became “the first supranational assembly where the seventy-eight members were grouped according to political affiliation”.171 The EP’s party groups swiftly became the basis for all kinds of parliamentary work, which was helped by the establishment of party-group secretariats and the allocation of funding to the groups.172 The party groups also became the main determining factor in the composition of the EP’s committees, which was adapted to the balance of political groups rather than of the national delegations. Following the same principle, every committee member was allowed to name one substitute to replace the MEP when he or she could not attend a committee meeting. The choice of the substitute was entirely disconnected from nationality: substitutes only had to come from the same party group as the MEP for whom they were stepping in. The party affiliation was also crucial for the choice of committee chairs: the chair was officially elected by the committee itself; however, in reality, the party groups agreed in advance whom to put forward for which committee chair. The position of rapporteur was equally assigned based on party-group affiliation.173 Thus, the main factor in the MEPs’ distribution over the various posts in the EP was the relative strength of the party groups; although nationality still played some role, as an attempt was made to avoid major imbalances.174 The EP’s basic institutional structure underwent no fundamental change throughout the period under consideration, nor indeed thereafter. Only its composition was adapted to arising needs: the number

170 See Murray (2004: 104); Haas (2004: 390 et seqq.). 171 Murray (2004: 106). 172 See Haas (2004: 432). 173 See Stein (1959: 236). 174 See interview with Heinz Schreiber; Hagger and Wing (1979: 120 seqq.);

Schierwater (1961).

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of EP committees was occasionally increased,175 and the composition of the EP’s group structure changed several times. Three instances stand out with regard to the EP’s party-group landscape prior to the first direct elections. First, in January 1965, the EP reduced the minimum number of MEPs required to form a party group from 17 to 14, thereby allowing a number of French parliamentarians to found an own group.176 The resulting Union démocratique européenne had a strongly nationalist character, based on the political attitude and national background of its members—in the vast majority French Gaullist MEPs.177 Second, the 1970s brought some changes to the composition of the EP groups as a result of the first enlargement in 1973, which meant that members of several new national parties—with distinct parliamentary socialisation—entered the EP. Third, in the same year, members of the French Communist Party came to the EP for the first time. The party had until then not been represented in the EP; also the Italian Communist and Socialist Parties had only joined their national delegation to the EP in 1969. This was partly based on the Communists’ and Socialists’ strongly negative position vis-à-vis the Communities and the in their eyes USand capitalism-dominated European integration process, and partly on the exclusion of these parties from EP delegations by other parties in the national houses of parliament, which voted by majority on the composition of the respective national delegation.178 The entering of these additional national parties made the EP and its party-group landscape considerably more heterogeneous: the Communists formed their own group,179 as did the British and Danish Conservatives.180 The delegates

175 See i.a. Reifferscheid (1966: 111 et seq.). 176 See Resolution on the EP’s Rules

of Procedure, 23 June 1958 (PE0_AP_RP!REGL.1958_A0-0017!580001DE_0001); Resolution changing Art. 36 paragraph 5 of the EP’s Rules of Procedure, 20 January 1965 (PE0_AP_RP!JURI.1961_A0-0118!640001DE_0001). 177 The European Democratic Union was re-named the party of the European Progressive Democrats when members of the Irish Fianna Fáil party joined the group in 1973. 178 See i.a. Brogi (2015); Guerrieri (2008, 2011); Bracke (2007). 179 See Fitzmaurice (1975). 180 Both Conservative delegations had initially entered negotiations with the EP’s Christian Democratic Group; however, the Italian and Benelux members of that group feared to lose the Christian identity of the group. See Jansen (1998).

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of the British Labour party eventually joined the EP’s Socialist Group, but entered Parliament only after the British population had confirmed the UK’s Community membership in a nationwide referendum on 5 June 1975.181 The EP party groups and committees were created based on models of parties and committees in the member state national and regional parliaments, i.e. institutional structures well-known to MEPs through their national mandates.182 Consequently, MEPs’ socialisation into the EP’s institutional structure and into parliamentary working procedures was generally swift and simple. The only noteworthy instance of colliding conceptions of parliamentary work unfolded in the direct aftermath of the first enlargement, with the entry of British, Irish and Danish MEPs. The British delegates in particular were used to a parliamentary system of openly confrontational exchange between the executive and the legislative, whereas much of the work in the EP took place in non-public committee and party-group meetings, with plenary sessions serving a mostly representative purpose. Initially, “the British did not like this at all”183 according to the Dutch former MEP Arie van der Hek—although over time, many of them came to appreciate the efficiency of non-public talks, notably when it came to contacts with the Commission and the Council.184 Learning processes which MEPs underwent in the EP’s group and committee system are visible also in the occasional transfer of EP procedures back to the national parliaments. For instance, the Irish former MEP and member of the EP’s Christian Democratic Group Charles McDonald claimed that he introduced in the Irish Parliament a rule he had learnt to appreciate in the EP, namely that civil servants—advisors, researchers or officials—could join MPs in committee meetings to

181 See Pollack (2009). 182 See i.a. Hix et al. (2003: 312); Forsyth (1964: 70 et seqq.). 183 See interview with Arie van der Hek, who added: “So they always tried to put

things as soon as possible to the plenary”. 184 See interview with John Corrie; visible also in the engagement of British MEPs in the committees’ work, as can be deduced from committee reports, drafts, working documents and minutes of meetings which have been consulted for this research.

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provide detailed background information on proposals and draft legislation under discussion.185 This had previously not been allowed in the Irish Parliament.186 Socialisation processes took place not only with regard to rules and procedures in the EP’s everyday work: MEPs, many of whom had entered the EP with merely vague ideas of concrete policies and the Communities’ institutional functioning,187 were socialised into the ideological lines of their groups, and also into ideationally driven policy aims of closer integration typically pursued in the committees. With regard to the EP party groups, the swift socialisation of new members into the sets of norms and ideas promoted by fellow group members is visible in persisting intra-group unity that can be traced throughout the EP’s pre-elections history.188 This intra-group unity is particularly noteworthy given the fact that MEPs’ national parties, not the EP’s party groups, determined the delegates’ political careers. Moreover, the groups pooled a wide variety of national parties, leading occasionally to profound controversies within the groups. The German Socialist MEP Heinz Schreiber, for example, recalled how the entry of British Labour party delegates initially increased the level of controversy within the EP’s Socialist Group.189 Schreiber furthermore remembered: There were two socialist parties from Belgium [the members of] which did not speak to each other, also within the Socialist Group. There were other parties from Belgium which were separated in Flemish and Wallonian units [though belonging to the same party family,] [the members of] which did not even look at each other.190

185 The EP practice was confirmed in an interview with Fionnuala Richardson, who frequently joined the EP’s Committee on Social Affairs as member of staff of the EP’s Socialist Group. 186 See interview with Charles McDonald. 187 See i.a. interviews with John Corrie, Ole Espersen and Hans-Werner Müller. 188 See Roos (2019). 189 Confirmed i.a. also in the interviews with Fionnuala Richardson and Horst Seefeld. 190 Translated by the author; literal quote: “In Belgien gab es zwei sozialistische

Parteien, die nicht miteinander redeten, auch nicht in der sozialistischen [EP-]Fraktion, da gab es auch andere Parteien in Belgien, die in Flämisch und Wallonisch eingeteilt waren und sich teilweise mit dem Hintern nicht angeguckt haben”. See interview with Heinz Schreiber. The Italian Socialist MEP Renato Ballardini, however, spoke of a high level of

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Largely persisting intra-group unity in the early EP is also remarkable given that the party groups held but a fraction of the means usually held by Western European national parties to enforce party-group discipline. The groups’ options to keep their members in line were limited to incentives rather than a real whip, for instance with regard to the distribution of parliamentary posts: since the party groups bargained over the distribution of positions such as rapporteurships and committee memberships, MEPs knew that they were more likely to get their preferred position if they played by their group’s rules. The inner unity of the EP’s party groups was thus—in the absence of a whip—sustained to some extent by practical considerations: MEPs could expect to reach their preferences more swiftly and easily by being “good” members of their respective groups. The Scottish MEP John Corrie, for instance, recalled in an interview: I learned to swim with the tide. Because if you were a good European People’s Party member, and I genuinely was at heart, then you got all the rapporteurships and the posts that were going. Whereas if you were a hard-line British nationalist, don’t like Europe, well, then, you know, they could make it more difficult for you to get good rapporteurships.191

Charles McDonald similarly claimed that “[i]f you went totally against the system, then if you wanted a favour, wanted to be supported, you did not get it”.192 By contrast, the groups made it considerably easier for individual MEPs to get issues through the plenary, from the initiation of a debate to the amendment of proposals. Speaking for a group reduced the required effort to convince peers to support one’s standpoint: on the one hand, a considerable number of MEPs was already affiliated to one’s position by group membership. On the other hand, an MEP’s statement had more prominence from the beginning if officially representing a group’s position. Beyond such practical consideration, intra-group unity was rooted first and foremost in polity ideas which the MEPs shared with parliamentarians from similar parties in other member states. Being able to rely on similar homogeneity in the Socialist Group, which suggests that such controversies among smaller delegations did not have a major impact on the groups in general. 191 See interview with John Corrrie. 192 See interview with Charles McDonald.

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mindsets and ideological attitudes among their party-group peers was important for the MEPs in order to promote specific policy aims which they pursued. What is more, having only limited capacities for the fulfilment of their roles as MEPs due to their double mandate, MEPs usually developed an expertise only in few and rather narrow policy fields. It hence served their interests to be able to rely on colleagues with an expertise in other areas, particularly if they knew that they shared a common basis of general political preferences beyond their individual expertise.193 In that regard, the EP’s party groups did not only pool similar policy ideas: the groups themselves shaped their members’ ideas of European integration and of Community policies. Indeed, the German MEP Lothar Ibrügger spoke of political “will-formation” across nationalities, notably with regard to concretising the delegates’ initially often only vague ideas of what a common Europe should imply.194 Moreover, MEPs got to know their fellow delegates’ national political systems through regular meetings in different European capitals.195 These party-group meetings offered MEPs insights into pressing problems in the respective member state or region, but also into local political, social or economic circumstances potentially hindering Community initiatives. Through such trips, many delegates developed a deeper understanding of their colleagues’ respective national parties, as well as for the European party families more generally. The former Italian Socialist MEP Renato Ballardini, for instance, declared in an interview with the author that he considered his getting to know European Social Democracy as the biggest gain of his time in the EP. Before entering the EP, he said, he—and the Italian Socialists more generally—had a rather negative image of Social Democratic parties in Western Europe, assuming them to be too close to—and possibly financed by—capitalism. Meeting French, German and Benelux peers at Community level and on trips of the EP Socialist Group, however, led him to understand that they came from parties which represented and fought for workers’ interests just like himself and his own party, and that they shared the same ideas and “did exactly what we did in Italy”.196 This 193 See Ringe (2010: 34). 194 See interview with Lothar Ibrügger, who literally spoke of political “Willensbil-

dung”. 195 These trips were described i.a. by the interviewees Charles McDonald, Alain Terrenoire and Renato Ballardini. 196 See interview with Renato Ballardini.

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learning process had a socialising effect: it induced Ballardini to identify over time primarily as a European Socialist, rather than as a distinctly Italian one. Intra-group unity evolved in the EP already in the 1950s, and largely persisted despite increasing heterogeneity with every delegation from a new national party that entered the EP. Most of the interviewed MEPs confirmed the existence of such intra-group unity, and stated that voting lines were followed except for “very rare”197 occasions in which individual MEPs had the impression that national interests were undermined.198 Even then, however, MEPs would usually leave the plenary during the vote, rather than vote against their group, in order to not impair their group’s displayed unity.199 Such behaviour suggests a commonly accepted logic of appropriateness among MEPs in terms of intra-group behaviour, based on a strong ideational basis of the party groups. The delegates perceived as the party groups’ purpose not only to ensure efficiency in parliamentary work, but also to create a close resemblance of the EP with the member state parliaments. Herein lay one of the groups’ main ideational objectives: they were a crucial element in MEPs’ pursuit to make the EP look and work as similar to a fully fledged Parliament as possible. Intra-group unity was considered an important element to uphold this party-group system.200 In that context, it should be noted that intra-group unity in the EP was usually only displayed during the process leading up to the drafting and adoption of EP opinions (mostly in resolutions), rather than afterwards. The early MEPs perceived a display

197 So said by Jean-Pierre Cot (translated by the author, original quote: “très rare”). 198 See interviews with Jean-Pierre Cot, Alain Terrenoire, Vera Squarcialupi, Jacques

Santer, Heinz Schreiber, Hans-Werner Müller and Ole Espersen. John Corrie recalled that the British Labour and Conservative MEPs regularly met to agree on how to vote in EP plenary sessions—although he admitted that given the overall low level of controversy in the EP, these pre-agreements did not make much of a difference (not least because many of the Conversative MEPs had a favourable attitude towards closer integration). It should be kept in mind that British Conservative MEPs strongly dominated the EP’s Conservative Group; hence, vote agreements among them came very close to vote agreements within the entire group. 199 Confirmed by Alain Terrenoire and Horst Seefeld (the latter speaking specifically about British Labour MEPs unwilling to support certain voting lines of the EP’s Socialist Group). 200 On the evolution of intra-party-group unity in the EP prior to 1979, see Roos (2019).

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of inner disunity as further weakening the EP’s already not very influential position in Community politics. In order to give EP opinions more weight vis-à-vis the other Community institutions and member states, they were usually carried by the EP as a whole, without party groups officially distancing themselves or declaring their opposition once the vote in plenary was passed. There hence existed a permanent struggle between the pursuit of giving the EP a more parliamentary character through party groups representing different interests in the population (i.e. more institutional integration), and speaking with a uniform voice in order to reach certain political aims from a stronger position (i.e. more political integration). This struggle brought forth intra-group unity in the decision-making process, and relative intra-EP unity once a decision was made. A third level of unity is traceable within the EP’s institutional structure, namely: intra-committee unity. Meeting up to four times a month,201 committees served as fora for a regular exchange of ideas, and for the formation of common positions. Within the committees, MEPs were expected by their groups to represent a group line which had been agreed beforehand, particularly with regard to issues of high political relevance.202 Yet, the different party groups’ positions were usually discussed in committee up to a point where all present delegates could agree on the outcome (typically a report with a motion for a resolution). The successful search for compromises is visible in the very high number of unanimously adopted reports prior to 1979. Indeed, the German MEP Lothar Ibrügger, who was at the time a member of the EP’s Socialist Group, recalled that the vast majority of reports in those committees of whom he was a member were adopted unanimously, or with only an occasional vote against or an abstention. This can be confirmed for reports and opinions adopted by different committees in the area of social policy, based on the corpus of EP documents—among them 519 reports and 124 opinions—consulted for this study. Ibrügger identified as the main reason for this intra-committee unity the common ideological ground most MEPs shared: “I can definitely say: there were 198 – with a

201 See i.a. speech by Carlo Scarascia Mugnozza during plenary debate on 15 September 1970 (PE0_AP_DE!1970_DE19700915-019900DE_9306641), p. 31; Piodi (2008a: 49). 202 See interviews with Fionnuala Richardson, Horst Seefeld and Vera Squarcialupi.

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few exceptions – convinced pro-European parliamentarians at work”.203 Hence, he perceived the controversies within the committees as technical rather than ideological, since there usually existed agreement on the reports’ and opinions’ ideational basis.204 It should be noted, however, that such unity in EP committees was limited to members’ shared ideas in the specific policy areas that constituted the remit of the respective committees’ responsibility. The role of pooling shared polity ideas on a broader issue bandwidth remained largely with the EP party groups.

3.5

Conclusion

In 1966, a report by the EP’s Committee on Political Affairs stated that “the position and the influence of the European Parliament depends to a large extent on itself, on its dynamism, on its power of persuasion as well as the concision and objectivity of its opinions”.205 This quote aptly summarises the activism and self-perception of MEPs prior to the EP’s first direct elections, as this chapter shows. First and foremost, MEPs assumed that, given the restrictive Treaty provisions concerning the EP, it was up to them to try and develop the role for their institution they thought it deserved. Aware that they had little formal opportunity to claim the parliamentary powers they strove for, they resorted to persuasion, and to convincing the other Community institutions of the legitimacy and indeed the necessity of the EP’s involvement in Community policy making. Despite their formally weak starting position—which they did not consider as a given, or as permanent—the delegates pursued influence in those areas constituting the scope of action of their national parliaments: legislative, budgetary and control powers, and the power to initiate Community legislation or action. Through the acquisition of

203 Translated by the author; original quote: “Also, ich kann mit Bestimmtheit sagen: Da waren 198 – mit einigen wenigen Ausnahmen – überzeugte europäisch gesinnte Parlamentarier am Werke”. See interview with Lothar Ibrügger. 204 Confirmed also by Jean-Pierre Cot in an interview with the author. 205 Translated by the author; original quote: “D’une manière générale, on peut dire

que, dans les circonstances actuelles, la position et l’influence du Parlement européen dépendent pour une large part de lui-même, de son dynamisme, de sa force de persuasion ainsi que de la concision et de l’objectivité de ses avis”. See Report by the Committee on Political Affairs on the position of the EP with regard to the recent institutional evolution in the Communities, 17 October 1966 (FMJE, ARM 21/4/94), p. 11.

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these powers, MEPs sought to turn their institution into a fully fledged supranational Parliament in the long term. The HI-based section of this chapter discusses that prior to 1979, the EP gained no comprehensive legislative power, but only some legislative influence; it held no formal but at best an informal power of initiative; and also its budgetary power and power of control remained limited throughout the period under consideration. Yet, the powers which the EP holds today were reached crucially through the MEPs’ activism towards the acquisition of these four powers in the EP’s first three decades of existence. Over time, the EP’s gain in power became visible and formalised—starting with the two budget treaties discussed above, followed by the SEA, and the Treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam.206 Given that there was no electoral pressure for MEPs to achieve presentable results in the short term, they could afford to pursue longerterm institutional and political goals. The achievement of such goals was facilitated through the relative unity among MEPs with regard to shared norms and ideas of European political and institutional integration more generally, as the SI-based section of this chapter discusses. Such unity helped MEPs to successfully contest Treaty-given rules and procedures delimiting the EP’s role. It also helped MEPs to stand up against the Council—the strongest opponent of the MEPs’ Euro-parliamentary ambitions, which the member state governments feared might diminish the Council’s (and hence their own) power over legislation and policies.207 The varying impact of MEPs’ shared norms and ideas, and of their socialisation, on the EP’s involvement in different areas of Community social policy making is analysed in the following chapters. All four case studies underline that MEPs’ behaviour in the EP was strongly driven by norms and by their ideational commitment as members of a supranational parliament.208 The following chapters furthermore follow up on the processes of institutional change sketched in this chapter, which shaped the early EP and the possibilities of action for its members. This chapter thus provides the framework which is necessary to understand the

206 See i.a. Gfeller et al. (2011: 8); Ringe (2010: 14); Westlake (1994: 81). 207 See Lindner and Rittberger (2003: 452). 208 See Finnemore and Sikkink (1998: 988).

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following case studies and their relevance to the EP’s institutional evolution. More generally, the concise overview of the EP’s early institutional history presented by this chapter helps explain the beginnings of the EP’s empowerment, and thus contributes to an improved understanding of the EP’s role in the EU institutional system today.

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Sasse, C. (1976). Le renforcement des pouvoirs du Parlement, et spécialement ses nouveaux pouvoirs budgétaires. In Institut d’Etudes Juridiques Européennes (Ed.), Le Parlement Européen. Pouvoirs – Election – Rôle futur. Actes du huitième Colloque de l’I.E.J.E. sur les Communautés européennes organisé à Liège, les 24, 25 et 26 mars 1976 (pp. 21–71). I.E.J.E. Schierwater, H.-V. (1961). Parlament und Hohe Behörde der Montanunion. Quelle & Meyer. Schimmelfennig, F. (2001). The community trap: liberal norms, rhetorical action, and the Eastern enlargement of the European Union. International Organization, 55(1), 47–80. Schulz, O. (1996). Maastricht und die Grundlagen einer Europäischen Sozialpolitik. Der Weg – Die Verhandlungen – Die Ergebnisse – Die Perspektiven. Carl Heymanns. Schwed, J.-J., et al. (1978). The Parliament and the Commission. In R. D. Lambert (Ed.), The European Community after Twenty Years (pp. 33–41). American Academy of Political Science. Sintes, G. (1996). La politique sociale de l’Union européenne. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes. Stein, E. (1959). The European Parliamentary Assembly: Techniques of Emerging “Political Control.” International Organization, 13(2), 233–254. Stuart, A. B. M. (1971). Questions in the European Parliament: An assessment of questions, written and oral, in the European Parliament. Edinburgh. Thiemeyer, G. (2001). Die Ursachen des “Demokratiedefizits” der Europäischen Union. In W. Loth (Ed.), Das europäische Projekt zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts (pp. 27–47). Leske + Budrich. Tulli, U. (2017). Un Parlamento per l’Europa: il Parlamento europeo e la battaglia per la sua elezione (1948–1979). Milan: Mondadori/Florence: Le Monnier. van Middelaar, L. (2009). De passage naar Europa: geschiedenis van een begin. Historische Uitgeverij Groningen. Vergès, J.-R. (1966). La participation du Parlement européen à l’élaboration du droit communautaire dans le cadre des Traités de Rome. In A.-M. Houbdine & J.-R. (pp. 53–180). Vergès: Le Parlement européen dans la construction de l’Europe des Six. Presses Universitaires de France. Vogel-Polsky, É. (1997). ‘lés institutionnelles et juridiques pour une politique sociale européenne. In Institut d’études européennes (Ed.), Le contrat social en Europe. De Jean-Jacques Rousseau à la dimension sociale de Maastricht. Actes des conférences et séminaires de la Chaire Glaverbel de Sociétés et Civilisations européennes (pp. 35–91). Institut d’études européennes, UCL. Westlake, M. (1990). The origin and development of the question time procedure in the European Parliament. EUI Working Paper, 90/4. San Domenico: EUI. Westlake, M. (1994). The Commission and the Parliament. Partners and rivals in the European Policy-making Process. Butterworths.

CHAPTER 4

Creating a Borderless Europe: The European Parliament’s Activism in the Pursuit of a Free Movement of Persons

4.1

Introduction

In Community legislation, the free movement of persons remained inextricably linked with the factor of employment throughout the entire period under consideration. From the 1950s, MEPs contested this limitation, and attempted to broaden the Communities’ in their eyes too narrow definition of the freedom of movement. To the majority of MEPs, this freedom signified considerably more than a tool to balance the offer and demand of manpower and to fight unemployment and labour shortages, which constituted the underlying basis of most Council decisions at the time. Rather, to the delegates, the free movement of workers— and in a longer perspective of persons—signified an inherent element of identity-building in the construction of a united Europe. This chapter analyses the EP’s free movement policy as one of the policy fields in which the EP first got involved, not only within the area of social policy, but in Community policy making more generally. The free movement of workers is also one of the social policy issues where the EP was most successful in influencing Community legislation—despite no Treaty provision for Parliament’s direct involvement. The combined occurrence of limited formal powers and significant influence, both in terms of legislative impact and the establishment of inter-institutional procedures enhancing the EP’s role in Community legislation, makes this © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Roos, The Parliamentary Roots of European Social Policy, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78233-7_4

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case study highly insightful with regard to the EP’s institutional development prior to 1979. Based on the previously introduced theoretical approach of historical-sociological institutionalism, the chapter examines different factors that influenced MEPs’ behaviour in the area of free movement, notably: • the ideational basis of the MEPs’ behaviour, both with regard to policy and polity ideas; • formal rules and constraints deriving from the Treaties and informal rules and constraints based on gradually established procedures, steering and to some extent limiting the EP’s, the Commission’s and the Council’s scope of action in Community decision-making; and • the inter-institutional relations which MEPs established and used at different levels, and which helped them gain influence. This chapter focuses on the free movement of Community workers and their families. It thus excludes two groups of persons whose freedom of movement was also to some extent regulated at Community level, though based on different Treaty articles: first, the analysis excludes self-employed persons, who were subject to Treaty provisions on the freedom of establishment (Arts. 52–58 EEC). The EEC Treaty provided for the consultation of the EP on the regulation of the freedom of establishment (Arts. 45, 56 and 57 EEC); however, the resulting EP resolutions and reports contained hardly any reference to MEPs’ broader aims and ideas concerning Community social policy, which appear much more clearly in the EP’s policy on the free movement of workers. Thus, the EP’s involvement in the freedom of establishment offers little added value to the analysis of the EP’s role in Community social policy, and of the ideas and factors driving MEP activism in the area.1 Second, the chapter focuses only on the free movement of persons with citizenship of one (or more) of the member states—hereafter referred to as Community citizens—while leaving out third-country migrants. In the MEPs’ pursuit of closer institutional and political integration, third-country citizens played at best a marginal role in the period prior to the EP’s first 1 For similar reasons, the chapter leaves out the free movement of services, regulated in Arts. 59–66 EEC: the free movement of services was not treated as a social policy issue at Community level up to the 1980s. See Leibfried (1998: 36).

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direct elections. The improvement of the member state citizens’ living and working conditions, leading to stronger public support for closer integration more generally and for the EP in particular, however, figured prominently among the MEPs’ central aims, which is why they stand in the focus of the following analysis.

4.2 The European Communities’ Social Policy Concerning the Free Movement of Workers and Their Families Prior to the Single European Act, the free movement of workers was among the most regulated social policy issues at Community level. It was the most obvious case of necessary socio-political integration in the creation of a Common Market, since free movement implied the crossing of borders, so that responsibility had to be shared by at least two member states in the case of any moving worker. Community-level solutions offered a more harmonised alternative to the uneven range of various bilateral agreements concluded among the Six up to the 1950s.2 Hence, the member states were less reluctant to agree to Community legislation on free movement than on many other social policy issues. Nonetheless, free movement within the Communities was realised only gradually. According to the ECSC Treaty, the group of persons entitled to move relatively freely within the Community was very limited: Art. 69 ECSC provided for the abolition of any discrimination and restriction based on nationality for workers of confirmed qualification. Such qualified workers constituted but a minority in the overall workforce moving from one country to another in the 1950s. Moreover, they usually had no problems finding employment already prior to the entering into force of Art. 69 ECSC.3 Consequently, this article was initially little more than a symbolic step towards the opening of a Community labour market. Some

2 On bilateral agreements concerning labour migration in the first half of the twentieth century, see i.a. Leboutte (2008: 641); Collins (1975a: 68) and (1975b: 102 et seqq.). 3 See Collins (1975a: 63).

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governments’ reluctance to agree upon a more comprehensive movement of workers was rooted in their fear of an influx of large numbers of unskilled workers into their war-ridden countries and labour markets.4 In the course of the 1950s, the member states’ economies began to boom, so that by the time of the negotiations of the EEC and Euratom Treaties, all member states with the exception of Italy were in need of workers—particularly in sectors with low pay and otherwise unattractive working conditions, sectors which relied heavily on unskilled and on migrant workers.5 During the 1950s and into the 1960s, Italy continuously faced high unemployment rates and welcomed any possibility to lower these rates, notably by moving unemployed workers to other member states where their working power was needed, and from where at least some of them would transfer parts of their salary to their families in Italy.6 Based on these changed conditions, the Six were willing to agree on broader provisions on the free movement of workers in the EEC Treaty. First and foremost, the articles in the EEC Treaty dealing with free movement (Arts. 48–51 EEC) made no more mention of qualifications, thus allowing any worker with a member state citizenship7 to take up employment in a member state other than that of his or her origin. Second, under the EEC Treaty, free movement was to some extent institutionally “supranationalised”: the Commission was given the task by Arts. 49 and 51 EEC to propose directives and regulations establishing free movement to the Council, on which the Council then had to decide, while the only task assigned exclusively to the member states was to “encourage the exchange of young workers”.8 The Euratom Treaty equally provided for free movement of workers. However, similar to the ECSC Treaty, it provided merely for the “freedom of employment for specialists within the Community” (Art. 2 4 See Geyer (2000: 1833). 5 See Shanks (1977: 5). 6 See Dahlberg (1967: 311). 7 Unless that worker would be considered a threat to “public order, public safety and public health”, as stated in Art. 48 EEC. Excluded were also all workers employed in the public sector. 8 Art. 50 EEC. This article is discussed in more detail in Chapter 6 on the EP’s children and youth policy.

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(g) Euratom). Since only a very small number of workers were concerned by the Euratom Treaty, freedom of movement had not the same economic and socio-political importance in the Euratom as in the other two Communities. The limited target group of free movement in the Euratom Treaty can be considered a practical solution for the need for qualified workers rather than a political decision to limit the migration of member state citizens within the Community. The member states’ increasing willingness to open their labour markets to Community migrant workers is demonstrated by the fact that regulations on the establishment of free movement were among the first regulations adopted after the EEC Treaty entered into force. Regulations no. 3 of 25 September 1958 and no. 4 of 3 December 1958 both dealt with the social security of migrant workers moving within the Community.9 In addition to their swift adoption, it is remarkable that the first EEC regulations on free movement dealt not with (exclusively) economic aspects of free movement, but with the subject of social security, in which member states had been keen to retain their sovereignty ever since the founding of the Communities. The willingness to make an exception in the area of free movement hints at a development that is discussed further below: free movement had the potential from the beginning to become a testing ground for (partial) social integration.10 Throughout most of the transition period towards the establishment of the Common Market, national workers retained priority over migrant workers in the acceptance of job offers, which had to be made public for three weeks to nationals before a work permit could be issued to a migrant worker. According to Art. 48 EEC, the free movement of workers was to be fully realised no later than at the end of the transitional period. Indeed, Regulation no. 1612/68 of 15 October 1968, which removed all remaining obstacles to the free movement of workers, entered into force more than a year prior to the end of the transition period (31 December 1969).11

9 Both in OJ P30, 16 December 1958, pp. 561–664/58. 10 See Hantrais (2007: 215). 11 See Regulation no. 1612/68, adopted on 15 October 1968 (OJ L 257, 19 October 1968, pp. 2–12).

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The 1970s brought significant changes in the area of Community social policy concerning the free movement of workers: first, with free movement being formally established since 1968, the Commission focused its proposals on improving implementation, and ensuring that any persisting discrimination of migrant workers was eliminated, among others with regard to the transfer of social-security benefits, and the right to remain in a member state after the end of employment. Second, the Commission focused increasingly on disadvantaged groups of migrants such as women, youth, elderly and disabled.12 A number of Commission proposals were, however, rejected or delayed particularly in the second half of the 1970s due to the effects of the economic and financial crisis: with rising numbers of unemployed among their own nationals, governments’ willingness to facilitate the immigration of workers and their families decreased swiftly.13 As a result, many of the legal texts that were adopted during that time had a largely technical character, with few far-reaching political changes being agreed upon. One victim of this crisis-based reluctance was the Community Action Programme in favour of migrant workers and their families proposed by the Commission in December 1974.14 This action programme, which had no legally binding force, encouraged the member states to continuously fight remaining discrepancies between nationals and migrants on issues such as social-security benefits, training, trade union rights, housing, and political rights at least at the municipal level.15 Most of the ambitious aims of this programme, however, remained effectively unfulfilled up to the mid-1980s, even though many of them were repeatedly addressed in subsequently adopted regulations and directives.16 This 12 See i.a. Action Programme in favour of migrant workers and their families (Com(74)2250); Council Regulation (EEC) No 2595/77 of 21 November 1977 amending Regulations (EEC) No. 1408/71 and (EEC) No. 574/72 on the application of social-security schemes to employed persons and their families moving within the Community (OJ L 302, 26 November 1977, pp. 1–12); Proposal from the Commission for a Decision on setting up a second joint programme of exchanges of young workers within the Community, 6 April 1979 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A0-0091!790030EN_058725). 13 See Geyer (2000: 1838 et seq.). It should be mentioned that this hit third-country migrants considerably harder than Community migrants. 14 See Council Resolution of 9 February 1976 (aei.pitt.edu/1278/1/actionmigrantwo rkersCOM742250.pdf, last visit on 14 June 2018). 15 Geyer (2000: 1838). 16 See i.a. Ireland (1995: 239 et seq.).

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is visible in a high number of court cases before the ECJ, many of them concerning the social security of migrant workers, which indeed constituted the biggest part of social policy-related court cases at the time.17 The role of the European Court of Justice deserves special attention in the area of the free movement of workers: it is one of the areas in which the court went most clearly beyond its Treaty-provided task by giving interpretative rulings during the period under consideration. The ECJ had a noteworthy impact on the extension of free movement, among others concerning self-employed persons, students and apprentices, pensioners, part-time and seasonal workers.18 The Commission and also the EP welcomed this judicial activism of the ECJ, since it helped significantly to establish a more comprehensive freedom of movement than provided by the Treaties. The shared ideational ground among the institutions is also emphasised by Kornerup (1978), who states that EP opinions concerning free movement found an echo in ECJ decisions, for instance in cases of discrimination between national and migrant workers.19 The role of the ECJ, the Commission and the EP in pushing for a broader freedom of movement reflects the ideological importance attached to the issue as “a key element in the promotion of a social and political European identity” from the beginning.20 Members of these institutions considered free movement “a fundamental right of the individual”,21 and the basis to a form of supranational citizenship. A proposal for the introduction of a Community citizenship next to a national one was submitted during the 1970s by the Italian government with support of the Belgian government during the Paris Summit of 1972, was followed up during the Copenhagen Summit 1973 and the Paris Summit 1974, and taken up in the Tindemans Report of 1975.22 Such a Community citizenship was supposed to allow migrants to gain political rights such as the right to vote in municipal elections, which had been advocated by the Commission for some years at that time, and for even longer by the EP, as is discussed below. 17 See Streil (1986: 95). 18 See i.a. Recchi (2015: 24); Moussis (2007: 269); Ribas (1969: 172 et seqq.). 19 See Kornerup (1978: 243). 20 Geyer (2000: 1834). 21 O’Grada (1969: 83). 22 See Recchi (2015: 24 et seq.).

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Examining all Community legislation adopted on free movement of workers prior to 1979 would go far beyond the scope of this work, given the large number and at times significant length of the documents. Between 1961 and 1964 alone, the Council adopted nine modification regulations on the social security of migrant workers—just one aspect of the implementation of the free movement of workers.23 Table 4.1 in the annex of this chapter provides an overview of the most important legal documents in the area.

4.3 The European Parliament’s Social Policy Concerning Free Movement Prior to 1979 Neither the articles directly dealing with free movement in the ECSC Treaty nor in the EEC Treaty provided for EP involvement—not even for consultation.24 Nonetheless, both the ECSC and the EEC Treaties indirectly allowed the EP to get involved via more general articles on policy making procedures. Art. 7 EEC, for instance, prohibited any discrimination on the grounds of nationality, which should be guaranteed through rules adopted by the Council, “on a proposal of the Commission and after the Assembly has been consulted”.25 MEPs occasionally used references to this article in order to push the Council to act26 ; and the Council did indeed consult the EP based on this article.27 Once the EP had been consulted, Art. 149 EEC was frequently referred to in EP resolutions as a basis for MEPs’ claims to have a right to having their amendments taken over into Commission proposals: the article stated that “the Commission may amend its original proposal, 23 See Ribas (1969: 182 et seqq.). 24 Art. 96 Euratom provided for EP consultation on the free movement of experts in

the field of nuclear energy; however, the number of concerned persons was so low that this right of the EP cannot be considered a significant formal power of the EP in the area of social policy. 25 Art. 7 EEC, emphasis added. 26 See e.g. Written Question no. 311/75 by Pierre-Bernard Cousté, 29 July 1975

(PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0311!750030FR_195958). 27 See e.g. Letter by Council President Werner to EP President Leemans, 1 March 1966 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A0-0158!670020DE_002870).

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particularly in cases where the Assembly has been consulted on the proposal concerned”, as long as the Council had not acted on the proposal. MEPs considered this to apply even if there was no Treaty obligation for the consultation of the EP.28 Arts. 95 ECSC and 155 EEC provided MEPs with indirect opportunities of initiative. The two articles entitled the High Authority and the Commission, respectively, to act beyond Treaty provisions when perceiving a necessity for such action. Based on the good interinstitutional relations between the EP and the executives, MEPs could try to convince the Commission or High Authority of their own policy ideas of freedom of movement, and urge the respective executive to make proposals for certain measures. Moreover, Art. 155 EEC invited the Commission to “participate in the preparation of acts […] of the Assembly”, opening to the EP another possibility of more direct initiative, provided that the Commission could be won over to support the MEPs’ aims.29 Regardless of Treaty provisions, MEPs demonstrated a great interest in the free movement of workers—and more generally of persons—from the EP’s very first year of existence.30 A number of issues dominated the EP discourse on freedom of movement, ranging from migrants’ general living and working conditions31 to specific groups of migrants 28 See i.a. Resolution on Commission proposals for a regulation and directive on the abolition of travel and residence limitations of workers and their families within the Communities, 17 October 1967 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A0-0128!670001DE); Resolution on a Commission proposal for a regulation on the creation of harmonised statistics about foreign workers, 13 November 1972 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A00167!720001DE); Resolution on a Commission proposal for a regulation amending Regulation (EEC) 1612/68 on the extension of trade union rights to Community migrant workers, 13 November 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A0-0354!750001EN). 29 For examples of such attempts of pushing the High Authority/Commission to take initiatives beyond Treaty provisions based on Arts. 96 ECSC and 155 EEC, see i.a. speeches by Hermann Kopf and Alfred Bertrand during plenary debate on 10 May 1955 (AC_AP_DE!1954_DE19550510-029900DE_9308682), p. 305 and 287 respectively; Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on a Commission proposal for a recommendation concerning the housing of workers moving within the Community, 15 March 1965 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0002!650010DE_000628), p. 4 et seq. 30 See i.a. the speech by Albert Bertrand during plenary debate on 15 June 1953 (AC_AP_DE!1953_DE19530615-029900DE), p. 23, in which he demanded a Community labour card to be the first social measure of the ECSC. 31 See i.a. Resolution on the free movement of workers within Community, 9 November 1957 (AC_AP_RP!ASOC.1953_AC-0011!57-novembre0001DE); Report by

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and their respective special needs, including women, children, youth, elderly, disabled, refugees and stateless persons.32 Most of the MEPs’ free movement-related demands—whether concerning all migrants or specific groups—went beyond Treaty provisions, in that they focused not only on the integration of migrants in the labour market, but also on equality of living and working conditions between nationals and migrants. In addition to a wide range of suggestions for policy measures and legislation to that end, the EP proposed the set-up of a number of institutions and bodies which were to make administrative proceedings easier for migrant workers, and which were to support them in their integration into society and the political and bureaucratic system of the host country. Among these proposed bodies and institutions were:

the Committee on Social Affairs on Commission proposals concerning first measures for the establishment of the free movement of frontier and seasonal workers, 25 June 1962 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0037!620010DE_00700001), p. 6; Resolution on the results of study trips by members of the Committee on Social Affairs concerning problems of free movement, 23 January 1964 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A00118!630001DE); Resolution on an action programme in favour of migrant workers and their families, 24 September 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A0-0160!750001EN). 32 With regard to refugees and stateless persons, the EP succeeded in broadening the scope of Community provisions concerning the free movement of workers considerably beyond Treaty provisions by including persons that did not hold a Community citizenship. For instance, Regulation 1408/71 of 14 June 1971—which is still in force today—applies not only to Community citizens, but also to stateless persons and refugees based on EP amendments. See Art. 2 (1) of Regulation 1408/71; and on the related EP activism i.a. Resolution on a Commission proposal for a directive on the coordination of special measures of travel and residence of foreigners based on reasons of public order, security and health, 22 November 1962 (PE0_AP_RP!MACO.1961_A00102!620001DE); Resolution on Commission proposals concerning the free movement of workers, 28 March 1963 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0007!630001DE); Resolution on Commission proposals for a regulation on the application of social-security systems on workers and their families moving within the Community, and a decision on the application of Art. 51 EEC on French Overseas Departments, 25 January 1968 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A0-0158!670001DE_0001); Written Questions 982/78 and 983/78 by Antoine Porcu to the Commission, both 17 January 1979 (OJ C92, 9 April 1979, pp. 12–14); Written Question 1075/78 by Willem Albers to the Commission, 21 February 1979 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-1075!780040FR_223441).

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• a European employment agency, coordinating the work of national agencies with regard to supply and demand, which was to some extent reached through the establishment of a preliminary European Office for the Coordination and Balancing of Employment Supply and Demand in the early 1960s, and the Système Européen de Diffusion des Offres et demandes d’emploi en Compensation (SEDOC) in 197333 ; • a European insurance that would allow migrants to accumulate and transfer social benefits among member states, some elements of which were only implemented with the introduction of the European Health Insurance Card through Decision No. 189 (2003/751/EC) of 18 June 200334 ; • a permanent body to represent migrants’ interests at Community level35 ; • and a non-profit European Post Office Bank, helping migrants to manage salaries, benefits, etc., in different currencies.36 The frequent adoption of free movement-related legislation at Community level which is illustrated in Table 4.1 did not satisfy the MEPs. Many of their far-reaching demands beyond the regulation of

33 See i.a. Minutes of a meeting of members of the Committee on Social Affairs and the Employment Ministers of the Six on 27 October 1954, 10 November 1954 (AC_AP_RP!ASOC.1953_AC-0014!55-mai0040FR_0311125); Resolution on the free movement of workers within Community, 9 November 1957 (AC_AP_RP!ASOC.1953_AC-0011!57-novembre0001DE). On the European Office for the Coordination and Balancing of Employment Supply and Demand, see Collins (1975b: 30). On SEDOC, see Brewster and Teague (1989: 88). 34 See Resolution on an action programme in favour of migrant workers and their families, 24 September 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A0-0160!750001EN); Decision No. 189 of 18 June 2003 aimed at introducing a European health insurance card to replace the forms necessary for the application of Council Regulations (EEC) No. 1408/71 and (EEC) No. 574/72 as regards access to health care during a temporary stay in a Member State other than the competent State or the State of residence (OJ L 276, 27 October 2003, pp. 1–3). 35 See EP Resolution on the action programme in favour of migrant workers and their families mentioned above. 36 See Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on an action programme in favour of migrant workers and their families, 31 July 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A00160!750010EN_033796), p. 17.

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labour migration were rejected by the Council.37 They also felt that the Commission was at times too hesitant in proposing action.38 In addition, MEPs decried repeatedly the considerable difference between adopted Community legislation and the actual situation of migrants, which often did not correspond to the aims expressed in Community legislation.39 This multifaceted dissatisfaction was rooted in the discrepancy of the ideas shared by the majority of MEPs concerning free movement as a tool to bring the people of the member states closer together, and the predominantly economic concept of free movement which underlay Community legislation, as demonstrated below.

37 See i.a. speech by Alfred Bertrand during plenary debate on 10 May 1955 (AC_AP_DE!1954_DE19550510-029900DE_9308682), p. 287; Resolution on a Commission proposal for a regulation on the social security of migrant workers and their families, 25 November 1968 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A00158!680001DE); speech by Hendrikus Vredeling during plenary debate on 18 June 1970 (PE0_AP_DE!1970_DE19700618-019900DE_9306557), p. 117; Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on a Commission proposal for a regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No. 1612/68 on the extension of trade union rights to workers moving within the Community, 10 November 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A00354!750010EN_034140), p. 6. 38 See i.a. Report by the Committee on the Common Market on a Commission proposal for a directive on the coordination of special measures concerning the travel and residence of foreigners based on reasons of public order, security and health, 21 November 1962 (PE0_AP_RP!MACO.1961_A0-0102!620010DE_00550955), p. 5; Written Question 396/69 by Walter Behrendt and Horst Bruno Gerlach to the Commission, 12 December 1969 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0396!690010DE_127896); Resolution on a Commission proposal for a regulation amending Regulations (EEC) No. 1408/71 and (EEC) No. 574/72, 14 October 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A0-0286!750001EN); Resolution on a Commission proposal for a regulation amending Regulation (EEC) 1612/68 on the extension of trade union rights to Community migrant workers, 13 November 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A0-0354!750001EN). 39 See i.a. Resolution on the results of study trips by the Committee on Social Affairs concerning problems of free movement, 23 January 1964 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A00118!630001DE); Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on Commission proposals for a regulation on the free movement of workers within the Community, and a directive on abolition of limitations of travel and residency for workers and their families in the Community, 10 October 1967 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A0-0128!670010DE_003906), p. 44; Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on an action programme in favour of migrant workers and their families, 31 July 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A00160!750010EN_033796), p. 9.

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The Ideological Basis of MEPs’ Behaviour in the Area of Free Movement Policy

The sociological-institutionalist dimension of the theoretical approach adopted in this analysis starts from the premise that actors’ ideas determine their behaviour, in that they shape actors’ perceptions of what is appropriate and desirable. This section shows that MEPs’ activism in the area of free movement was indeed shaped significantly by their shared ideas. The first of the two following subsections discusses which policy ideas dominated the EP discourse on free movement, and how they influenced the EP’s involvement in Community policy making. The second subsection then analyses why these policy ideas were adopted in EP reports and resolutions even though some of them had a more federalist character than a number of MEPs would have subscribed to. The key to the understanding of the MEPs’ collective behaviour lies in their shared polity ideas , according to which the EP’s institutional position in Community policy making was often more important than the pursuit of individual policy preferences. 4.4.1

Towards Equality of all Community Citizens: Dominating Policy Ideas in the EP’s Free Movement Policy

While MEPs acknowledged the economic importance and repercussions of intra-Community migration,40 Community policy on free movement could in their view not be limited merely to employment-related legislation, but had to consider the migrants as humans with social needs both in and beyond their working environment. The EP Committee on Social Affairs in particular emphasised that the Communities’ free movement policy could not only be a tool to provide manpower where it was needed, but that it also had to focus on the personal development and human dignity of migrants.41 40 See i.a. Resolution on a Commission proposal for a regulation concerning first measures to implement the free movement of workers, and on administrative measures concerning free movement, 16 November 1960 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1958_A00067!600001DE_0001); speech by Josef Müller during plenary debate on 25 November 1968 (PE0_AP_DE!1968_DE19681125-019900DE_9306121), p. 7. 41 See Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on the results of study trips to the member states concerning specific problems of free movement, 20 January 1964 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0118!640010DE_00699509), p. 2; Resolution on

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These policy ideas induced MEPs to get involved in Community policymaking beyond the mere commenting on Commission proposals, as demonstrated in more detail in Sect. 4.5. The concrete impact of such policy ideas on EP policymaking can be traced in resolutions and reports on free movement which put an emphasis on issues unconnected from employment and economic circumstances. Among others, the EP called— successfully—for the codification of migrant workers’ and their families’ right to stay in a host country after the end of the migrant workers’ employment.42 Further, the EP demanded repeatedly that migrants should be given political rights. Beginning with both active and passive voting rights for workers’ representations at company level,43 MEPs called particularly during the 1970s—unsuccessfully—also for voting rights at

the results of study trips to the member states concerning specific problems of free movement, 23 January 1964 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0118!630001DE). 42 The Council accepted an EP amendment to Art. 7 of Directive 68/360/EEC of 15 October 1968, which granted migrants a temporary right to stay in another member state without having employment there, in case the worker became involuntarily unemployed or temporarily incapable of work. See EP Resolution on a draft regulation and directive on free movement and the abolition of travel and residence limitations of workers and their families within the Communities, 17 October 1967 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A00128!670001DE); Council Directive 68/360/EEC on the abolition of restrictions on movement and residence within the Community for workers of member states and their families, 15 October 1968 (OJ L 257, 19 October 1968, pp. 13–16); and also Commission proposal for a Commission regulation on the right to stay, 17 December 1969 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A0-0010!700040DE_009007). 43 Whereas the Commission already included in its first free movement-related proposals

after the Treaties of Rome the right to vote in representatives’ elections, the right of migrant workers to be elected as representative entered Community legislation only with a successful EP amendment to Art. 8 of the later Regulation 38/64/EEC. See Resolution on Commission proposals concerning the free movement of workers, 28 March 1963 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0007!630001DE), amendment to Art. 11; Regulation 38/64/EEC, 25 March 1964 (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/DE/ TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:31964R0038&from=DE, last visit 17 February 2021), Art. 8. On the EP’s engagement concerning migrant workers’ political rights with regard to workers’ representations, see also Resolution on a Commission proposal for a directives concerning the free access to qualified jobs in Euratom, 15 November 1961 (PE0_AP_RP!RECH.1961_A0-0070!610001DE_0001); Resolution on the results of study trips by the Committee on Social Affairs concerning problems of free movement, 23 January 1964 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0118!630001DE); Resolution on a draft regulation and directive on the abolition of travel and residence limitations of workers and their families within the Communities, 17 October 1967 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A0-0128!670001DE).

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municipal,44 national45 and European level, the latter in the pre-course of the EP’s first direct elections.46 The equal treatment of migrants and nationals at work and beyond constituted a fundamental component of MEPs’ more general policy ideas on free movement for every “European citizen”.47 The pursued goal was to “see it as a more normal occurrence for people to move from one country to another”,48 including as a precondition the abolition of all forms of forced migration.49 Indeed, every Community citizen was supposed to get the free choice and opportunity to migrate to or stay in any of the member states. This implied not only the possibility to move and work anywhere in the Communities, but also the necessity to

44 See i.a. Written Question 536/71 by Ernest Glinne to the Commission, 26 January 1972 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0536!710010DE_159166); Written Question 537/71 by Ernest Glinne to the Council, 26 January 1972 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E0537!710010DE_159181). 45 See Resolution on an action programme in favour of migrant workers and their families, 24 September 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A0-0160!750001EN), which demands i.a. the “extension of the civil and political rights enjoyed by ordinary citizens over 18 years to all migrant workers irrespective of their origin”. 46 See Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on an action programme in favour of migrant workers and their families, 31 July 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A00160!750010EN_033796), p. 21. At municipal and European level, migrants were only granted the right to vote in the Maastricht Treaty. See Art. 8b of the Treaty on European Union, 7 February 1992 (OJ C 191, 29 July 1992, pp. 1–112; here: p. 7). Migrants’ voting rights at national level are a subject of unresolved debate until today, with individual solutions by the member states seeming more feasible than an EU-level regulation, as shown, e.g. in the—failed—2015 referendum on non-nationals’ voting rights in Luxembourg. For a summary of the results see for instance the coverage by the Luxembourgish newspaper ‘Luxemburger Wort’ (https://www.wort.lu/en/politics/ full-foreigner-voting-rights-rejection-deciding-the-next-move-5576a18b0c88b46a8ce5a ee6?utm_campaign=magnet&utm_source=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles, last visit 17 February 2021). 47 During a plenary debate on the education of migrant workers’ children on 13 November 1975, the Italian MEP Tullia Carettoni Romagnoli declared that, with intra-Community migrants’ children, “the European citizen has in fact been born” (PE0_AP_DE!1975_DE19751113-079900EN_9312877), p. 276. 48 Speech by Ralph Howell during plenary debate on (PE0_AP_DE!1975_DE19751014-039900EN_9316491), p. 87.

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49 See i.a. Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on two petitions concerning an International Charter of Migrants’ Rights, and a European Migrant Workers’ Charter, 27 May 1974 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A0-0084!740010EN_024260), p. 15.

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provide equal education standards and the mutual recognition of qualifications in all member states, not least in order to prevent migrants from being considered subordinate in any way to nationals, based for instance on lower levels of education.50 Furthermore, a real freedom of movement implied—in the MEPs’ view—the ability of all Community citizens to find decent employment in their home countries as well, thus truly leaving them the free choice whether to stay or leave. These far-reaching ambitions illustrate that MEPs’ activism with regard to free movement was strongly driven by their policy ideas. A preeminent role in the promotion of such ideas was played by the EP social committee, the members of which emphasised vehemently the importance which they dedicated to free movement in the creation of a united Europe. In a 1975 report, for instance, the social committee demanded that migrants—and hence potentially all Community citizens—had to be enabled to feel at home anywhere in the Communities, so as to avoid a feeling of “cultural and psychological ‘statelessness’”.51 The committee went as far as calling Community migrants “the tenth nation of Europe” (in times of nine member states), and “in a certain sense the first whose mother-country is Europe”.52 It was from this committee that most resolutions and amendments adopted by the EP on free movement originated, thus allowing the committee members to steer the EP’s involvement in related Community policy making. To MEPs, free movement not only had an ideational importance per se in that it made the entire territory of the Community accessible to member state citizens as a living and working space, but it also became a steppingstone to other socio-political ambitions as early as the 1950s. The implementation of the MEPs’ ideas of a broad freedom of movement required the regulation at Community level of connected areas, such as education policy, social security and housing policy—to which the Commission and Council generally agreed. Moreover, the MEPs perceived a need for harmonised policies in the areas of gender equality as 50 See i.a. Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on the results of study trips

to the member states concerning specific problems of free movement, 20 January 1964 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0118!640010DE_00699509), p. 8. 51 See Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on an action programme in favour of migrant workers and their families, 31 July 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A00160!750010EN_033796), p. 15. 52 See ibid., p. 16.

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well as children and youth policy, given that women and young persons were particularly disadvantaged among the overall group of migrants, among other issues regarding access to education and employment.53 The sociological-institutionalist analysis of the impact of policy ideas helps in this regard once more to understand MEP activism. In the MEP’s ideational understanding of (ever more) European social integration—“which we all desire”, as the Belgian Socialist MEP Leon-Eli Troclet expressed during a plenary debate in January 196854 —the policy concerning free movement constituted a crucial cornerstone for the construction of a comprehensive social dimension within the Communities, covering all groups of citizens both in their working and private life. MEPs hoped from the 1950s55 that successfully implemented social measures in the area of free movement might encourage further sociopolitical integration. In the pursuit to convince the Commission and the Council of their far-reaching policy ideas concerning free movement, MEPs occasionally resorted to rationalist argumentation of the benefits a large-scale free movement policy would bring. Delegates argued, for instance, that an improvement of migrant workers’ living and working conditions would help fulfil the fundamental social aim of the Communities expressed in all three Treaties, namely the overall improvement of living and working conditions of all Community citizens.56 The EP suggested that free movement would result in the upward adjustment of salaries and employment conditions among the member states as a result of free movement,

53 See i.a. Resolution on a Commission proposal for a regulation concerning legislation for the settlement of labour disputes in the Community, 18 January 1973 (PE0_AP_RP!JURI.1961_A0-0261!720001EN); Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on Commission proposals for regulations concerning the social security of selfemployed persons and their families moving within the Community, 8 May 1978 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A0-0087!780010EN_052256), p. 13. 54 Speech by Leon-Eli Troclet during plenary debate on 25 January 1968 (PE0_AP_DE!1967_DE19680125-019900DE_9305929), p. 177. See i.a. also speech by Cornelis Berkhouwer during plenary debate on 25 November 1968 (PE0_AP_DE!1968_DE19681125-019900DE_9306121), p. 10. 55 See i.a. speech by Alfred Bertrand during plenary debate on 15 January 1953 (AC_AP_DE!1953_DE19530615-029900DE), p. 23. 56 See i.a. Resolution on petition 4/70 on the improvement of the situation of Italian guest workers in the Community, and about the adoption of a European Migrant Worker Statute, 21 September 1971 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A0-0051!710001DE_0001).

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based on the possibility to move to the country offering the best conditions, in combination with the principle of non-discrimination between nationals and migrants.57 A successfully implemented free movement was furthermore expected by the delegates to increase the overall degree of employment in the member states, automatically improving everyone’s situation who was no longer threatened by unemployment.58 The resulting positive economic effects of free movement could then function as “propaganda tool” to make European integration a perceivable reality to European workers, and European citizens more generally.59 Overall, however, such rationalist arguments appeared in the EP’s free movement discourse on relatively rare occasions. 4.4.2

Displayed Unity Despite Controversial Debates: The Impact of Shared Polity Ideas on the EP’s Free Movement Policy

Even though a dominant pro-integrationist attitude can be traced throughout the vast majority of EP documents on free movement, this policy field produced some controversy within Parliament. This controversy manifested itself not so much between different party groups or national delegations, but showcased varying individual positions as to how comprehensively the borders between member states should be abolished when it came to the movement, employment, residence and social security coverage of all member states’ citizens on the territory of the Communities. It was hence a controversy of different attitudes concerning European integration, rather than a controversy on the political left-to-right scale, or among differing national interests. Different attitudes towards European integration can be traced in speeches during plenary debates, particularly those in which MEPs declared their attitudes towards draft reports and

57 See i.a. speech by Alfred Bertrand during plenary debate on 10 May 1955 (AC_AP_DE!1954_DE19550510-029900DE_9308682), p. 289; Resolution on Commission proposals for regulations amending Regulations (EEC) 1408/71 and 574/72, 11 May 1979 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A0-0148!790001EN). 58 See i.a. Resolution on social policy (AC_AP_RP!ASOC.1953_AC-0014!55-mai0001DE).

matters,

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59 See speech by Gerard Nederhorst during plenary debate on 10 May 1955 (AC_AP_DE!1954_DE19550510-029900DE_9308682), p. 308.

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resolutions, and in which they explained their votes. In such vote explanations,60 MEPs at times declared that they would not vote against a draft document or abstain from voting even if critical towards the debated document. Instead, they expressed their reservation concerning details of a document, yet stated that they would vote in favour of it because they supported the document’s overall direction. During a debate in October 1975 on the social security coverage of migrants, for instance, the Italian Socialist MEP Alessandro Bermani stated that while he would vote in favour of the debated resolution, which he “helped to get unanimously adopted in committee”, he would not “vote with euphoric enthusiasm” since the Commission proposal on which the resolution was based would be two and a half years too late, and since he considered the Commission’s and Council’s action on the issue too reluctant.61 In May 1978, the British Conservative MEP Elaine Kellett-Bowman explained that “on the principle that even a small fragment of bread is better than none at all, my Group welcomes the Commission’s proposals” on the social security of self-employed migrants, although calling for much further-reaching measures.62 Even if feeling unable to support a proposed resolution, MEPs abstained or left the plenary hall rather than cast a negative vote.63 This suggests a relatively 60 Vote explanations were in the area of free movement increasingly used during the

1970s, arguably influenced by the Communities’ first enlargement and the entry of British, Danish and Irish MEPs. Particularly British MEPs were not used to the bulk of (pre)decision-making within Parliament being made outside the plenary sessions, namely in party-group and committee meetings. As a consequence, they attempted to bring more controversy into plenary meetings through different procedures that were already formally provided, though not hitherto excessively used. See i.a. Roos (2019); Murray (2004: 110 et seqq.). 61 See speech by Alessandro Bermani during plenary debate on 14 October 1975 (PE0_AP_DE!1975_DE19751014-039900EN_9316491), p. 88. 62 See speech by Elaine Kellett-Bowman during plenary debate on 9 May 1978 (PE0_AP_DE!1978_DE19780509-119900EN_9395305), p. 114. On a similar note, see speech by Aldo Masullo, speaking for the Communists and Allies Group during plenary debate on 14 November 1977 (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19771114-029900EN_9318045), p. 25. 63 The act of not participating in a vote in order not to cast a negative vote has

also been confirmed (though not limited to free movement, but as a standard informal procedure in the EP prior to 1979) in an interview with the author by the French Progressive Democrat Alain Terrenoire. For an example from the area of free movement, see speech by Lord Hugh Reay during plenary debate on 14 November 1977 (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19771114-029900EN_9318045), p. 24. Krumrey (2018: 125

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strong logic of appropriateness accepted by the majority of MEPs with regard to their behaviour on the floor: solidarity with and the safeguard of the unity of their group, and the EP as a whole, outweighed differing personal positions, unless the difference was fundamental. Indeed, despite varying attitudes as to how comprehensively freedom of movement should be implemented in the Communities, MEPs displayed a constantly high level of unity when it came to the adoption of resolutions, and to (publicly visible) inter-institutional contacts with the Commission and the Council. Arguably, even for those MEPs who did not agree with some far-reaching ideas of a comprehensive free movement, the commonly shared polity idea of the EP as the Communities’ Parliament had more weight than such differences in MEPs’ policy ideas regarding free movement. Given the EP’s limited overall impact on Community legislation, the institutional gain of being perceived by the other Community institutions and the national governments as a strong actor at Community level was greater than the potential political loss of supporting a position that was not fully their own—but in which neither the own national party nor the constituents showed much interest, thus limiting the extent of potential political disadvantage. The impact of polity ideas on MEPs’ behaviour in the area of free movement policy is visible also with respect to the institutional role which MEPs ascribed to the EP in Community social policy more generally. In order to increase the EP’s impact, and to cement its role as the representative of the Community citizens, MEPs aspired to manifest their institution as a pioneer in the area of social policy. In this endeavour, MEPs wished their institution to contribute visibly to the creation of supranational solidarity and social justice, and to the preservation of (social) peace and human welfare within the Communities, for the achievement of which freedom of movement was considered a key component.64 The dominating polity idea of the EP as the citizens’ representative made it seq.) discusses examples from the 1950s in which French Gaullist and German SPD MEPs abstained rather than voting against a resolution. 64 See i.a. speech by Alfred Bertrand during plenary debate on 15 June 1953 (AC_AP_DE!1953_DE19530615-029900DE); speech by Raul Zaccari during plenary debate on 9 October 1969 (PE0_AP_DE!1969_DE19691009-059900DE_9304782), p. 187; Resolution on the abuse of the principle of the free movement of labour, 16 November 1976 (PE0_AP_PR_B0-0424!760001EN_0001); speech by Ferruccio Pisoni during plenary debate on 14 November 1977 (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19771114029900EN_9318045), p. 18.

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necessary for MEPs to make their institution stand out among the other Community institutions in this regard. This is clearly visible for instance in a speech by the Italian Christian Democrat Ferruccio Pisoni during a plenary debate in November 1977 on illegal migration and employment, during which he remarked: “I should not like the European Parliament to show less courage on this issue than the Council and the Economic and Social Committee”.65

The choice of institutions with which Pisoni compared the EP is noteworthy: the Council was generally perceived as the EP’s opponent with regard to both polity and policy ideas of closer institutional and political integration, which would have made it embarrassing for the EP in its self-bestowed role as pioneer and advocate of the Community citizens to demand less than the Council in the area of free movement. The Economic and Social Committee, by contrast, stood in a very different relation to the EP: it was perceived by MEPs as a competing actor with regard to legislative influence particularly in those policy areas—like the free movement of workers—in which the Treaty provided for the consultation of the ESC, but not of the EP.66 Representing the social partners, the ESC itself claimed to promote the interests of those persons affected by Community legislation, so that MEPs fought up to the 1970s to assert their institution’s superior position as representative of the people over the ESC.67 This shows once more that MEPs supported EP positions in the area of free movement not only based on their concrete policy ideas, but also as the result of a logic of appropriateness based on the shared polity idea of the EP as the Communities’ supranational parliament, which they sought to empower and whose role in Community policymaking they aimed to manifest.

65 Speech by Ferruccio Pisoni during plenary debate on 14 November 1977 (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19771114-029900EN_9318045), p. 18. 66 See Art. 49 EEC; Mechi (2010: 164). 67 See i.a. Forsyth (1964: 137); Koen van Zon’s doctoral thesis “Assembly Required.

Institutional Representation in the European Communities” (Radboud University Nijmegen, 2020).

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4.5 The Impact of the EP’s Free Movement Policy on Its Institutional Development Within the policy area of free movement, the actions of the EP and its involvement in Community policy making changed remarkably prior to 1979. This section seeks to explain, based on the toolbox of historical institutionalism, what dynamics led to gradual institutional change in MEPs’ activism, and through what mechanisms delegates increased and cemented their institution’s influence on Community legislation. This section thus contributes to answering the sub-research question about what institutionalisation processes resulted in the gradual empowerment of the EP. 4.5.1

From Activism to Alignment: Gradual Change in the EP’s Free Movement-Related Policy making

Given that none of the three founding Treaties provided for EP involvement in Community legislation on the free movement of workers, most of the MEPs’ engagement in this area remained a matter of self-initiated activism during the 1950s and much of the 1960s. The extent of MEPs’ activism, as Fig. 4.1 underlines, is noteworthy from a purely quantitative point of view: the figure shows at what frequency the EP dealt with the free movement of workers in adopted documents and through parliamentary questions every year since 1953, the year in which the EP started to scrutinise Community policies.69 Figure 4.1 also shows several instances of increased EP output, the analysis of which allows for a deeper understanding of the EP’s changing policy making in the area of free movement. To an increasing extent, MEPs connected their political actions to ongoing Community legislation procedures, driven by the ambition to establish and gradually cement their claim to play a co-legislative role by getting involved in the drafting and amending of Commission proposals.

69 In the only plenary session in 1952, namely the EP’s first plenary session in September that year, the delegates dealt with administrative and institutional rather than political issues.

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In order to get involved in Community policy making on free movement, MEPs needed to convince the High Authority/Commission and especially the Council that the involvement of the EP was both fruitful and justified in decision-making procedures. This endeavour demanded a first stage of intensive activism in which MEPs developed a basic expertise, notably through study trips and by examining the related output from the other Community institutions. In this first stage, the EP positioned itself as promoter of the (potentially) migrating citizens’ interests, and called

Fig. 4.1 Number of EP documents concerning free movement per year68 68 The column for the year 1979 represents only the period prior to the EP’s first direct elections in June that year. The same applies to Figs. 5.1, 5.2, 6.2, 6.3, 7.1 and 7.2.

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upon the other institutions for broader action.70 Accordingly, the first peak in the EP’s discourse on free movement in 1956 (see Fig. 4.1) must be fully attributed to the MEPs’ own initiative. When the member states negotiated the draft Treaties for the EEC and the Euratom, MEPs got actively involved—without having been asked—with regard to the social dimension of the new European Communities. A freedom of movement open to all Community citizens was declared by the EP to be a crucial element of the proposed Common Market, and particularly of its social dimension. The second point of elevated frequency in the EP’s dealing with free movement in 1962–1963 was also based largely on MEPs’ own initiatives. Once the Treaties of Rome had entered into force, and the first step towards the opening of a Community labour market had been taken with Regulation no. 15 in August 1961, the Commission produced a series of proposals on the concrete implementation of free movement. Partly on recommendation of the Commission and partly on its own accord, the Council decided to consult the EP on these proposals, leading to a peak of EP output in the years 1962–1963. With these first consultations began the conversion process of transferring the consultation procedure, as provided by the Treaties for other policy areas, to the area of free movement. Deviating from the usual procedure of consultation in other areas, however, the EP gave its opinion at this point not simply in one report and resolution per proposal. Instead, the EP Committee on Social Affairs organised a series of study trips to different member states to assess the situation of migrant workers, and produced an abundance of documents on free movement, which constituted a mixture of reactions to the Commission proposals and own-initiative documents expressing the committee’s opinions and intentions concerning free movement more generally.71 70 See i.a. Resolution on social policy issues, 13 May 1955 (AC_AP_RP!ASOC.1953_AC-0014!55-mai0001DE); Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on the free movement of workers within the Community, November 1957 (AC_AP_RP!ASOC.1953_AC-0005!57-novembre0010DE_00001000), p. 34; Resolution on the free movement of workers within Community, 9 November 1957 (AC_AP_RP!ASOC.1953_AC-0011!57-novembre0001DE). 71 See i.a. Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on Chapter V of the second General Report on the activity of the ECSC (April 1953 to April 1954), 10 May 1954 (AC_AP_RP!ASOC.1953_AC-0018!54-mai0010DE), p. 7; Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on the results of study trips concerning problems of free movement,

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With an increasing workload resulting from a rising number of consultations from the 1960s, however, EP initiatives decreased swiftly. MEPs valued the consultations very highly, particularly as they saw over time that several of their amendments had an impact on adopted legislation. Consequently, the delegates spent their limited time on incoming Commission proposals, rather than on the preparation of own initiatives which had much lower chances of success. Already the peak of EP documents in 1965–1966 can, after the establishment of the consultation procedure in the early 1960s, to some extent be identified as a path-dependent development of the EP’s free movement policy in relation to Community legislation and the EP’s consultation. This peak in the mid-1960s resulted among others—though not solely—from EP consultations concerning the first revisions of previously adopted regulations on the free movement, and on the social security of migrant workers and their families. Additionally, a considerable number of EP documents dealt with the approaching merger of the three executives and the three Councils: the EP, and its Committee on Social Affairs in particular, took the merger as an opportunity to call for a broader debate on the Communities’ social dimension, which should in the MEPs’ eyes take over the most favourable provisions of the three Communities. This concerned not least the free movement, for which the EP demanded that the EEC’s broad definition of who was allowed to move should apply also to ECSC industries,72 and that the EEC should learn for instance from the ECSC’s relatively successful housing policy.73 20 January 1964 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0118!640010DE_00699509); Resolution on the results of study trips by members of the Committee on Social Affairs concerning problems of free movement, 23 January 1964 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A00118!630001DE). Report by the Committee on Social Affairs concerning the Regulation on the first measures implementing the free movement of workers within the Communities, 13 November 1961 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0086!610010DE_00549139). 72 The EP had demanded such an application of the respectively most favourable conditions with regard to freedom of movement already shortly after the signature of the Treaties of Rome. See Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on the free movement of workers within the Community, November 1957 (AC_AP_RP!ASOC.1953_AC-0005!57novembre0010DE_00001000), p. 15. 73 See i.a. Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on a draft Commission recommendation concerning the construction of housing for migrants moving within the Communities, 15 March 1965 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0002!650010DE_000628), p. 8; Report by the Committee on Health Issues concerning the effects of the executives’ merger concerning safety, hygiene at work and health protection, 22 April 1965

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During the 1970s, the EP’s policy making concerning freedom of movement was almost entirely aligned with Commission proposals and Community legislation. While the 1970s show an overall elevated frequency of EP documents and hence of EP action on free movement, 1975 was the year with the highest level of EP activity—almost entirely based on Community action in the area. First, many EP documents dealt with the Commission proposal for an action programme in favour of migrant workers. Second, the Commission proposed a number of amending regulations and directives to already adopted free movement legislation, on which the EP was once again consulted and consequently expressed its opinion in resolutions and reports. Third, parliamentary questions constituted a significant part of the EP documents produced in 1975: particularly with the entry of British MEPs to the EP in 1973 (Conservative MEPs) and 1975 (Labour MEPs), the number of parliamentary questions rose swiftly, including in the area of free movement, concerning mostly the implementation of previously adopted legislation.74 The number of own-initiative documents by the EP, however, had decreased significantly by the mid-1970s. The increase of consultations in the area of free movement had an impact on the EP’s institutional development through more than one mode of gradual institutional change. In addition to the conversion process of transferring the consultation procedure from other Treaty-based policy areas to free movement-related legislation, the rising frequency of consultations resulted in the displacement of study trips as an internal EP procedure of information gathering. From the mid-1960s, the EP’s augmented workload through consultations led to the effective removal of this institutionalised measure of information acquisition, which required a lot of time and effort, and its replacement by parliamentary questions and petitions. Questions served as a mechanism to develop and extend MEPs’ expertise in the field of free movement, for instance with regard to the situation of specific groups of migrants, different regions particularly concerned by

(PE0_AP_RP!SANI.1961_A0-0013!650010DE_000167); Report by the Committee on Social Affairs concerning the social aspects of the executives’ merger, 10 May 1965 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0038!650010DE_000596). 74 See i.a. Westlake (1990: 17 et seq.); Freestone and Davidson (1988: 81); Noël (1979: 66 et seqq.).

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migration, and migrants’ rights and claims in different member states.75 As in other policy areas, questions were also used to push the Commission to make proposals, to urge the Council to adopt these proposals, to appeal to both institutions to accelerate and guarantee the implementation of adopted legislation, and to avoid or tackle discrimination among nationals and migrants.76 Similar tasks had previously been fulfilled by the study trips, which had also provided MEPs with insights on problems of which the other Community institutions were not aware, or which they did not discuss, such as hidden discrimination or incomplete implementation of policy measures. When the study trips in the area of free movement were abandoned in favour of consultation, such information reached the delegates not only through questions, but also either through their work in their constituencies, or occasionally through petitions submitted by migrant workers’ organisations. Similar to the results of the study trips, these petitions induced the EP to adopt resolutions and reports pushing the Commission and the Council to act. They served MEPs not only in their pursuit of specific policy ideas concerning free movement, but also allowed them to emphasise that citizens asked the EP to speak up for them. This provided MEPs with yet another opportunity to act visibly in accordance with their polity idea of the EP as representative of the people.77

75 See i.a. Written Question 265/72 by Lucien Radoux to the Commission, 22 August 1972 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0265!720010DE_166058); Written Question 144/73 by Lord O’Hagan to the Commission, 6 June 1973 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E0144!730060EN_176156); Written Question 237/74 by Luigi Marras to the Commission, 10 July 1974 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0237!740010EN_187094). 76 See i.a. Written Question 6/69 by Nicola Romeo to the Council, 13 March 1969 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0006!690020DE_126976); Written Question 311/75 by Pierre-Bernard Cousté to the Council, 29 July 1975 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E0311!750030FR_195958); Written Question 66/76 by Willem Albers to the Council, 26 March 1976 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0066!760020FR_197948); Oral Question 101/76 by a group of Socialist MEPs to the Council, 22 February 1977 (PE0_AP_QP!QO_O0101!760010FR_237875); Oral Question with debate 8/69 by the Committee on Social Affairs to the Commission, 23 September 1969 (PE0_AP_QP!QO_O0008!690010DE_235468); Written Question 536/71 by Ernest Glinne to the Commission, 26 January 1972 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0536!710010DE_159166). 77 See i.a. Resolution on a petition on the improvement of the situation of Italian guest workers in the Community, and about a European Migrant Workers’ Charter, 21 September 1971 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A0-0051!710001DE_0001); Resolution on two petitions on an International Charter of Migrant Workers’ Rights, and a

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4.5.2

The Institutionalisation of the Consultation Procedure Through Rhetorical Entrapment

MEPs sought to institutionalise the routine of consultation not merely through repetition, but also through normative pressure on the Commission and the Council. This process has been conceptualised by Schimmelfennig (2001) in European-level policy making as rhetorical entrapment : actors refer to norms and values—and potential normative inconsistencies in their respective opponent’s behaviour—in order to pressure the opponent to behave in a certain way, or otherwise risk to damage their credibility or be exposed to normative critique.78 Rosén (2016) has pointed out this process of rhetorical entrapment as one of the factors explaining why member states agreed over time to empowering the EP in the area of EU external trade policy, here based on the norm of democratic legitimacy deriving from parliamentary involvement. The early MEPs also applied this strategy, and tried to convince the Council and the Commission that if they did not involve the EP on a regular basis, they risked “to suffer the costs of advocating a position that may be perceived as illegitimate”.79 Successful rhetorical entrapment led in the case of the MEPs’ activism concerning free movement to a normative path dependence: once the Commission and Council had agreed to involve the EP in a concrete procedure, thus gaining democratic legitimacy for this procedure, it seemed like a step backward—i.e. like a loss of previously gained legitimacy—to decide against EP involvement in the next comparable situation. The costs of non-consultation seemed consequently higher following a once-established consultation than they had seemed previously, thereby inducing the Commission and the Council to continuously and increasingly involve the EP. MEPs emphasised already from the 1950s that even though consultation might not always be Treaty-based, it would certainly be “politically

European Migrant Workers’ Charter, 12 June 1974 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A00084!740001EN). 78 See Schimmelfennig (2001). 79 Rosén (2016: 1452).

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and psychologically desired” in order to safeguard the democratic legitimacy of decision-making procedures at Community level.80 Indeed, MEPs declared from the early 1960s to have a “pre-legislative duty” in Community policy making concerning free movement, and consequently a right—even if non-Treaty based—to be consulted.81 The Commission did not initially adopt this interpretation of the EP’s normatively, though not legally binding role in Community policy making. Instead, the Commission consulted the EP in the early 1960s with reference to the importance which the Commissioners knew the MEPs dedicated to free movement,82 hence making the consultation an act of goodwill rather than an obligation. In the attempt to cement the EP’s role in legislation procedures on free movement, MEPs aimed to change the Commission’s approach to involving the EP, seeking to instill a sense of duty in the Commissioners with regard to EP consultation. In early 1965, for instance, members of the EP social committee approached Commissioner Levi Sandri during a committee meeting about the “legal-institutional problem” of different understandings with regard to the EP’s role in the regulation of the free movement of workers. To the committee members’ satisfaction, Levi

80 Emmanuel M. J. A. Sassen spoke during plenary debate on 10 May 1955 (AC_AP_DE!1954_DE19550510-029900DE_9308682, p. 301) of the “political psychological desirability of certain official or semi-official consultations not mandatorily required by the Treaty” (translated by the author; original quote: “politischen und psychologischen Erwünschtheit gewisser im Vertrag nicht zwingend vorgeschriebener amtlicher oder halbamtlicher Konsultationen”). 81 See Additional report by the Committee on Social Affairs concerning the regulation on the first measures to implement the free movement of workers within the Community, 13 November 1961 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0086!610010DE_00549139), p 1; Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on Commission proposals for a regulation on first measures to implement the free movement of workers within the Community and for directives on administrative practices concerning free movement, 5 October 1960 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1958_A0-0067!600010DE_00435459), p. 9. 82 See i.a. Commission proposal V/8/02210/64/fin., 31 July 1964; Letter by Council President Luns to EP President Furler, 8 August 1960 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1958_A00067!600110DE_00435487); Letter by Council President Erhard to EP President Furler, 22 December 1961 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0003!620030DE_00549051). The Council Presidents’ letters very likely took over a similar formulation by the Commission, who asked the Council in the above-mentioned cases to consult the EP. Indeed, this formulation only appears if the Council President’s letter mentions that the EP is consulted based on recommendation of the Commission.

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Sandri accepted the EP’s right to be involved based on the MEPs’ normative argument of a pre-legislative duty held by the EP. Levi Sandri even acknowledged, according to a 1965 report by the social committee, that there was a (general) Treaty basis for the EP consultation in the regulation of free movement—even though no such specific Treaty provision existed, as mentioned above.83 The MEPs thus succeeded in transferring their interpretation of the EP’s role as supranational Parliament and provider of democratic legitimacy in decision-making to the Commission, which marks a crucial step in the conversion process of the consultation procedure to the area of free movement.84 The MEPs’ strategy of rhetorical entrapment at times included a relatively liberal interpretation of small concessions made by the Commission and the Council, as well as the creation of narratives that served the EP rather than depicting realities. An example is a report from March 1962 on a Commission proposal concerning the social security of frontier workers, in which the EP Committee on Social Affairs expressed its appreciation of the fact that the Council had on its own accord considered a consultation of the EP necessary.85 Indeed, neither had the idea to consult the EP come from the Council itself (the Commission had asked the Council to consult both the EP and the Economic and Social Committee),86 nor did the Council consider the consultation of the EP necessary. Rather, in the letter transferring the Commission proposal to

83 See Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on a Commission proposal for a Commission recommendation concerning the housing construction for migrant workers, 15 March 1965 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0002!650010DE_000628), p. 4. 84 For a comparable case of acknowledgement by the Commission of the EP’s right to be consulted, see Written Question 79/62 by Leon-Eli Troclet to the Commission, 24 August 1962 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0079!620010DE_072064); Answer by the Commission to Written Question 79/62 by Leon-Eli Troclet, 4 October 1962 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0079!620030DE_072073). 85 See Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on a Commission proposal for a regulation on the social security of frontier workers, 19 March 1962 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0003!620010DE_00549045), p. 1. 86 See Letter by Walter Hallstein, President of the Commission, to Ludwig Erhard, President-in-Office of the Council, 5 December 1961 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A00003!620040FR_00549054).

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the EP, President-in-Office Ludwig Erhard emphasised that the Council had decided to consult the EP facultatively.87 A comparable case can be found in a report by the Committee on Social Affairs on a draft recommendation by the Commission concerning the construction of housing for migrant workers,88 in which the delegates claimed that the EEC Treaty—without clarifying which article—would provide for a consultation of the EP on this issue. However, the Treaty contained no such provision. It is unlikely that this was an oversight of the rapporteur or the committee, given the precision with which the Treaties were interpreted by MEPs at other instances if serving their interests, and the sound knowledge of the Treaties held by a group of MEPs in the social committee and by EP staff members.89 Through such statements, MEPs presumably hoped to convince the members of the Council and Commission through repeated emphasis on the justification of the EP’s claim to be frequently involved. Indeed, MEPs expressed frequently that they expected the EP to be consulted, and if it was not, they were quick to deplore the negligence.90 Whether because of the MEPs’ rhetorics and pushing, because of the perceived need to give Community legislation a democratic legitimacy by consulting the EP, or because of the quality of EP opinions and input, the MEPs’ activism showed results: from the mid1960s, there was hardly any legal proposal on free movement on which the EP was not consulted. It should be noted that the success of achieving an effective, though initially informal, power of consultation did of course not go hand in hand

87 See Letter by Ludwig Erhard, President-in-Office of the Council, to Hans Furler, President of the EP, 22 December 1961 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A00003!620030DE_00549051). 88 See Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on a draft recommendation by the Commission concerning the construction of housing for migrant workers, 15 March 1965 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0002!650010DE_000628), p. 4. 89 Confirmed in interviews by Charles McDonald, Fionnuala Richardson, Heinz Schreiber and Horst Seefeld. 90 See i.a. Resolution on a Commission proposal for a regulation concerning

first measures to implement the free movement of workers, and on administrative measures concerning free movement, 15 October 1960 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1958_A00067!600001DE_0001); Resolution on Commission proposals concerning the application of social-security systems to migrant workers and their families, 12 March 1973 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A0-0331!720001EN).

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with the success of every proposed amendment. Usually, only a selection of EP amendments—and rarely the most ambitious ones—were taken over by the Commission and Council. Moreover, even if the Commission accepted EP amendments, some of them got lost in subsequent rounds of negotiations within the Council, in which some Commission proposals were significantly changed in structure, length and contents.91 Nonetheless, the EP had a significant impact on Community legislation concerning free movement, with some basic rights and claims of migrants going back to EP amendments, such as social care for migrants in the host country,92 and easier and swifter access to social benefits already before the conclusion of lengthy administrative proceedings in which the migrants’ claims had to be established.93 4.5.3

Inter-Institutional Contacts as a Means of Empowerment

The EP’s influence on Community legislation concerning free movement relied heavily on Parliament’s inter-institutional contacts with the other Community institutions. Procedures increasing the EP’s impact on Community policy making, such as notably the consultation procedure but also non-public informal exchanges, could only be institutionalised through frequent contacts at various levels. This subsection demonstrates that MEPs could not always plan the intensity and efficiency of such contacts. Instead, the EP’s impact on Community free movement policy

91 See i.a. Resolution on a regulation concerning the establishment of the free movement of workers in the Community, 22 November 1961 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A00086!610001DE); Resolution on a Commission proposal for a directive on the coordination of special measures for the travel and stay of foreigners based on reasons of public order, security and health, 22 November 1961 (PE0_AP_RP!MACO.1961_A00102!620001DE); Resolution on Commission proposals for a regulation and directive on the abolition of travel and residence limitations of workers and their families within the Communities, 17 October 1967 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A0-0128!670001DE). 92 See Resolution on a Commission proposal for a regulation concerning first measures to implement the free movement of workers [the later Regulation No. 15], and on regulations on administrative procedures concerning the entry, occupation and residence of migrant workers and their families in the Community, 15 October 1970 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1958_A0-0067!600001DE_0001). 93 See Resolution on a Commission proposal for a regulation on the implementation of Regulation (EEC) No. 1408/71, 19 November 1971 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A00168!710001DE).

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was influenced by drifts, unintended consequences and path dependencies in inter-institutional relations. The EP’s contacts to the Commission and High Authority had a clear Treaty basis through the EP’s power of control over the executive. EP attempts to influence legislation and its implementation, however, went swiftly beyond the formally provided reporting routines of the executive to the EP within the scope of the latter’s power of control. As described above, the EP proposed amendments and courses of action to the High Authority and later the Commission on its own initiative from the early 1950s; moreover, MEPs discussed their ideas concerning free movement with Commissioners during plenary sessions, in committee meetings and beyond. The EP’s exchanges with Commissioners swiftly became routine and were thus informally institutionalised, having a noteworthy impact on the EP’s role in legislation procedures concerning free movement. However, whereas all Commissioners responsible for the social portfolio entered into inter-institutional exchanges on a regular basis, they were not all equally receptive with regard to MEPs’ ideas on freedom of movement, and also did not embrace EP activism in the field to the same extent. Given the changing efficiency of essentially similar procedures, depending upon the respective Commissioner, these inter-institutional exchanges can be identified with the HI toolbox of gradual institutional change as drifts : the impact of the established exchange procedure on the EP’s institutional development changed due to shifts in the institutional environment, namely the varying openness of the individual Commissioners to collaborate with the EP. Commissioner Lionello Levi Sandri, for instance, took frequently part in EP plenary sessions, though making only rather general comments during public debates, and appearing careful not to promise anything that the Commission would not be able to defend before the member states.94 Levi Sandri was, however, open and willing to enter into more detailed debates and negotiations with MEPs in non-public settings, notably in

94 See i.a. speeches by Commissioner Lionello Levi Sandri during plenary debate on 27 March 1962 (PE0_AP_DE!1962_DE19620327-039900DE_9301022), pp. 25 et seqq., and on 9 October 1969 (PE0_AP_DE!1969_DE19691009-059900DE_9304782), pp. 180 et seqq.

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meetings of the Committee on Social Affairs.95 The Irishman Patrick Hillery, who took over the social portfolio as Commissioner from 1973 to 1976, was less accommodating with regard to the MEPs’ pushing for a broader, fairer and better implemented free movement. Though discussing Commission proposals in EP plenary sessions and outlining why certain EP amendments or initiatives had a better or worse chance of success, Hillery did not go out of his way to accommodate MEPs’ demands.96 The most forthcoming Commissioner in that regard was the former Dutch Socialist MEP Hendrikus Vredeling, Commissioner for Social and Employment Affairs from 1977 to 1981. Not only did he answer MEPs’ questions openly and in detail, and took notice of their concerns with regard to draft documents and the application of adopted legislation97 : he also worked closely together with the EP in the pursuit of common aims and supported MEPs’ activism, e.g. by pointing out Treaty paragraphs that would justify MEPs’ demands in the area of free movement, thereby offering the MEPs a legal basis for their activism. In so doing, Vredeling acted beyond his mandate as Commissioner, which in the area of free movement included nothing more than reporting to the EP about Commission proposals and activities.98 Vredeling furthermore distanced himself to some extent from his less ambitious predecessor Hillery in the area of free movement.99 During Vredeling’s mandate, the EP could hence influence Community policy concerning free movement

95 See i.a. Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on Commission proposals

for a regulation concerning the application of social-security systems on migrant workers and their families, and a decision concerning the application of Art. 51 EEC on French Overseas Departments, 30 December 1967 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A00158!670010DE_002866); plenary debate on the report, 25 January 1968 (PE0_AP_DE!1967_DE19680125-019900DE_9305929), pp. 175–189. 96 See i.a. speeches by Commissioner Patrick Hillery during plenary debate on 12 March 1973 (PE0_AP_DE!1972_DE19730312-019900EN_9308222), p. 7, and 15 March 1974 (PE0_AP_DE!1974_DE19740315-049900EN_9311215), p. 213 et seq. 97 See i.a. speech by Commissioner Hendrikus Vredeling during plenary debate on 9

May 1978 (PE0_AP_DE!1978_DE19780509-119900EN_9395305), pp. 115 et seqq. 98 See i.a. speech by Commissioner Hendrikus Vredeling during plenary debate on 14 November 1977 (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19771114-029900EN_9318045), pp. 26 et seqq. 99 See i.a. speech by Commissioner Hendrikus Vredeling during plenary debate on 14 November 1977 (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19771114-029900EN_9318045), p. 27.

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more easily and effectively than for instance during the mandate of his predecessor Hillery. In the area of free movement, the EP social committee took over a particularly important role as mediator between the EP and the Commission. Two crucial factors for the evolving close cooperation were its nonpublic setting, and the elevated level of expertise among the committee members—in comparison to the other MEPs—which made this group of MEPs valuable dialogue partners for the Commission in the process of drafting legislation. Furthermore, the common attitude towards a broader and better implemented free movement which MEPs and Commission representatives shared was certainly conducive for the increasingly intensive inter-institutional exchange. This cooperation became so productive that, as an unintended consequence, the Commission at one point in the early 1960s began to neglect the official contacts to the EP as a whole, since it perceived the exchanges with the Committee on Social Affairs to be significantly more effective. Hendrikus Vredeling, at the time a Dutch MEP in the Socialist Group, pointed out the negligence. He claimed the EP’s right to be informed in public plenary session about Commission proposals and amendments which were made to these proposals, a process which he called the “normal democratic procedure” of EP–Commission contacts as opposed to exchanges in EP committees.100 As an unintended consequence of the close committee-Commission relations, formal and visible EP–Commission contacts hence suffered temporarily, even though the effective legislative influence of the EP increased. These good relations thus led to an informal strengthening but formal weakening of the EP’s role in legislative procedures. This imbalance of EP–Commission relations, however, did not persist; after 1963 no similar complaint appears in EP documents concerning free movement. The success of the contacts between the Commission and the EP’s social committee are visible in a number of changes to Community legislation and Commission output that can be directly ascribed to the committee’s (rather than the EP’s) involvement. This comprises numerous amendments which the social committee proposed in reports

100 See Written Question 40/62 by Hendrikus Vredeling to the Commission, 6 June 1962 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0040!620010DE_092952). See also Written Question 77/63 by Hendrikus Vredeling to the Commission, 6 September 1963 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0077!630010DE_073506), and the Commission’s answer, 10 October 1963 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0077!630030DE_073516).

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and which were subsequently adopted by the EP, thus gaining formal weight. What is more, committee members discussed in secluded meetings legislative drafts with representatives of the Commission which had not yet been submitted to the Council.101 The genesis of a 197-pagelong social committee report on a Commission proposal concerning the social security of migrant workers, authored by Leon-Eli Troclet in 1967, constitutes a particularly insightful example of committee-Commission cooperation of an early stage legislative draft. In 17 meetings between January 1966 and December 1967, Commission officials and MEPs discussed the draft Commission proposal within the Committee on Social Affairs, and worked together on the committee’s draft report. This case is hence not only an example of EP influence on the Commission, but it also constitutes an example of Commission influence on the EP.102 MEPs’ good relations with the Commission were key to the regularisation and later institutionalisation of EP exchanges with the Council through the consultation procedure: particularly during the 1960s, the Commission frequently asked the Council to consult and involve the EP, which the Council repeatedly accepted.103 The Commission’s engagement for EP consultation thus contributed to the path-dependent development of establishing the consultation procedure as standard procedure in the area of Community legislation concerning free movement.

101 See

i.a. Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on a Commission proposal concerning the social security of frontier workers, 19 March 1962 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0003!620010DE_00549045), p. 1. 102 See speech by Leon-Eli Troclet during plenary debate on 25 January 1968 (PE0_AP_DE!1967_DE19680125-019900DE_9305929), p. 176; Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on Commission proposals for a regulation concerning the application of social-security systems on migrant workers and their families, and a decision concerning the application of Art. 51 EEC on French Overseas Departments, 30 December 1967 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A0-0158!670010DE_002866). 103 See i.a. Letter by Joseph M. A. H. Luns, President of the Council, to Hans Furler, President of the EP, forwarding Commission proposal V/COM(60) 85 fin., 8 August 1960 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1958_A0-0067!600110DE_00435487); Letter by Walter Hallstein, President of the Commission, to Ludwig Erhard, President of the Council, forwarding Commission proposal V/COM(61) 175 fin., 5 December 1961 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0003!620040FR_00549054); Letter by Georges Gorse, President of the Council, to Gaetano Martino, President of the EP, forwarding Commission proposal V/COM(62) 31 fin., 3 April 1962 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A00037!620080DE_00700011).

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Whereas the EP’s formal contacts to the Council via consultation contributed to Parliament’s gradual empowerment, MEPs’ informal contacts to the Council were less intense and had less impact on Community legislation and action than the delegates’ contacts to the Commission. Nonetheless, in comparison to other policy fields both in the area of social policy and beyond, freedom of movement stands out as a field in which the Council was exceptionally open to input from the EP. In fact, when in the early 1950s an EP committee made contact with the Council and called successfully for an inter-institutional exchange for the very first time, the issue on the table was the free movement and the application of Art. 69 ECSC. On 27 October 1954, members of the EP’s Committee on Social Affairs met with the Six’s employment ministers. The exchange led neither to a significant shift of opinions nor to any particularly revelatory statements.104 Nevertheless, all six ministers responsible for employment policy had agreed to a non-Treaty-based exchange with MEPs, and listened to the opinions presented by the members of the EP social committee. In so doing, the ministers acknowledged that the EP’s and its committee’s involvement in legislative processes was to a certain extent justified, even at a time when the only Treaty in force—the ECSC Treaty—provided for no EP consultation whatsoever. The members of the social committee were quick to declare this meeting a precedent,105 although such joint meetings with all member states’ ministers would remain scarce throughout the entire period under consideration. A reason for this might be the non-public and non-representative character of EP committee meetings at the time, due to which the social committee could not provide for added democratic legitimacy—the main driver of Council exchanges with the EP, from the Council’s point of view—so that the Council sought contacts with the EP in plenary rather than in committee sessions. As a result, the EP social committee upheld contacts with individual national ministers rather than the Council as a whole in informal attempts

104 See Minutes of the meeting of the member states’ employment ministers with members of the EP’s Committee on Social Affairs on 27 October 1954, 10 November 1954 (AC_AP_RP!ASOC.1953_AC-0014!55-mai0040FR_0311125). 105 See speech by Alfred Bertrand during plenary debate on 10 May 1955 (AC_AP_DE!1954_DE19550510-029900DE_9308682), p. 288.

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to promote ideas of free movement.106 On study trips, members of the social committee regularly organised meetings not only with social partners, workers and local administrations, but also with ministers and officials of the national ministries of social affairs and employment.107 In addition, MEPs made contact individually with their national ministers in order to make them aware of problems in the area of free movement, and to discuss with them possible solutions.108 The MEPs were also called by EP resolutions and occasionally by a Commissioner to use their influence in national parliaments, to put questions to their governments, and to push them to act.109 While this range of informal contacts helped to make EP positions known, and to better understand negotiation dynamics within the Council, they arguably had little impact on the EP’s broader institutional development, given that their achievements rarely went beyond information exchanges.

4.6

Conclusion

The Communities’ free movement policy provided fertile ground for the EP to get involved in Community legislation, in spite of the only very thin Treaty basis for EP activism in that area. This chapter demonstrates 106 See i.a. Report by the Committee on Social Affairs concerning the regulation on

the first measures implementing the free movement of workers within the Community, 13 November 1961 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0086!610010DE_00549139), p. 7 et seq. 107 See i.a. Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on a regulation on the establishment of the free movement of workers, 13 November 1961 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0086!610010DE_00549139); Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on a number of study trips, 20 January 1964 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0118!640010DE_00699509). 108 See i.a. Communication to members of the Committee on Social Affairs, 30 April

1962 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0037!620060FR_00700008), containing a question by Gerard Nederhorst to the Dutch government about how it interpreted Regulation No. 15 on free movement. See also Written Question 879/77 by Gustave Ansart to the Commission, 9 December 1977 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0879!770040FR_207787), which shows that Ansart met with the French Minister of Health Simone Veil to discuss the coordination of social-security regimes with regard to non-salaried migrant workers. 109 See i.a. speech by Alfred Bertrand during plenary debate on 10 May 1955 (AC_AP_DE!1954_DE19550510-029900DE_9308682), pp. 289 and 292; Resolution on social policy issues, 13 May 1955 (AC_AP_RP!ASOC.1953_AC-0014!55-mai0001DE); speech by Commissioner Lionello Levi Sandri during plenary debate on 11 March 1966 (PE0_AP_DE!1966_DE19660311-039900DE_9303566), p. 211.

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the relevance of Community free movement policy for the EP’s gain in power in the area of social policy. Through the combination of HI and SI tools and concepts, this chapter provides an in-depth analysis of MEPs’ activism in the area of free movement, an activism that was driven by their pursuit of both political and institutional aims, and which resulted in an elevated impact of the EP in Community social policy. Neither of the two underlying theoretical approaches can explain the EP’s involvement in Community policy making concerning free movement to the same extent if applied individually: a purely sociological-institutionalist analysis can demonstrate why MEPs behaved in the way they did based on shared ideas and norms, and on their socialisation. It cannot, however, explain why certain procedures became institutionalised and others did not, and what (inter-)institutional dynamics constrained the realisation of the MEPs’ aims. An analysis applying only the toolbox of historical institutionalism allows for an understanding of these processes and dynamics, but cannot provide insights into the origins of MEPs’ activism, and the reasons for their persistence in pushing for more integration in the area of free movement. In merging the two institutionalist approaches, this chapter therefore provides a more comprehensive understanding of MEPs’ activism within one of the most important and most regulated areas of Community social policy. It thus helps to answer the main research question underlying this book, in that it explains the EP’s gradual empowerment within this area as a result of MEPs’ behaviour based on shared ideas on the one hand, and of path dependencies and processes of gradual institutional change on the other. The chapter shows that MEPs’ activism paid off in two ways: on the one hand, the delegates managed to bring their institution’s powers closer to that of a typical Parliament in a liberal democracy, gaining in particular more legislative influence than provided by the Treaties in this policy area. On the other hand, the EP succeeded in improving European migrants’ living and working conditions beyond what had been envisaged by the Commission and the Council. Whether one of the MEPs’ overarching aims in this policy area—namely to improve the citizens’ opinion of and identification with the Communities through freedom of movement— actually became a reality must be the subject of further research.

4.7 See Table 4.1.

Annex

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Table 4.1 Community legislation on the free movement of workers prior to 1979 Date of adoption

Adopted by

Title

25.9.1958

Council

3.12.1958

Council

16.8.1961

Council

5.3.1962

Council

23.7.1962

Commission

2.4.1963

Council

25.2.1964

Council

25.3.1964

Council

7.7.1965

Commission

15.10.1968

Council

Regulation no. 3 concerning the social security of migrant workers Regulation no. 4 concerning the implementation and amendment of Regulation no. 3 concerning the social security of migrant workers Regulation no. 15 concerning first measures for the creation of the free movement of workers within the Community Directive on freedom to take skilled employment in the field of nuclear energy Recommendation to the member states concerning the activity of the social services with regard to workers moving within the Community Regulation 36/63/EEC on the social security of frontier workers Directive 64/221/EEC on the coordination of special measures concerning the movement and residence of foreign nationals which are justified on grounds of public policy, public security or public health Regulation 38/64/EEC on the free movement of workers within the Community Recommendation 65/379/CEE to the member states concerning the housing of workers and their families moving within the Community Regulation (EEC) 1612/68 on freedom of movement for workers within the Community

(continued)

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Table 4.1 (continued) Date of adoption

Adopted by

Title

15.10.1968

Council

29.6.1970

Commission

14.6.1971

Council

28.2.1972

Member State Governments

21.3.1972

Council

18.5.1972

Council

26.3.1973

Council

Directive 68/360/EEC on the abolition of restrictions on movement and residence within the Community for workers of member states and their families Regulation (EEC) 1251/70 on the right of workers to remain in the territory of a member state after having been employed in that State Regulation (EEC) 1408/71 on the application of social security schemes to employed persons and their families moving within the Community Decision repealing Acts passed under Article 69 of the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (74/494/ECSC) Regulation (EEC) 574/72 fixing the procedure for implementing Regulation (EEC) 1408/71 on the application of social security schemes to employed persons and their families moving within the Community Directive 72/194/EEC extending to workers exercising the right to remain in the territory of a member state after having been employed in that State the scope of the Directive of 25 February 1964 on coordination of special measures concerning the movement and residence offoreign nationals which are justified on grounds of public policy, public security or public health Regulation (EEC) 878/73 amending Regulation (EEC) 574/72 fixing the procedure for implementing Regulation (EEC) 1408/71 on the application of social security schemes to employed persons and their families moving within the Community

(continued)

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Table 4.1 (continued) Date of adoption

Adopted by

Title

18.6.1973

New Member States (DK, UK, IRE)

4.6.1974

Council

15.10.1974

Council

14.12.1974

Commission

9.2.1976

Council

9.2.1976

Council

9.2.1976

Council

30.4.1976

Council

Declaration of the new member states provided for in Article 5 of Regulation (EEC) 1408/71 on the application of social security schemes to employed persons and their families moving within the Community Regulation (EEC) 1392/74 amending Regulation (EEC) Nos. 1408/71 and 574/72 on the application of social-security schemes to employed persons and their families moving within the Community Regulation (EEC) 2639/74 amending Article 107 of Regulation (EEC) No. 574/72 fixing the procedure for implementing Regulation (EEC) No. 1408/71 on the application of social-security schemes to employed persons and their families moving within the Community Action Programme in favour of migrant workers and their families (Com(74)2250) Resolution on an action programme in favour of migrant workers and their families Regulation (EEC) 311/76 on the compilation of statistics on foreign workers Regulation (EEC) 312/76 amending the provisions relating to the trade union rights of workers contained in Regulation (EEC) 1612/68 on freedom of movement for workers within the Community Regulation (EEC) 1209/76 amending Regulations (EEC) No. 1408/71 and (EEC) No. 574/72 on the application of social-securityschemes to employed persons and their families moving within the Community

(continued)

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Table 4.1 (continued) Date of adoption

Adopted by

Title

21.11.1977

Council

Regulation (EEC) 2595/77 amending Regulations (EEC) No. 1408/71 and (EEC) No. 574/72 on the application of social-security schemes to employed persons and their families moving within the Community

References Brewster, C., & Teague, P. (1989). European Community Social Policy: Its Impact on the UK. Institute of Personnel Management. Collins, D. (1975a). The European Communities. The social policy of the first phase. Volume 1: The European Coal and Steel Community 1951–1970. Martin Robertson. Collins, D. (1975b). The European Communities. The social policy of the first phase. Volume 2: The European Economic Community 1958–1972. Martin Robertson. Dahlberg, K. (1967). The EEC commission and the politics of the free movement of labour. Journal of Common Market Studies, 16(4), 310–333. Forsyth, M. (1964). Das Parlament der Europäischen Gemeinschaften. Europa Union Verlag. Freestone, D. A. C., & Davidson, J. S. (1988). The institutional framework of the European Communities. Croom Helm. Geyer, R. R. (2000). Exploring European social policy. Blackwell Publishers. Hantrais, L. (2007). Social policy in the European Union. Palgrave Macmillan. Ireland, P. R. (1995). Migration, free movement, and immigrant integration in the EU: A bifurcated policy response. In S. Leibfried & P. Pierson (Eds.), European social policy: Between fragmentation and integration (pp. 231–266). The Brookings Institutions. Kornerup, G. (1978). Le rôle du Parlement européen dans l’élaboration de la politique sociale commune. In G. Dogos-Docovitch (Ed.), Le Parlement Européen [The European Parliament] (pp. 231–243). Athens. Krumrey, J. (2018). The symbolic politics of European integration: Staging Europe. Palgrave Macmillan. Leboutte, R. (2008). Histoire économique et sociale de la construction européenne. P.I.E. Peter Lang.

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Leibfried, S. (1998). Die soziale Dimension der Europäischen Integration. In H. Pfaffenberger (Ed.), Um eine sozialpolitische Kompetenz der EU (pp. 27–46). Schäuble Verlag. Mechi, L. (2010). Formation of a European society? Exploring social and cultural dimensions. In W. Kaiser & A. Varsori (Eds.), European union history: Themes and debates (pp. 151–168). Palgrave. Moussis, N. (2007). Access to social Europe. European Study Service. Murray, P. (2004). Factors for integration? Transnational party cooperation in the European Parliament, 1952–1979. Australian Journal of Politics and History, 50(1), 102–115. Noël, E. (1979). Les rouages de l’Europe. Comment fonctionnent les institutions de la Communauté européenne. Fernand Nathan/Editions Labor. O’Grada, C. (1969). The vocational training policy of the EEC and the free movement of skilled labour. Journal of Common Market Studies, 8(2), 79– 109. Recchi, E. (2015). Mobile Europe: The theory and practice of free movement in the EU . Palgrave Macmillan. Ribas, J.-J. (1969). La politique sociale des Communautés européennes. Dalloz et Sirey. Roos, M. (2019). Intra-party group unity in the European Parliament prior to its first direct elections in 1979. Parliamentary Affairs, 72(2), 464–479. Rosén, G. (2016). The impact of norms on political decision-making: How to account for the European Parliament’s empowerment in EU external trade policy. Journal of European Public Policy, 24(10), 1450–1470. Schimmelfennig, F. (2001). The community trap: Liberal norms, rhetorical action, and the Eastern enlargement of the European Union. International Organization, 55(1), 47–80. Shanks, M. (1977). Introductory article: The social policy of the European Communities. In P. J. G. Kapteyn (Ed.), The social policy of the European Communities (pp. 1–9). A. W. Sijthoff. Streil, J. (1986). Der Beitrag des Gerichtshofs der Europäischen Gemeinschaften zur Entwicklung des Sozialrechts in der Gemeinschaft. In H. Lichtenberg (Ed.), Sozialpolitik in der EG. Referate der Tagung des Arbeitskreises Europäische Integration e.V. in Augsburg vom 18.-20. Oktober 1984 (pp. 95–116). Baden-Baden: Nomos. Westlake, M. (1990). The origin and development of the question time procedure in the European Parliament (EUI Working Paper, 90/4). EUI.

CHAPTER 5

Emancipating Europe: The European Parliament’s Involvement in Community Equality Policy

5.1

Introduction

The European Parliament’s social policy focused in many respects on groups of people that MEPs considered to be disadvantaged in the labour market, and in society more generally. The previous chapter has pointed out that migrants were seen as such a group. This chapter focuses on another, much bigger group: women. From the second half of the 1950s, policy on gender equality and the improvement of women’s employment conditions constituted an important element of the EP’s social policy agenda. Despite a very thin Treaty basis, MEPs pushed repeatedly for Community legislation and various non-legislative measures on a broad scale to help women reach an equal footing with men,1 particularly but not exclusively in employment matters. To some extent, EP quality policy shows a pattern similar to other social policy discourses of MEP attempts to extend narrow Treaty provisions and limited Community legislation prior to 1979. Yet, the EP’s discourse on equality stands out as a primary example showing that not 1 During the period under consideration, equality issues beyond the male–female binary were not debated within the EP (at least, no such debate left a trace in any of the documents consulted for this research, nor was there any mention of it in any of the interviews conducted by the author).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Roos, The Parliamentary Roots of European Social Policy, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78233-7_5

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all socio-political activism of the MEPs was directed at deepening integration. Notably, MEPs rarely used equality policy in order to explicitly strengthen the EP’s image as representative of the citizens. Moreover, this chapter demonstrates that the underlying policy ideas driving MEPs’ activism in the area had no intrinsic integration-related dimension. Rather, some among the MEPs steering the EP’s discourse on equality saw the EP, and Community policy making more generally, as instrumental in their pursuit of broader emancipatory and equality-related ideas. After providing a brief overview of Community equality policy and the EP’s involvement therein, this chapter analyses the exogenous and endogenous factors that influenced MEPs’ policy making in the area. The first part of the analysis consists of a historical institutionalist study of the framework within which the EP’s equality policy took shape, formed both by Commission proposals for Community legislation and by contemporary events and developments. The second part of the analysis then studies through a sociological-institutionalist lens to what extent certain policy and polity ideas and logics of appropriateness drove MEPs in their equality-related activism. That section also sheds light on the role played by a small group of norm entrepreneurs in the area, and discusses common traits in these norm entrepreneurs’ socialisation, their gender, nationality, and party affiliation.

5.2

The European Community’s2 Equality Policy

For the first years after the foundation of the ECSC, women’s rights and equality were not on the Community’s political agenda—not least because very few women worked in the coal and steel industries.3 Only in connection with the negotiations of the EEC Treaty did Community institutions begin to talk about political action concerning women. Women’s issues were put on the Community agenda not so much based

2 Given that only one founding Treaty of the European Communities contained a provision on equality, namely the EEC Treaty, all equality policy-making at Community level took place within the scope of the EEC. Consequently, this chapter uses the singular of Community, always referring to the EEC. 3 In a report of 639 pages written by a committee of experts for the High Authority on the first ten years of the ECSC, there is no mention of women. See High Authority of the ECSC (1963): EGKS 1952–1962. Ergebnisse, Grenzen, Perspektiven. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

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on the aim to reach equality, but rather as a means of ensuring fair competition.4 The initiative to include equal pay in the EEC Treaty came from the French government, which made the inclusion of equal pay for men and women in the Treaty, as well as the harmonisation of paid holiday schemes and of overtime pay, a condition to be met.5 These demands were based on the French government’s ambition to protect its industries: France had legally guaranteed equal pay in its constitution of 1946. In addition, France’s industries were in dire need of modernisation in order to remain competitive.6 On that note, France needed to buy time in the Treaty negotiations: first of all, Prime Minister Edgar Faure had to find an agreement with his ministers, only some of whom were in favour of a strongly supranational Economic Community—among them Antoine Pinay (Quai d’Orsay), Robert Schuman (Ministry of Justice) and Pierre Pflimlin (Ministry of Finance)—while others were opposed to the supranational organisation of a Common Market. Moreover, the French government needed to get the Assemblée Nationale’s approval for the new Treaty, less than a year after the French lower house had rejected the plans for a European Defence Community (EDC) and a European Political Community (EPC). In order to make progress along these different lines, the French government therefore chose to introduce topics to the treaty negotiations “most likely to divide the other countries”7 : equal pay and social harmonisation seemed eminently suitable for the purpose. The strategic nature of the French government’s social demands became evident when, in the course of the Treaty negotiations, the claims for social harmonisation were abandoned. The demand for equal pay was accepted by the other member states, entering the EEC Treaty as Art. 119. However, in the years following the signing of the Treaty, no action was taken. This is remarkable given that Art. 119 EEC was one of very few social Treaty provisions with a clear deadline, namely for the introduction of equal pay by the member states until the end of the first stage of the Common Market’s establishment. With each of the three provided stages

4 See Hantrais (2007: 123); Carson (2004: 104); Ellina (2003: 23 et seqq.); Hoskyns (1996: 48 et seqq.). 5 See Rye (2006: 155). 6 See van der Vleuten (2007: 35 et seq.). 7 Rye (2002: 89).

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being supposed to last four years, equal pay should thus have been implemented by 1962.8 When the Council of Ministers for Social Affairs met a few months before the end of the first stage to discuss Art. 119 EEC’s implementation, it was obvious that the aim of meeting the 1962 deadline was bound to fail.9 In consequence, the Council decided to postpone the implementation of Art. 119 EEC and adopted a revised schedule, providing for the reduction of the maximum difference between male and female workers’ wages to 15 per cent by 30 June 1962, to 10 per cent a year later, and the complete abolition of any difference by 31 December 1964.10 This revised deadline, however, also came and went without comprehensive measures being taken by the member states. The principle of equal pay and its implementation in the member states was eventually clarified in the Directive 75/117/EEC of 10 February 1975.11 The timing of this directive’s adoption was no coincidence: 1975 had been declared the United Nations (UN) Year of the Woman.12 In the preparation of the directive, when the Commission set out to define how exactly equal pay should be achieved and what it should imply, a whole range of connected questions concerning female workers’ equality in relation to their male colleagues arose. Among other issues, equal pay was connected to social security contributions by employers. Also, truly equal pay could only be achieved if women had access to the same kinds of jobs as their male colleagues; hence, questions of equal education opportunities and equal access to promotion entered the Community’s equality policy agenda. This extension of Art. 119 EEC was first visible in the Social Action 8 See Commission of the EEC (1962): The first stage of the Common Market. Report on the execution of the Treaty (January 1958–January 1962), July 1962 (http://aei.pitt. edu/1324/1/internal_market_first_stage_memo.pdf, last visit 17 February 2021), pp. 75 et seq. 9 See Brewster and Teague (1989: 61 et seq.). 10 Hoskyns (1996: 62). 11 See Council Directive of 10 February 1975 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the application of the principle of equal pay for men and women (75/117/EEC) (OJ L45, 19 February 1975, pp. 19 et seq.). 12 See di Sarcina (2009: 370 et seq.); Vogel-Polsky (1985: 104), who herself was very active in Community equality policy in different roles during the 1970s, describes the Year of the Woman 1975 as “a turning point in the history of the suppression of inequalities affecting women”, not least due to the “dynamic interpretation to the Treaty” by the ECJ.

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Programme of 1974, in which not only equal pay was mentioned as a priority, but which also called for equal treatment in access to employment, training, working conditions and social security. Moreover, family responsibilities were demanded to be compatible with women’s job aspirations.13 As a consequence, the Council adopted on 9 February 1976 the Directive 76/207/EEC on equal treatment regarding access to employment, vocational training, promotion and working conditions,14 followed on 19 December 1978 by a third equality directive on equal treatment in matters of social security.15 Besides legislative proposals, the Commission sought to push the member states to adopt measures on equality through targeted information. In a number of studies and reports, not least on the member states’ implementation of equal pay, the Commission stressed the need to change the image of the woman’s role in society, and her opportunities in terms of employment. These reports served for the preparation of later directives, as well as the control of their application. Based on the results, the Commission initiated from the late 1970s a number of infringement procedures against member states not complying with the rules.16 The ECJ, which ruled in several cases against non-compliant member states, also played an important role in the evolution of Community equality policy. Through its expansive interpretations of Treaty articles and Community directives, it counterbalanced to some extent national reluctance in the policy area, which repeatedly produced considerably watered-down legislative texts.17 The ECJ’s activism was not limited to infringement procedures. Amongst others, a court case of the Belgian stewardess Gabrielle Defrenne had a decisive impact on the implementation of Community equality legislation: the ECJ ruled on 8 April 1976

13 See Council Resolution of 21 January 1974 concerning a social action programme (OJ C13, 12 February 1974, pp. 1–4). 14 See Council Directive 76/207/EEC of 9 February 1976 on the implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women as regards access to employment, vocational training and promotion, and working conditions (OJ L39, 14 February 1976, pp. 40–42). 15 See Council Directive 79/7/EEC of 19 December 1978 on the progressive implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women in matters of social security (OJ L6, 10 January 1979, pp. 24 et seq.). 16 See i.a. Potton (1994: 234 et seq.) 17 See Ostner and Lewis (1995: 167).

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that women could claim equal pay directly based on Art. 119 EEC, irrespective of whether or not it was guaranteed by national legislation—a ruling which became a “landmark in the development of Community law on equal pay”.18 While the Commission succeeded, with the ECJ’s support, in pushing the EEC’s equality policy beyond the narrow scope of Art. 119, it could not win the Council’s support for all of its ideas on Community equality policy. Notably, the Commission failed to win the member states’ support for a recommendation on maternity protection, a first draft of which it submitted to the EP in January 1966.19 The Commission gave up this specific legislative proposal in 1970 due to “substantial reservations”20 among the national governments. Eventually, the Council adopted a directive on maternity protection only in 1992.21 The Commission moreover failed in 1975 to push a memorandum on equal working conditions through the Council.22 This comprehensive document would have affected collective bargaining, which some member states considered an intrusion of national sovereignty. The draft also included provisions on positive discrimination and parental leave, among others, which the member states refused to consider. As a result of such failures, the Commission’s Directorate-General on Social Affairs changed its strategy and implemented a piecemeal approach, aiming to get the same provisions adopted through a series of smaller-scale directives and action

18 Mazey (1998: 142). See also Warner (1984: 147 et seqq.); ECJ case C-

43/75—Defrenne v SABENA (http://curia.europa.eu/juris/liste.jsf?language=en&T,F& num=43-75, last visit 17 February 2021). 19 See Letter of Commission President Walter Hallstein to EP President Victor

Leemans, 18 January 1966 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0069!660040DE_002309). 20 Translation by the author; original: “erhebliche Vorbehalte”. See Answer of the Commission to Written Question 144/69 by Astrid Lulling and Hendrikus Vredeling of 10 June 1969 concerning the progress of the draft recommendation, 30 July 1969 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0144!690040DE_129926). The Commission draft recommendation is reprinted in the Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on said draft recommendation, 27 June 1966 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0069!660010DE_002298). 21 See Council Directive 92/85/EEC of 19 October 1992 on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health at work of pregnant workers and workers who have recently given birth or are breastfeeding (OJ L348, 28 November 1992, pp. 1–7). 22 See Ostner and Lewis (1995: 163 et seq.); van der Vleuten (2007: 89).

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programmes in the 1980s and 1990s.23 Despite the slow beginnings and the many delays in its implementation, the gradually established Community equality policy has been celebrated by some as one of the most remarkable successes of lifting social standards in European integration.24

5.3 The European Parliament’s Equality Policy Prior to 1979 The EP began to discuss equality policy in 1956, parallel to the negotiations of the EEC Treaty. Until the Treaty’s entry into force, the EP discourse on equality was limited to the issue of equal pay.25 From the 1960s, however, the EP discourse broadened swiftly, based on a more comprehensive approach to equality of men and women which was promoted by a number of particularly activist MEPs. Equal pay, these activist MEPs argued, was only a first step to improve the women’s situation in the labour market, which was also frequently impaired by inferior training and limited opportunities of promotion, as well as by lower social-security coverage compared to many male workers.26 Both the Commission’s and the EP’s interest in steering Community equality policy towards a broader approach resulted in a struggle 23 See Kantola (2010: 38 et seq.). 24 See i.a. Brewster and Teague (1989: 70); Leibfried (1998: 45); Schulz (1996: 23

et seqq.). Mazey (1998: 134) emphasises that while in other areas, national policies were progressively Europeanised, the Community was a catalyst in generating and extending equality laws in the first place; see also Vallance and Davis (1986: 131). 25 See i.a. Report by an EP working group on the development of Europe’s economic integration (second part), March 1956 (AC_AP_RP!GRTR.1955_AC-0007!56mars0010DE_00001000), p. 35; Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on the social aspects of the report by the head of delegation of the inter-state committee created by the Conference of Messina, November 1956 (AC_AP_RP!ASOC.1953_AC0002!56-novembre0010DE_00001000), p. 29; speeches by Willi Birkelbach and Alfred Bertrand during the debate on 29 November 1956 (AC_AP_DE!1956_DE19561129049900DE_9301578); speech by Gerard M. Nederhorst during the debate on 28 June 1957 (AC_AP_DE!1956_DE19570628-029900DE_9301610). 26 This was discussed i.a. in plenary debates on 27 June 1966 (PE0_AP_DE!1966_ DE19660627-029900DE_9303678); 25 April 1974 (PE0_AP_DE!1974_DE19740425039900EN_9311401); 17 June 1976 (PE0_AP_DE!1976_DE19760617-029900EN_ 9313903); 14 November 1977 (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19771114-019900EN_9318039); 10 April 1978 (PE0_AP_DE!1978_DE19780410-019900EN_9395047).

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over the interpretation of Art. 119 EEC soon after the Treaty’s entry into force.27 The main point at issue was the question of responsibility to initiate measures implementing Art. 119 EEC: despite not being mentioned in the article, the Commission saw this as its responsibility, which the Six governments initially ignored, then rejected. In 1961, the Commission was nonetheless able to gain a foothold in equality-related decision-making by proposing the establishment of a special working group consisting of representatives from the Six and the Commission, which had the task of gathering necessary information for the (national) implementation of Art. 119 EEC. The member states thus accepted the involvement of the Commission in Art. 119-related action, which the Commission sought to extend over the following years. The EP, and particularly its social committee, expressly supported the Commission’s activism in this area.28 One main reason behind the EP’s support was that equality policy thus became effectively regulated at Community level, meaning that MEPs could expect to be involved, whereas mere member state action would not have allowed for any significant EP intervention. Throughout the 1960s, however, the legal scope of Art. 119 EEC remained ambiguous, particularly as regards the question of whether it was self-executing, i.e. whether an individual could take legal action based on the article alone, or whether additional Community legislation was necessary.29 In view of this persistent uncertainty, and the delay in implementing equal pay, the EP called repeatedly on the Commission to “use every legal means, e.g. as afforded by Article 169 of the EEC Treaty”30 to push the member states, if necessary through infringement procedures

27 See Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on the harmonisation of salaries for male and female workers, 11 October 1961 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A00068!610010DE_00549127). 28 See also Resolution on the harmonisation of salaries for male and female workers, 20 October 1961 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0081!610001DE_0001). 29 See Resolution on the application of the principle of equal pay for men and women, 13 May 1968 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A0-0026!680001DE_0001), and Opinion by the Committee on Social Affairs concerning the unrestricted application and safeguarding of the principle of equal pay for men and women, 23 April 1968 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A0-0026!680015DE_01281554). 30 EP Resolution on the Commission proposal for the later Equal Pay Directive, 25 April 1974 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A0-0021!740001EN_0001). Art. 169 EEC says: “If the Commission considers that a Member State has failed to fulfil any of its obligations under this Treaty, it shall give a reasoned opinion on the matter after requiring such State

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before the ECJ. In this respect, MEPs gently threatened to abandon their otherwise firmly held position as an ally of the Commission if the latter should fail to perform its duty in taking legal action against a member state infringing Art. 119 EEC. Whereas the EP itself could not take a member state to court, Art. 175 EEC allowed Parliament to refer any case of the Commission’s failure to abide by the Treaty to the ECJ, as the EP’s legal affairs committee pointed out in an opinion concerning the application of the principle of equal pay in April 1968.31 Given that the Commission followed up relatively regularly on infringements in the member states, however, the EP eventually never resorted to this rather drastic measure during the period under examination. While frequently pushing the Commission for more, swifter and further-reaching action, MEPs generally backed the Commission’s equality-related policy making, and aligned their own activism in the area to the Commission’s (further discussed in Sect. 5.4.1 below). Up to the early 1970s, the above-mentioned slow progress in Community equality policy determined the limited success of EP involvement. Given that most of the Commission’s proposals in the area during the 1960s were either significantly toned down or rejected by the Council, the EP’s direct impact through resolutions and amendments to these proposals was virtually non-existent at the time. Only with the increase in related Community legislation during the 1970s—notably the three equality directives adopted in the second half of the decade—could MEPs exert traceable influence on the Community’s gradually established equality policy. Into the Equal Pay Directive of 1975, the EP successfully introduced an emphasis on the removal of any discrimination on grounds of sex in job classification, and demanded strengthened protection against dismissal for employees submitting a complaint concerning equal pay, and more comprehensive information of employees about their legal rights.32 to submit its comments. If such State does not comply with the terms of such opinion within the period laid down by the Commission, the latter may refer the matter to the Court of Justice.” 31 See Opinion by the Committee on Legal Affairs concerning the application of the principle of equal pay, 5 April 1968 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A00026!680010DE_002766), p. 15. 32 See Resolution on the Commission proposal for the later Equal Pay Directive, 25 April 1974 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A0-0021!740001EN_0001); connected Report by the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, 22 April 1974 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A0-0021!740010EN_025109); Council Directive

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With regard to the 1976 Equal Treatment Directive, the EP’s impact was rather limited, crucially because the initial Commission draft, to which the EP proposed amendments, was substantially revised before being adopted by the Council, but was not re-submitted to the EP.33 Based on amendments proposed by the EP, the adopted Directive was merely changed in two respects of intermediate significance: first, it allowed for the adaption of discriminating collective agreements, employment contracts and rules of undertakings instead of their direct annulment, which the Commission proposal had foreseen, so as to facilitate the directive’s implementation by individual firms.34 Second, the EP added an emphasis on excluding pregnancy and maternity provisions from equal treatment, allowing here for positive discrimination.35 To the 1979 Directive on Equal Access to Social Security, the EP introduced an important sub-paragraph very similar to provisions in the two previous equality directives, but initially excluded from this third one: all those considering themselves wronged based on the directive should be entitled to pursue their claims by judicial process.36 Once these directives were adopted, MEPs monitored their implementation closely, and repeatedly expressed their dissatisfaction with the slow progress that was made in the member states.37 The EP followed 75/117/EEC of 10 February 1975 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the application of the principle of equal pay for men and women, Arts. 1, 5, and 7. 33 See the Commission’s Communication to the Council entitled ‘Equality of treatment between men and women workers (Access to employment, to vocational training, to promotion, and as regards working conditions)’, Com(75) 36 final, 12 February 1975 (HAEU, CES-6306), and the Council Directive 76/207/EEC of 9 February 1976 on the implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women as regards access to employment, vocational training and promotion, and working conditions. 34 See Directive 76/207/EEC, Art. 3, 4, and 5. 35 See ibid., Art. 2 no. 3. 36 See EP Resolution on the Commission proposal for the later Equal Pay Directive

(PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A0-0355!770001EN_0001), amendment to Art. 7 of the draft directive. See also Directive 75/117/EEC, Art. 2, and Directive 76/207/EEC, Art. 6; Council Directive 79/7/EEC of 19 December 1978 on the progressive implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women in matters of social security, Art. 6. 37 See i.a. Resolution on the Commission proposal for a recommendation on maternity protection, 27 June 1966 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0069!660001DE_0001); Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on the Commission proposal for the later Equal

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member state implementation with the help of material collected and provided by the Commission and of data from MEPs’ home constituencies and member states.38 MEPs identified a number of ruses used to avoid the effective application of equal pay, and demanded the suppression of all such practices—among them the application of equal pay merely to “mixed” occupation categories (in which both men and women were employed), which allowed wages in all-female categories, i.e. usually lowskilled tasks, to be kept low.39 Another possibility to avoid an increase in women’s wages was the introduction of “light work” categories where the gender of workers formally played no role, but the majority of persons exercising such work were women.40 In order to fight such pseudo-steps towards equality, the delegates also called upon social partners and workers themselves to join the efforts to implement equal pay and, over time, equal working conditions more generally.41 Moreover, the EP called for support from national parliaments, appealing to them to maintain pressure on their governments to

Access to Social Security Directive, 9 November 1977 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A00355!770001EN_0001); speeches by Willem Albers and Michael Yeats during plenary debate on 14 November 1977 (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19771114-019900EN), pp. 10 et seqq. and 12 et seq.; Oral Question 49/78 by Gwyneth Dunwoody during Question Time on 3 April 1978 (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H-0049!780010EN_253402). 38 See i.a. speech by Ep Wieldraaijer on women’s working conditions in the Netherlands during a debate on 25 April 1974 (PE0_AP_DE!1974_DE19740425-039900EN); speech by Winifred M. Ewing on higher education system in Scotland and UK during a debate on 13 October 1976 (PE0_AP_DE!1976_DE19761013-049900EN_9314461); speech by Michael B. Yeats on problems in Ireland during a debate on 14 November 1977 (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19771114-019900EN). 39 See i.a. Resolution on the state of application of Art. 119 EEC in the different member states at the date of 30 June 1962, 28 June 1963 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A00046!630001FR_A0-0046!63_FR). 40 See i.a Resolution on the state of application of Art. 119 EEC in the different member states at the date of 30 June 1963, 11 May 1964 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A00022!640001DE_0001). 41 See i.a. Resolution concerning the application of Art. 119 EEC, 29 June

1966 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0085!660001DE_0001); Resolution on the application of the principle of equal pay, 13 May 1968 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A00026!680001DE_0001); Resolution on the state of application of Art. 119 EEC in the different member states at the date of 30 June 31 December 1968, 20 April 1971 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A0-0021!710001DE_0001).

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pursue the implementation of adopted Community legislation, and to use their control power to that end.42

5.4 Institutional Factors Shaping the EP’s Equality Policy making Over Time The area of equality policy stands out as a social policy area in which the EP did not develop much own initiative action, but mostly aligned its policy making to Commission proposals and initiatives. Given that the EP’s equality policy making took place mainly within the framework set by Commission proposals, it is expected that events and developments with a noteworthy impact on the Commission’s policy making also influenced the EP’s involvement. This section sheds light on the framework within which the EP’s equality policy took place. Thereafter, it discusses to what extent two important events with a substantial impact on Community equality policy—namely the Empty Chair crisis of 1965, and the societal movements of the 1970s—shaped also the EP’s equality policy making. 5.4.1

The Policy-making Framework Shaping the EP’s Activism on Equality Policy

MEPs’ equality-related activism remained largely embedded in the legislative framework set by Commission proposals. From the 1960s, these proposals surpassed the narrow provisions of Art. 119 EEC, which corresponded to the MEPs’ own equality-related aims. Consequently, MEPs did not engage much in own-initiative action beyond Commission proposals, such as study trips or stand-alone resolutions proposing Community action with regard to equality policy, contrary to other social policy issues such as the freedom of movement (see Chapter 4) or children and youth policy (see Chapter 6). Instead, MEPs mainly tried to expand Commission proposals to include their more far-reaching perceptions of equality. To a significant extent, the EP’s equality policy thus developed in alignment to the Commission’s policy making in the area: the EP dealt with equality policy mostly when the Commission put it on the Parliament’s agenda. This applies in particular to EP resolutions

42 See i.a. Resolution concerning the application of Art. 119 EEC, 29 June 1966 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0085!660001DE_0001).

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and committee reports, as demonstrated below, but also to a range of parliamentary questions in which MEPs enquired after the adoption or implementation of Community legislation, or criticised specific cases of discrimination based on the claim that adopted rules were violated.43 The most notable case in which MEPs pushed for specific initiatives without connection to Commission action in the area of equality policy was the repeatedly expressed demand for the implementation of equal working conditions for male and female staff in the Community institutions.44 This demand was almost exclusively made through parliamentary questions, contributing to the process of transforming the question into a tool of initiative. This effect had arguably not been foreseen by the authors of the Treaties when introducing the parliamentary question as one of the tools available to MEPs, since the EP was not granted any power of initiativeor policy change elsewhere in the Treaties.45 Thus, MEPs’ strategic re-interpretation of the parliamentary question can be considered from a historical institutionalist perspective as a case of conversion of a tool established for another purpose. At least one such case of initiative through questions in the area of equality was successful. In the early 1970s, the Luxembourg Socialist Astrid Lulling attacked in a series of questions an allowance for Community staff living outside their country of origin, which initially only “heads of household” could claim—for which only men were counted. Following

43 In the area of family law in particular, which was strictly beyond Commu-

nity competence and fully in the member states’ hands, MEPs repeatedly pointed to possibilities of how the Commission could act in order to remove discrimination without having to go beyond Community competences, mainly by reference to discrimination based on sex or nationality, both of which were prohibited by the Treaties as well as by subsequent Community law. See i.a. Question by Mrs. Carettoni Romagnoli during Question Time on 4 April 1974 (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H-03AV1!740015EN_01382919); Question by Mr. Thornley during Question Time on 11 December 1974 (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H-15-DEC!740015EN_01383453); Written Question no. 826/77 by Mrs. Dahrlerup, Mrs. Dunwoody and Lady Fisher, December 1977 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0826!770040FR_209277); Written Question no. 61/78 by Mr. Kavanagh, March 1978 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0061!780040FR_213090). 44 See i.a. speeches on Question 152/75 by William Winter Hamilton during Question Time on 14 June 1976 (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H-0152!750015EN_01384413); speeches on Question 47/79 by Karen Dahlerup during Question Time on 8 May 1979 (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H-0047!790015EN_01392681). 45 The only exception was the EP’s right to draw up proposals for its own direct elections (see Art. 138 EEC, paragraph 3 and Art. 108 Euratom, paragraph 3).

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Lulling’s persistent enquiries, the category “head of household” was abolished in 1973, and female staff members were granted the same allowance as male ones.46 It should be noted that in the few cases such as this, in which parliamentary questions were asked without connection to Commission proposals or Community legislation, it was only a limited number of individual MEPs who deviated from the general equality policy agenda set by the Commission,47 which was otherwise largely followed by the EP as a unitary institutional actor.48

46 See Written Question 331/70 by Astrid Lulling to the Commission, 29 October 1970 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0331!700010DE_149148); Written Question 520/70 by Astrid Lulling to the Commission, 12 February 1971 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E0520!700010DE_154150); Written Question 397/71 by Hendrikus Vredeling and Astrid Lulling to the Commission, 9 November 1971 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E0397!710010DE_159115); Letter from Council President Theodorus E. Westerterp to EP President Walter Behrendt, 8 November 1972 (PE0_AP_RP!BUDG.1967_A00224!720020DE_006305), consulting the EP on an accordingly amended draft for the Staff Regulations. The adopted Regulation (ECSC, EEC, Euratom) No. 558/73 of the Council of 26 February 1973 amending Regulation (EEC, Euratom, ECSC) No. 259/68 fixing the Staff Regulations of the Officials and Conditions of Employment applicable to other Servants of the European Communities (OJ L55, 28 February 1973, pp. 1–3) removed the category ‘head of household’ entirely. It should be noted that this adaptation cannot only be attributed to Astrid Lulling’s questions: the Council regulation refers to an ECJ ruling in the case of a Commission official who lost her claim to the allowance when marrying (see ECJ case C-32/71—Bauduin v Commission). The initial impulse, however, came from the Lulling questions, the first of which was submitted eight months before the court case 32/71 was brought before the ECJ. Also, Lulling recounted in an interview with the author that following the amendment of the Staff Regulations, several affected staff members organised a reception for her and bought her a Delvaux suitcase as a thank-you. It is possible that the official who took her case to the ECJ was first made aware of the potential discrimination by Lulling’s questions. 47 See i.a. also Question by Elaine Kellet-Bowman to the Commission during Question Time on 14 June 1977 (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H-0102!770015EN_01387305). 48 One exception is the EP’s early engagement in favour of women working in the agricultural sector. In this area, the EP adopted a few resolutions based on reports by the social committee before the Commission took any initiative in the field. This institutionalised own-initiative action, however, ceased with the Commission’s proposal for an Action Programme on Social Policy in 1963, after which again only individual MEPs directed questions concerning the situation of women in the agricultural sector to the Commission. For such own-initiative reports, see Reports by the Committee on Social Affairs on the social situation of workers in the agricultural sector, 6 January 1961 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1958_A0-0106!600010DE_00435420); on the social situation of agricultural family enterprises in the member states, 20 June 1961 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0030!610010DE_00549111); on the agricultural family

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The EP’s dominating alignment to the actions of the Commission can be connected to the overall relatively limited EP activities in the area. The small group of norm entrepreneurs (analysed in more detail in Sect. 5.5.3 below) who pushed for a comprehensive Community equality policy succeeded in introducing equality issues in numerous running social policy debates, yet did not usually pursue distinct EP initiatives in the field. Rather, they called upon the Commission to conduct studies, propose measures, and control the implementation of adopted Community legislation—tasks which MEPs took upon themselves in other areas.49 An explanation for this different behaviour in comparison to other socio-political issues can, with the HSI approach applied here, be sought in a combination of ideational and institutional factors influencing the EP’s equality policy. First, even though the bulk of MEPs generally supported the policy idea of comprehensive equality with regard to employment,50 there were not enough MEPs fervently promoting this idea for it to lead to coordinated institutional activism on the same scale as for instance with regard to the free movement of persons, a policy idea which was advocated through multi-level activism by many in the EP.51 Second, the policy idea of comprehensive equality was not considered as important in the pursuit of closer integration as other social policy ideas by those who promoted it. Rather, proponents of equality looked at the Community as instrumental for the improvement of women’s living and working conditions. Community legislation was seen as a enterprise in the European Community, 23 June 1961 (PE0_AP_RP!AGRI.1958_A00035!610001DE_0001). For individual parliamentary questions, see i.a. Written Question 4/75 by Gérard Bordu to the Commission, 13 March 1975 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E0004!750040FR_256996); Written Question 618/76 by Cornelis Laban and Willem Albers, 15 November 1976 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0618!760040FR_200094); Written Questions 1113/77 and 1271/77 by Patrick Joseph Power to the Commission, 1 February 1978 and 27 February 1978 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-1113!770040FR_209542 and PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-1271!770040FR_212370). 49 See Chapters 4 and 6. 50 This is analysed in more detail in Sect. 5.5.1 below. This support is visible in

numerous resolutions, reports and questions demanding such equality and criticising the Council and the member states for implementing Community legislation—and also equality-related ILO Conventions—too late, incompletely or not at all. See i.a. Resolution on the implementation of Art. 119 EEC, 29 June 1966 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A00085!660001DE_0001); Resolution on the principle of equal pay for men and women, 13 May 1968 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A0-0026!680001DE_0001). 51 See Chapter 4.

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possibility to balance the limited interest among politicians and social partners at the national level, and the incomplete implementation of existing legislation and agreements concerning equality.52 Such individual instrumental considerations, however, could seemingly not rally the same extent of idea-driven support which induced a larger number of MEPs to invest time and effort in extracurricular Community-level activities in other social policy areas, where the delegates assumed their efforts would contribute to achieving closer integration. This finding confirms that at least in the area of social policy, much of the MEPs’ activism was based on their shared enthusiasm for closer European integration. Where this integration-related ideational dimension was missing or only weak, not as many MEPs became as intensively involved as in areas considered more important in the pursuit to reach closer integration. Third, MEPs’ comparably lower activism in the area of equality policy was to some extent the result of the ideational common ground which the EP shared with the Commission, and notably with the Commissioners responsible for social affairs. As a consequence of shared policy ideas, and of the resulting activism on the side of the Commission, the EP could lean on Commission initiatives, in which much of what the MEPs asked for was proposed.53 MEPs furthermore did not see the need to go on study trips in order to gather information because, on the one hand, the Commission conducted a range of studies and made them accessible to the EP.54 On the other hand, MEPs had good connections to

52 See i.a. Resolution on the Commission proposal for the later Equal Pay Directive, 25 April 1974 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A0-0021!740001EN_0001); Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on the Commission proposal for the later Equal Treatment Directive, 7 April 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A0-0024!750010EN_033095). 53 At times, the Commission did not include all EP demands in its proposals because it doubted their legal applicability, or the likeliness of their being accepted by the Council. See i.a. speech by Commissioner Patrick Hillery during plenary debate on 25 April 1974 (PE0_AP_DE!1974_DE19740425-039900EN), pp. 185 set seqq. 54 Indeed, MEPs asked repeatedly for such studies. See i.a. Written Question no. 30/74 by Mrs. Lulling, 21 March 1974 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0030!740040FR_185482); Written Question no. 806/75 by Mr. Adams, 9 February 1976 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E0806!750020DE_197461); Written Question no. 7/66 by Mrs. Lulling, 16 March 1966 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0007!660010DE_094071); Written Question no. 37/74 by Mrs. Lulling, 3 April 1974 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0037!740040FR_185522); Written Question no. 349/78 by Mr. Radoux, 13 June 1978 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E0349!780040FR_215245); Written Question no. 85/74 by Mrs. Goutmann and Mr. Marras, 24 April 1974 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0085!740040FR_185796).

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women’s organisations and trade unions which regularly provided them with information.55 5.4.2

The Impact of Contemporary Events and Developments on the EP’s Equality Policy

Being mostly pegged to Commission initiatives, the EP’s equality-related activism was influenced by contemporary events and developments that triggered change in the Community’s equality policy making more generally. This sub-section uses an HI framework to analyse the extent to which such events and developments influenced the EP’s involvement in equality policy. Two cases leading to institutional change in the Community— one endogenous and one exogenous—stand out as particularly influential, resulting also for the EP in gradual institutional change through drift s, i.e. in a shifting impact of existing rules based on changes in the respective environment. The first of these cases is the 1965 Empty Chair crisis, which deserves closer attention here since it had a noteworthy impact on the EP’s (varying) success in influencing Community policy. Secondly, this sub-section sheds light on the effects of societal changes and the socalled “second-wave feminism” of the 1970s on Community and hence on EP equality policy making. 5.4.2.1 The Empty Chair Crisis When the French Government refused in 1965 to participate in any further Council meetings until its demands concerning the Common Agricultural Policy, the Community budget and decision-making in the Council were met, the member states were still far from having implemented Art. 119 EEC. Having already faced considerable reluctance from the Six up to that point, the Empty Chair crisis moved equality policy entirely on the back burner of Community policy making. Indeed, during the second half of the 1960s, the Commission worked on a number of reports and studies, but did not propose any legislation concerning Art. 119 EEC. Having been criticised in the course of the crisis for being too pro-active in pushing for more integration, and for extending its competences beyond Treaty articles, the Commission left the issue of equal pay 55 On links between women’s groups and female MEPs, see Mazey (1998: 141). Close contacts with trade unions have been confirmed by a number of MEPs interviewed for this research; see i.a. interviews with Astrid Lulling, Jacques Santer and Heinz Schreiber.

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untouched “for fear of losing Council support for its proposals in other domains”,56 even though it could have taken member states to court for non-compliance with set deadlines. The only equality-related proposal the Commission made during these years was the above-mentioned draft recommendation on maternity protection. Despite this lack of input, the EP did not opt for own initiatives in the area of equality policy, as it did in other social policy areas in case of low Commission activity.57 Instead, MEPs limited their activities to criticism of the lack of action towards the implementation of equal pay. This criticism, expressed via resolutions and parliamentary questions, was now not only directed at the member states, as had been the case up until the Empty Chair crisis, but it was also addressed at the Commission.58 The direct impact of the Commission’s inactivity in equality policy under the influence of the Empty Chair crisis on the EP’s policy making in the area is visible in the decrease of resolutions and reports adopted by the EP and its responsible committees, as well as in the simultaneous increase of parliamentary questions. Figure 5.1 shows that whereas the number of adopted reports and resolutions lay beyond ten per year in the early 1960s, the number of adopted documents fell significantly in 1965. In 1966, a frequency of adopted documents similar to the early 1960s was reached once more: among these documents were several resolutions and reports calling the Commission to act despite the reluctance of member states. After that, however, the number of adopted documents increased

56 Kantola (2010: 29). 57 See Chapter 6 on children and youth policy as a notable example. 58 See i.a. Resolution on the implementation of Art. 119 EEC,

29 June 1966 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0085!660001DE_0001); Resolution on the application of the principle of equal pay for men and women, 13 May 1968 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A0-0026!680001DE_0001); and specifically regarding the failed recommendation on maternity protection: Written Question 181/67 by Hendrikus Vredeling to the Commission, 11 October 1967 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E0181!670010DE_106538); Written Question 201/67 by Astrid Lulling to the Commission, 20 October 1967 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0201!670010DE_106870); Written Question 288/67 by Astrid Lulling and Hendrikus Vredeling to the Commission, 16 January 1968 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0288!670010DE_110882); Written Question 144/69 by Astrid Lulling and Hendrikus Vredeling to the Commission, 10 June 1969 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0144!690010DE_129916); Written Question 502/70 by Astrid Lulling and Hendrikus Vredeling to the Commission, 3 February 1971 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0502!700010DE_147178).

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Fig. 5.1 Number of adopted EP resolutions and reports concerning equality policy per year

gradually only in the course of the 1970s, with the drafting and adoption of the three Equality Directives. Figure 5.2, in comparison, shows that prior to the Empty Chair crisis, MEPs almost never used parliamentary questions in the area of equality policy. The number of questions increased only with the perceived need to push the Commission to act in the wake of the crisis. Although the Empty Chair crisis had no direct connection to equality policy, the institutional change which it caused in the other Community institutions also affected the MEPs’ pursuit of equality-related aims. The crisis did not change the EP’s equality policy in terms of underlying policy ideas, which are discussed below. However, it induced MEPs to adapt their behaviour based on the changed institutional environment. In addition to the previously most used tools of resolutions and reports,

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Fig. 5.2 Number of parliamentary questions concerning equality policy per year

MEPs resorted increasingly to the instrument of parliamentary questions in order to reach a broadening and deepening of Community equality policy, or at least to prevent stagnation in the area. The crisis thus led to what HI defines as a layering process in the application of established procedures in the EP’s equality policy. 5.4.2.2

The 1970s as Formative Period for Community Equality Policy For Community equality policy, the 1970s have been identified as a decisive period in which multiple events and developments steered political

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attention towards equality issues, resulting in “strong directives, landmark court decisions, and institutional creation”,59 as summarised above. In particular, the “second-wave feminism” reaching Europe from the US in the late 1960s and early 1970s,60 and the “publicly demonstrated anger”61 of women’s movements concerning issues such as violence against women and reproductive rights left increasingly discernable traces on socio-political agendas. These societal developments became a “political impetus”62 for an intensification of equality policy at national and Community level. Attitudes of governments and social partners changed significantly because of these developments: actors in politics, the economy and society saw that the movements became too big to be brushed aside any longer.63 For the Community in particular, Kantola (2010) points to the first Defrenne case as the trigger turning the 1970s into a “period of intensification” of equality policy, “rescu[ing] Article 119 from oblivion in the late 1960s”.64 Whereas the Empty Chair crisis had constituted an endogenous rupture in Community policy making, the societal developments of the 1970s proved to be an exogenous factor of major change, influencing the living and working conditions of women not only in the Community, but throughout Western Europe and beyond. In combination with the economic and financial crisis of the 1970s, these societal developments influenced Community legislation on equality not only through the elevated interest among political actors, but also through their direct implications for the Common Market and member state economies. Increasing numbers of women—particularly married women whose careers had previously ended with their wedding day, or at the latest with their first pregnancy—(re-)entered the labour market.65 At

59 Ellina (2003: 22). 60 See i.a. di Sarcina (2009: 370); Mazey (1998: 134). 61 Hoskyns (1996: 97). 62 Ibid.: 43. 63 See Vallance and Davis (1986: 131). 64 Kantola (2010: 30). 65 See Seeland, S. European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (1981): A survey on vocational training initiatives for women in the European Community. Berlin: European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, p. 14.

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the same time, female workers were hit much harder by the implications of the crisis than male workers, because they were disproportionately employed in more vulnerable sectors of the economy, and in part-time and low-skilled occupations from which many were dismissed as the effects of the crisis unfolded.66 Moreover, companies tended to dismiss female workers before men based on the assumption that a man’s income was more important for the respective household.67 The actors involved in Community decision-making consequently faced a combination of elevated interest and increasing pressure to act in support of female workers, which helps explain the adoption of the three Equality Directives within only five years, after almost two decades of reluctance on the side of the member states. These changes in the economic and societal context which triggered increased public and political attention for equality issues can be defined with HI as the first critical juncture in Community equality policy. The following upswing in Community decision-making on equality influenced MEPs’ activism in the area by providing a platform to push for the establishment of binding rules in the pursuit of equality beyond merely equal pay. With regard to the EP’s own positioning on equality policy, however, the equality-related events of the 1970s cannot be seen as a critical juncture. Whereas the EP’s discourse was shaped by the input coming from the Commission, the basic argument for comprehensive equality of male and female workers which MEPs had promoted since the adoption of the EEC Treaty did not change. Also, the number of adopted resolutions and reports on equality policy underwent no dramatic development (see Fig. 5.1). A slight increase of adopted documents towards the second half of the 1970s is visible; however, this can be directly ascribed to the three Equality Directives, and previously to the drafting of the Social Action Programme (leading to an elevated number of adopted documents in 1972). In other words, the EP’s equality policy was influenced by the above-mentioned events of the 1970s only to the extent that they influenced Community equality policy making overall. More markedly than the increase in adopted documents, Fig. 5.2 shows an intensification of the usage of parliamentary questions towards

66 See i.a. ibid.; Written Question by Tullia Carettoni Romagnoli to the Commission, 27 February 1975 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0776!740010EN_194127). 67 See Warner (1984: 155 et seq.).

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the second half of the 1970s. To some extent, this increase can be ascribed to the growing public interest in equality policy, which MEPs aimed to direct at their institution, not least with an eye on the upcoming first direct elections of the EP.68 Another influential factor only indirectly connected to equality policy or women’s movements was the Community’s first enlargement: the majority of these parliamentary questions were submitted by MEPs from the new member states. To some extent, the increase of parliamentary questions in the 1970s on equality issues can be ascribed to British delegates’ generally displayed fondness of this tool of direct exchange and parliamentary control, leading to an overall increase of parliamentary questions towards the end of the decade.69 And also the Danish delegation left its mark on EP equality policy making (not least) through parliamentary questions. Among the Danish MEPs, particularly the Socialist Karen Dahlerup and the Liberal Clara Edele Bengta Kruchow became actively engaged in the area. Their activism in the pursuit of comprehensive equality was presumably based to some extent on the more developed and far-reaching equality discourse and resulting policies in their country of origin, in comparison to the other member states (although it might be noted that also in Denmark, factual discrimination of women at work persisted at the time and left room for political engagement).70 The societal developments in Europe during the 1970s thus proved to have a profound impact on the EP’s equality policy to the extent that they shaped Community policy making. However, for the EP, these developments constituted a drift in the adapted application of existing institutional rules and procedures based on the changing environment, rather than a critical juncture. MEPs’ equality-related activism intensified, but it did not change fundamentally. Moreover, as has been shown, the intensification of EP activities was not solely caused by societal developments, but it was also influenced by other factors such as notably the Community’s first enlargement. While the Empty Chair crisis 68 See i.a. Oral Question 51/76 with debate by Clara Edele Bengta Kruchow,

13 January 1976 (PE0_AP_DE!1976_DE19761013-049900EN_9314461); speech by Vera Squarcialupi during Question Time on 14 December 1976 (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H0215!760015EN_01386249), p. 91. 69 See i.a. Westlake (1990: 17 et seq.). 70 See i.a. Hantrais (2007: 137); Friis (1984: 97); Seeland, S. European Centre for the

Development of Vocational Training (1981): op. cit., p. 13.

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had developed a relatively mono-dimensional—hampering—effect on the Commission’s, and consequently the EP’s, equality policy making, the impact of the 1970s on the EP’s involvement in equality policy was thus more multifaceted.

5.5

The Ideational Basis of MEPs’ Activism for More Equality

The nature of the ideas driving the EP’s equality policy prior to 1979 differed quite significantly from those underlying EP activism in other social policy areas. The crucial distinction lies in the finalité of MEPs’ respective topic-related activism. Namely, MEPs promoted the regulation of equality policy at Community level not first and foremost because they considered it to be an inherent element of and step towards ever more integration, but rather because they considered Community legislation and the political tools available to them at Community level instrumental in reaching their largely non-integration related aims for more comprehensive equality. This section traces the different policy and polity ideas underlying MEPs’ activism in the area of equality policy through an SI-based analysis. First, it shows the dominant impact of non-integration related policy ideas on the MEPs’ behaviour. It discusses then the weaker yet traceable influence of integration-related polity ideas. In a third sub-section, the analysis sheds light on the group of MEPs most active in promoting the previously outlined ideas, and discusses to what extent these delegates took on the role of norm entrepreneurs in the EP’s equality policy. 5.5.1

The Shared Policy Idea of Comprehensive (Work-Related) Equality

Oriented along the policy lines predetermined by Commission proposals and Community legislation, the largest part of EP activism towards more gender equality related to women’s working life. Beyond equal pay, MEPs demanded equality with regard to education and (re-)training, recruitment and promotion, social security, working conditions, and the equal access to all professions. Moreover, MEPs persistently promoted special protection measures for mothers, with the aim of achieving a better compatibility of family and working life. A principle which the delegates leading the respective debates in Parliament wished to see established in

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order to reach these dimensions of equality was the acceptance in society that women as well as men could be heads of household, that it should be considered normal for women to contribute a significant share to the family income, and that they could, in principle, earn higher salaries than men by taking over higher positions.71 As a necessary precondition, the delegates aimed to change the social perception that women’s working life should end with matrimony and motherhood. Instead, women should be able to resume their careers afterwards without being stereotyped as bad wives or mothers.72 As a step towards the implementation of this change of social perceptions, the delegates demanded to make part-time positions more accessible and attractive to male workers. Throughout the period under consideration, part-time work was mostly offered to women, and was usually understood as a diminished version of the respective job. In addition, part-time positions often provided worse social-security coverage than full-time jobs, and sometimes in fact none at all.73 By turning parttime employment into something that men were more willing to accept, MEPs hoped to improve the working conditions for part-time workers, given that male workers had a considerably stronger interest representation in trade unions than female ones. An improved offer of part-time

71 See i.a. speech by Marcel Albert Vandewiele during plenary debate on 14 November 1977 (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19771114-019900EN_9318039); Resolution on the Commission proposal for a Directive concerning the progressive implementation of the principle of equality of treatment for men and women in matters of social security, 15 November 1977 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A0-0355!770001EN_0001), and connected report by the Committee on Social Affairs, Employment and Education, 9 November 1977 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A0-0355!770010EN_044705). 72 See i.a. plenary debate during 27 June 1966 (PE0_AP_DE!1966_DE19660627029900DE_9303678); Oral Question 83/78 with debate by Vera Squarcialupi and Antoine Porcu, 19 January 1979 (PE0_AP_QP!QO_O-0083!780020EN_229406). 73 See i.a. follow-up question by Karen Dahlerup during Question Time on 6 July 1978

(PE0_AP_QP!QH_H-0162!780015EN_01390443); speech by Ernest Glinne during the debate on 29 April 1975 (PE0_AP_DE!1975_DE19750429-059900EN); speech by Ep Wieldraaijer during plenary debate on 25 April 1974 (PE0_AP_DE!1974_DE19740425039900EN); speech by Mrs. Carrettoni Romagnoli during plenary debate on 29 April 1975 (PE0_AP_DE!1975_DE19750429-059900EN).

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occupations could furthermore provide a better re-distribution of responsibilities with regard to income and childcare among spouses, allowing more women to work, and men to assume more responsibility at home.74 Whereas the EP discourse on equality remained relatively work-focused throughout the 1960s, the global emancipatory developments of the late 1960s and 1970s75 added a broader ideational dimension to MEPs’ argumentation for equality. From the mid-1970s, the demand for a change of the dominant image of women as housewives and dependents on male breadwinners, and of their (socially desired) skills and responsibilities, appeared in EP debates and documents with increasing frequency. MEPs wanted this change of perceptions to be rooted already in school education, with the abolition of a system dedicating different roles to boys and girls, and giving girls the impression “that the more independent and knowledgeable they [were], the less likely they [were] to find a husband and happiness”.76 5.5.2

The Influence of Polity Ideas on the EP’s Equality Policy

Given that the policy ideas dominating the EP’s discourse on equality were not particularly interconnected with European integration, it is not surprising that the MEPs’ usage of the topic in the pursuit of institutional aims was also relatively limited. In other words, the dimension of polity ideas underlying the MEPs’ activism in the area was not particularly pronounced. The polity idea of the EP as the representative of the 74 See i.a. speech by Elisabeth Orth during plenary debate on 29 April 1975 (PE0_AP_DE!1975_DE19750429-059900EN); speech by Clara Edele Bengta Kruchow during plenary debate on 17 June 1976 (PE0_AP_DE!1976_DE19760617029900EN_9313903); speech by Mr. Vandewiele during plenary debate on 14 November 1977 (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19771114-019900EN). 75 See i.a. di Sarcina (2009); Hantrais (2007: 110 et seqq.); Mazey (1998); Hoskyns (1996); Warner (1984: 146 et seq.). 76 Speech by Astrid Lulling during plenary debate on 25 April 1974 (PE0_AP_DE!1974_DE19740425-039900EN), p. 184. See also speech by Ep Wieldraaijer during the same debate (pp. 178 et seq.); speech by Mr. Bertrand during plenary debate on 29 April 1975 (PE0_AP_DE!1975_DE19750429-059900EN); speech by Mr. Yeats during plenary debate on 17 June 1976 (PE0_AP_DE!1976_DE19760617029900EN_9313903); Resolution on the Commission proposal for the later Equal Pay Directive, 25 April 1974 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A0-0021!740001EN_0001); Resolution on the Commission proposal for the later Equal Treatment Directive, 29 April 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A0-0024!750001EN).

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citizens, the impact of which on MEPs’ behaviour can be traced in other social policy discourses,77 played only a marginal role in the EP discourse on equality. The EP’s role as the Communities’ parliament and the advocate of public interest was rarely emphasised. Even in the years leading up to the EP’s first direct elections, when MEPs could have sought to appeal expressly to female and, more generally, emancipated voters by pleading their cause, MEPs rarely promoted equality policy as a showpiece of the EP’s positive impact on the citizens’ living and working conditions.78 This underlines once more that equality policy was not perceived by MEPs to be an effective tool in their pursuit of integration-related ideas, including an enhanced EP role. The MEPs’ hesitancy to use equality policy in order to promote their institution may partly be explained by the fact that although emancipatory movements gained traction in the course of the 1970s in Western Europe, equality of men and women in work-related matters was far from a societal consensus. MEPs may hence have expected to lose as many—if not more—male or generally conservative voters as gaining emancipated ones if they pushed the position of the EP as an advocate of gender equality. Things were somewhat different with regard to the broader polity idea of the Community as a project for and of the people (rather than as a mere economic and technocratic project), and consequently of the Community institutions’ task to work together towards the improvement of the people’s living and working conditions. After all, the Treaty provided for a Community-wide standard in the area of gender equality, even if explicitly entailing only equal pay. Consequently, the MEPs engaged in equality policy considered it the task of the Community’s institutions to work towards this provided higher level of gender equality in and across the member states, not least with an eye on the citizens’ opinion of the Community. When, for instance, in the early 1960s, the Commission and the Council struggled to determine in whose hands the initiative for the 77 See Chapters 4, 6, and 7. 78 For exceptions, see i.a. the Resolution on the application of Art. 119 EEC, 29 June

1966 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0085!660001DE_0001), in which the EP appealed to the member state governments, social partners and national parliaments as representatives of public opinion to take action; and Oral Question 51/76 with debate by Clara Edele Bengta Kruchow, 30 September 1976 (PE0_AP_DE!1976_DE19761013049900EN_9314461), in which Kruchow called for action in favour of women in view of the upcoming EP elections, in order to let women know what the EP could do for them.

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implementation of Art. 119 EEC would lie, the EP’s social committee warned that any delay in the establishment of equal pay might become a precedent for questioning the political authority of the Treaty itself, given the exceptionally clear deadline set by the article. In SI terminology, MEPs hence perceived a logic of appropriateness underlying the timely implementation of Art. 119 EEC. A delay was here considered not merely a breach of the Treaty, but also of people’s trust in the Community and its institutions. Even with regard to non-Treaty based equality issues, MEPs considered it notably the Commission’s normative responsibility as the initiator of Community action to display agency. In the case of the failed maternity recommendation, for instance, the German Christian Democrat Hans Edgar Jahn blamed the Commission for having “failed to fulfil the role of ‘prime mover’ in the Community conferred upon it by the EEC Treaty and requiring it to overcome the self-interest of States and [non-emancipatory] individuals”.79 This perception of the Commission’s responsibility to project a good image of the Community in equality matters is particularly visible in the MEPs’ focus on the treatment of staff members in the Community institutions, and in the Commission especially.80 Time and again, MEPs put parliamentary questions to the Commission about the extremely low female quota in higher grades.81 79 See Written Question 644/72 by Hans Edgar Jahn, 20 February 1973 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0644!720010EN_172526). 80 During the archival research conducted for this book, no EP documents focusing specifically on the situation of female staff in the EP were found. The MEPs and staff members interviewed for this research did also not remember any specific debates or actions by the EP with regard to its own staff, based on the aim to give a good example with regard to the equal treatment of employees. This does not necessarily imply that the MEPs tried to avoid bringing their own house in order, while preferring to point the finger at other institutions. Rather, the Commission was much more in the public eye than the EP, making it a more likely target of public criticism with regard to discrimination. The public interest in discrimination against female staff members “within the Commission and in other European institutions” was stressed for instance by the British Labour MEP William Winter Hamilton during Question Time on 14 January 1976 (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H-0152!750015EN_01384413), p. 83. Hamilton referred in his speech to an article in the Guardian from 2 December 1975, showing that public interest in the problem indeed existed. 81 See i.a. Written Question 750/78 by Karen Dahlerup to the Commission, 7 November 1978 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0750!780050FR_219811); Written Question 677/78 by Gert Verner Petersen to the Commission, 12 October 1978 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0677!780060FR_218987); Written Question 238/75 by Cornelis

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Based on their role expectation of the Community’s executive, delegates requested the Commission to rectify this “gross imbalance”, which – in the words of the Danish MEP Karen Dahlerup—“distorts the representativeness of European institutions and hinders their effectiveness”.82 At Question Time in May 1979, the British Socialist MEP Gwyneth Dunwoody went as far as to threaten the Commission with legal action unless it would “comply with the rules on equal treatment […] which you are laying down for other people”.83 This shows how significantly the Commission violated, in the eyes of these MEPs, the logic of appropriateness underlying its role as executive of the Communities and initiator of political action. 5.5.3

Norm Entrepreneurs Shaping the EP’s Equality Policy

Both Gwyneth Dunwoody and Karen Dahlerup belonged to a group of MEPs who, through their elevated activism via parliamentary questions, reports, amendments, and speeches, steered the EP’s equality policy. They can hence be identified as norm entrepreneurs in the area. Many, though not all, of these MEPs were female, even though women constituted less than 5 per cent of all MEPs prior to 1979.84 Several of these female MEPs

Laban to the Commission, 4 July 1975 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0238!750030FR_195303); speech by Elaine Kellett-Bowman during plenary debate on 13 October 1976 (PE0_AP_DE!1976_DE19761013-049900EN_9314461), pp. 118 et seq.; speech by Lady Fisher of Rednal during Question Time on 16 February 1978 (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H0419!770015EN_01389069), p. 222; Resolution on the Commission proposal for the later Equal Treatment Directive, 29 April 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A00024!750001EN_0001). Right before the adoption of this resolution, Commissioner Patrick Hillery acknowledged that the Commission had “now recognized that it must practise what it preaches, and it is examining what needs to be done on an inter-service basis and in consultation with the staff”. See speech by Commissioner Patrick Hillery during plenary debate on 29 April 1975 (PE0_AP_DE!1975_DE19750429-059900EN), p. 68. 82 Speech by Karen Dahlerup during Question Time (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H-0047!790015EN_01392681), p. 58.

on

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83 Speech by Gwyneth Dunwoody, ibid. 84 Women sat in the European Parliament from 1952: the Dutch Christian Demo-

crat Marga A. M. Klompé was the first—and prior to the Treaties of Rome the only—female delegate in the EP. See ‘Europe’s First Women’, European Parliamentary Research Service Blog, 5 March 2014 (https://epthinktank.eu/2014/03/05/europesfirst-women/, last visit 17 February 2021); Equality and Diversity Unit, Directorate-

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were strongly driven by their ideas of equality and emancipation, as their speeches in Parliament and their parliamentary questions on women’s position and treatment at work and in society demonstrate.85 Some of the MEPs who became norm entrepreneurs in the area of equality policy had dedicated time and effort to the fight for more equality already prior to entering the EP. Karen Dahlerup (MEP from 1977 to 1980), for instance, had been the Danish Social Democrats’ secretary for women’s questions from 1963 to 1970, editor of the journal “Frie Kvinder” (Free Women) from 1966 to 1970, and a member of the Danish delegation to the UN’s Women Conference in 1975 and 1980.86 In the mid-1970s, just before entering the EP, Dahlerup had joined an Ad-Hoc Group on Women’s Work within the Commission’s Directorate-General for Social Affairs, composed of national representatives with the primary task of preparing the later Directive 76/207/EEC.87 Dahlerup’s fellow Danish delegate Clara Edele Bengta Kruchow (MEP from 1975 to 1977) had been the chairwoman of the Danske Kvinders Nationalråd (the Women’s Council in Denmark) from 1967 to 1972.88 The Italian independent delegate Tullia Carettoni Romagnoli (MEP from 1971 to 1976, and from 1979 to 1984) had been engaged during the 1960s in different committees within the Italian Socialist Party, among others on emancipation issues such as gender equality, divorce, and abortion.89 The British Labour delegate Baroness Doris Fisher of Rednal (MEP from 1975 to

General for Personnel (2013): Women in the European Parliament (http://www.europarl. europa.eu/RegData/publications/2013/0001/P7_PUB(2013)0001_EN.pdf, last visit 17 February 2021), p. 6. 85 See i.a. speeches by Lady Diana Elles and Elisabeth Orth during plenary debate on 29 April 1975 (PE0_AP_DE!1975_DE19750429-059900EN), by Lady Fisher of Rednal during plenary debate on 17 June 1976 (PE0_AP_DE!1976_DE19760617029900EN_9313903) and by Winifred Ewing during plenary debate on 30 September 1976 (PE0_AP_DE!1976_DE19761013-049900EN_9314461); Written Question 776/74 by Tullia Carettoni Romagnoli, 27 February 1975 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E0776!740010EN_194127). 86 See entry on Karen Dahlerup in the Dansk kvindebiografisk leksikon (http://www. kvinfo.dk/side/597/bio/471/origin/171/, last visit 17 February 2021), and interview with Karen Dahlerup. 87 See Hoskyns (1996: 101). 88 See entry on Clara Edele Bengta Kruchow in the Dansk kvindebiografisk leksikon

(http://www.kvinfo.dk/side/597/bio/539/origin/170/, last visit 17 February 2021). 89 See Fondo Tullia Carettoni Romagnoli, Unione Femminile Nazionale (http://uni

onefemminile.it/archivi/fondo-tullia-carettoni-romagnoli/, last visit 17 February 2021).

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1979) had made her name in politics in the early 1950s “by leading a successful campaign to remove the penny entrance charge to women’s lavatories” in Birmingham, claiming that women should have the same right to free toilets as men since they had the same needs.90 For these women, the EP constituted yet another stage on which they could continue to press for greater equality between men and women. Their previous engagement concerning women’s rights, however, shows that their policy ideas of equality were not intrinsically connected to European integration. Instead, they saw European integration as potentially serving their pursuit of greater equality. An exemplary indication of this instrumentalisation of the EP, and the Community level more generally, as a stage to pursue equality-related political aims is that even a Eurosceptic MEP like the British Labour delegate Gwyneth Dunwoody91 joined the activism for reinforced European regulation of equality policy.92 It should be emphasised that although female MEPs constituted the vast majority of norm entrepreneurs in EP equality policy, there were also men who became actively involved in the area. The Irish Progressive Democrat Michael Yeats and the Luxembourg Socialist Willy Dondelinger, for instance, submitted a range of parliamentary questions and held various speeches on equality and women’s position in the labour market, on the insufficient implementation of the Community Equality Directives, and on the need to re-educate society in order to change public opinion of women’s role therein.93 The majority of male MEPs 90 See Obituary for Baroness Fisher of Rednal in The Independent, 24 December 2005 (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/baroness-fisher-of-red nal-520625.html, last visit 17 February 2021). 91 So described by the interviewees Fionnuala Richardson and Heinz Schreiber. 92 See i.a. Written Question 483/76 by Gwyneth Dunwoody to the Commission,

27 September 1976 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0483!760040FR_199271); speech by Gwyneth Dunwoody during plenary debates on 10 April 1978 (PE0_AP_DE!1978_DE19780410019900EN_9395047), pp. 9 et seqq.; Oral Question 49/78 by Gwyneth Dunwoody for Question Time on 3 April 1978 (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H-0049!780010EN_253402). 93 See i.a. speeches by Michael Yeats during plenary debates on 17 June 1976 (PE0_AP_DE!1976_DE19760617-029900EN_9313903), pp. 179 et seq.; on 14 November 1977 (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19771114-019900EN), pp. 12 et seq.; on 10 April 1978 (PE0_AP_DE!1978_DE19780410-019900EN_9395047), pp. 15 et seqq.; Written Question 948/77 by Michael Yeats to the Commission, 5 January 1978 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0948!770040FR_208095); Written Question 42/79 by Michael Yeats to the Commission, 30 March 1979 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0042!790050FR_224066). See also Written Questions 412/77

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who spoke up on women’s issues, however, only did so once or twice, so that the overall discourse remained largely dominated by a small number of female delegates. The national background of these activist MEPs varied—indeed, delegates from all member states took part in the debates. A clearer pattern regarding these MEPs’ background is visible as regards their party affiliation: considerably more of them were affiliated with left-wing rather than with right-wing or liberal political parties.94 This can be linked to some extent to the fact that “historically the women’s movement has been linked to leftist parties, and they have proven to be more supportive of feminist issues than parties of the Center or the Right”.95 It can consequently be assumed that, on the one hand, those who became EP norm entrepreneurs in the area of equality policy had initially chosen their respective national party because of its positioning on equality issues—among other reasons—and that, on the other hand, they were likely socialised by their party with regard to equality policy making, particularly as regards concrete demands and ideas of implementation measures.96 Similarly, socialisation processes very likely took place in the cases of those parliamentarians who had been engaged in women’s organisations or other political fora discussing and promoting equality issues. These MEPs-turned-norm entrepreneurs hence promoted ideas in the EP which had been shaped mostly outside the EP. In that regard, equality policy differs once more from other social policy areas, in which norm entrepreneurs were to a significant extent socialised during their time as MEPs, and through prior norm entrepreneurs in the EP. The assumption that this intra-EP socialisation of norm entrepreneurs was weaker in the

by Willy Dondelinger to the Council and 413/77 to the Commission, both on 18 July 1977 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0412!770050FR_209021 and PE0_AP_QP!QE_E0413!770060FR_209027); Written Question 290/77 by Willy Dondelinger to the Commission, 15 June 1977 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0290!770040FR_204776); Written Question 977/77 by Willy Dondelinger to the Commission, 12 January 1978 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0977!770040FR_202361). 94 Except for Michael Yeats (a member of the Progressive Democrats in the EP, and

of the Irish Fianna Fáil party), all of the delegates mentioned above were members of national parties on the left spectre of political affiliation. 95 Kittilson (2006: 45). For an overview of relevant literature, see also Beckwith (2010). 96 Unfortunately, this has to remain an assumption, at least in this book, since the

personal background information which would be necessary in order either to prove or to reject the assumption was not accessible to the author.

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case of equality policy is consolidated by the finding discussed above that the EP developed no genuinely unique equality policy—which was again different from other social policy areas97 —but mostly aligned its equality policy making to that of the Commission.

5.6

Conclusion

At first glance, the EP’s involvement in equality policy resembles that in other social policy areas, such as the free movement of workers, or children and youth policy. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 of this book each depict MEP activism which took a more or less narrow Treaty basis—in all three cases perceived by the MEPs as too limited—as a steppingstone to promote Community-level measures on a broader scale. In all three areas, MEPs got involved more than the Treaties explicitly foresaw, and pushed the other Community institutions—notably the Commission and the Council—to similarly interpret Treaty articles as starting points of closer integration rather than provisions to be met. Yet, this chapter shows that the EP’s involvement in equality policy differed from other social policy areas in one fundamental respect. Namely, MEPs’ activism in the area was largely unconnected from European integration concerns: i.e., the MEPs steering the EP’s discourse on equality did not promote Community action in the area first and foremost in pursuit of deepening political integration through the establishment of a wide-ranging European social dimension. Rather, they used tools and contacts available to them through their European mandates in order to pursue their more general policy ideas of gender equality. This chapter traces this important difference to the other case studies analysed in this book by first studying the EP’s general involvement in Community equality policy. It shows in an HI analysis that EP policy making developed for the most part in alignment to the Commission’s activism in the area. The analysis also demonstrates that two major (sets of) events shaped EP and Community policy making in different ways, namely the Empty Chair crisis of 1965, and various large-scale economic and societal changes in the 1970s. Whereas these events had a traceable impact on EP policy making, the analysis shows that what has been identified as critical junctures for Community policymaking as a whole did not

97 As shown, for instance, in Chapter 6 for the area of children and youth policy.

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have the same drastic effect on MEPs’ behaviour in the area of equality policy. Instead, different processes of more subtle gradual institutional change arising from the different events are identified above. In particular, the objectives pursued by the MEPs did not change, nor the principles of their activism for more comprehensive equality. Ruptures in Community policy making merely induced the delegates to adapt the instruments and strategies through which they sought to exert influence. The sociological institutionalist part of the analysis points out the main reason for the above-mentioned deviation of MEPs’ behaviour in comparison to the other social policy case studies analysed in this book. Namely, the comparatively low level of EP own initiatives concerning equality and the close alignment of the EP’s policy making with Commission initiatives were rooted first and foremost in the dominant policy ideas driving the activism of those MEPs most involved in the area. These policy ideas were largely unconnected from European integration. They had for the most part been formed and taken on by MEPs not so much in the context of their EP mandates, but based on contemporary circumstances, societal movements and ongoing debates concerning gender equality, and for some based on their previous engagement in the area. Overall, a relatively low number of MEPs led the equality debates in the EP, taking on the role as norm entrepreneurs in the area. Although a sufficient majority of MEPs supported the debate leaders’ ideas of equality to adopt detailed resolutions with concrete demands, there was not much parliamentary activism beyond the reaction to Commission initiatives. This can be explained not least with an eye on the polity ideas which this chapter traces in the EP’s equality policy: importantly, this area was rarely instrumentalised as another social policy measure to reach or promote closer institutional integration, e.g. by promoting the EP’s role as representative of all—male and female—citizens, or by seeking to strengthen its position in Community equality policy making. This absence of impactful polity ideas in the area may well have contributed to the low level of coordinated activism: some MEPs might have been won over to support EP activism in the area if they had perceived it to provide an added value in their common pursuit of empowering the EP, or reaching more integration in another sense. Since equality policy was, however, not treated as having such potential, only those became involved who wanted to promote matters of equality policy in itself. Nevertheless, through EP

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amendments taken up in Commission proposals and through parliamentary questions, MEPs’ activism in the area of equality policy contributed to the improvement of the rights and entitlements of (working) women in all member states.

References Beckwith, K. (2010). Beyond compare? Women’s movements in comparative perspective. In M. L. Krook & S. Childs (Eds.), Women, gender, and politics: A reader (pp. 29–36). Oxford University Press. Brewster, C., & Teague, P. (1989). European community social policy: Its impact on the UK. Institute of Personnel Management. Carson, M. (2004). From common market to social Europe? Paradigm shifts and institutional change in European Union policy on food, asbestos and chemicals, and gender equality. Department of Sociology, Stockholm University (doctoral thesis). di Sarcina, F. (2009). Une Assemblée pour l’égalité des chances. Origines de la Commission des droits de la femme du Parlement européen, 1979–1984. In M. Rasmussen & A.-C. L. Knudsen (Eds.), The road to a United Europe: Interpretations of the process of European integration (pp. 365–380). P.I.E. Peter Lang. Ellina, C. (2003). Promoting women’s rights: Politics of gender in the European Union. Routledge. Friis, H. (1984). Anti-poverty policies in Denmark. In J. C. Brown (Ed.), Antipoverty policy in the European community (pp. 93–99). Papers prepared for a working party. Policy Studies Institute. Hantrais, L. (2007). Social policy in the European Union. Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Hoskyns, C. (1996). Integrating gender: Women, law and politics in the European Union. Verso. Kantola, J. (2010). Gender and the European Union. Palgrave Macmillan. Kittilson, M. C. (2006). Challenging parties, changing parliaments: Women and elected office in contemporary Western Europe. The Ohio State University Press. Leibfried, S. (1998). Die soziale Dimension der Europäischen Integration. In H. Pfaffenberger (Ed.), Um eine sozialpolitische Kompetenz der EU (pp. 27–46). Schäuble Verlag. Mazey, S. (1998). The European Union and women’s rights: From the Europeanisation of national agendas to the nationalisation of a European agenda? In D. Hine & H. Kassim (Eds.), Beyond the market: The EU and national social policy. Routledge.

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Ostner, I., & Lewis, J. (1995). Gender and the evolution of European social policies. In S. Leibfried & P. Pierson (Eds.), European social policy: Between fragmentation and integration (pp. 159–193). The Brookings Institutions. Potton, M. W. (1994). Equal pay for equal work (Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome). In L. le Hardÿ de Beaulieu (Eds.), Du déficit démocratique à l’Europe des citoyens/From democratic deficit to an Europe for citizens (pp. 229–238). Presses universitaires de Namur. Rye, L. (2002). In quest of time, protection and approval: France and the claims for social harmonization in the European economic community, 1955–56. Journal of European Integration History, 8(1), 85–102. Rye, L. (2006). The rise and fall of the french demand for social harmonization in the EEC, 1955–19660. In K. Rücker & L. Warlouzet (Eds.), Quelle(s) Europe(s)? Nouvelles approches en histoire de l’intégration européenne [Which Europe(s)? New approaches in European integration history] (pp. 155–168). P.I.E. Peter Lang. Schulz, O. (1996). Maastricht und die Grundlagen einer Europäischen Sozialpolitik. Der Weg – Die Verhandlungen – Die Ergebnisse – Die Perspektiven. Carl Heymanns. Vallance, E., & Davis, E. (1986). Women of Europe: Women MEPs and equality policy. Cambridge University Press. van der Vleuten, A. (2007). The price of gender equality: Member states and governance in the European Union. Routledge. Vogel-Polsky, É. (1985). New social needs: The problems of women. In J. Vandamme (Ed.), New dimensions in European social policy (pp. 95–114). Croom Helm. Warner, H. (1984). EC social policy in practice: Community Action on behalf of women and its impact in the member states. Journal of Common Market Studies, 13(2), 141–167. Westlake, M. (1990). The origin and development of the question time procedure in the European Parliament (EUI Working Paper, 90/4). EUI.

CHAPTER 6

Forging Europe’s Next Generations: The European Parliament’s Children and Youth Policy

6.1

Introduction

In 1954, three years before the Treaties of Rome were signed, MEPs entered into what a report of the EP’s Committee on Social Affairs would 21 years later call the “crusade to help young people” in the European Communities.1 At a time when the only adopted Community Treaty— the ECSC Treaty—contained no mention of children and youth, MEPs put these two groups on the EP’s social agenda, aiming to point out young persons’ right to be included in Community social policy. From that point, children and youth formed a focus group of EP engagement in social policy. While this chapter does not present a case of predominant success for the EP prior to 1979—contrary to the previous and following chapters— but might rather be seen as underlining the powerless role of the EP at the time, it provides insights into the factors driving the MEPs’ activism at the time. Particularly with regard to ideational factors, the findings of this 1 See Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on the resolution of the Council of Ministers of Education meeting within the Council of 13 December 1976 concerning measures to be taken to improve the preparation of young people for work and to facilitate their transition from education to working life, 7 February 1978 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A0-0513!770010EN_01277878), p. 13.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Roos, The Parliamentary Roots of European Social Policy, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78233-7_6

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chapter help understand the delegates’ (at times more successful) activism in other case studies and policy areas during the same period. Indeed, the area of children and youth policy can be considered one of the clearest examples of ideas-driven EP activism prior to the EP’s direct elections. The MEPs had to accept very limited Treaty provisions and Community competences in an area to which the EP dedicated high importance. Yet, the narrow Treaty basis allowed MEPs to develop from scratch their own institutional stance, which they tried to turn into the official Community position—at times with success, though more often in vain. Through the analysis of MEPs’ strategies and underlying ideas, this case study therefore helps explain the MEPs’ activist involvement in Community social policy making more generally. For this chapter, children are defined as anyone who is in legal terms under age, and dependent upon an adult guardian, in accordance with the Community definition at the time.2 The group of youth was defined in Community policy as including every young person under 25, currently in the last years of school, higher education, training, or within the first few years of employment.3 This case study analyses the EP’s policy concerning children and youth together, even though these two groups of young persons were subject to different Community action. The reason for taking both groups together is not only the overlap in terms of age, but also the fact that all persons belonging to either of the two groups had a rather weak political lobby, and most of them were nonvoters. In addition, as will be elaborated below, the Communities did not have any noteworthy competences in the area of children and youth policy.4 The most important connection of children and youth in this analysis, however, is the underlying ideational motivation of MEPs to try 2 See i.a. Notice to Members by the Committee on Budgets, 10 November 1976 (PE0_AP_RP!BUDG.1973_A0-0363!762140EN_104009), p. 1 of the annex. 3 See i.a. Draft Commission Recommendation on Vocational Preparation for young people who are unemployed or threatened by unemployment (C(76) 1207/3, 9 August 1976), discussed during plenary debate on 18 November 1976 (PE0_AP_DE!1976_DE19761118-049900EN_9394423); speech by Commissioner Hendrikus Vredeling during plenary debate on 10 April 1978 (PE0_AP_DE!1978_DE19780410-029900EN_9395053), p. 21. 4 This chapter does not look at vocational training policy—a policy area equally focusing mainly on young persons. The area of vocational training policy, however, does not show as clearly the MEPs’ ideas. In addition, MEPs were not as activist (active, but not activist) in this area as they were in the area of children and youth policy, not least since there was

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to initiate, deepen and extend Community policies concerning these two groups. MEPs engaged in Community policy on children and youth in the pursuit of presenting the EP as the representative of the people’s interests at Community level, and with the aim to educate the next generations of Europeans on the values of closer integration—indeed, to forge young pro-Europeans. In EP children and youth policy, the “young generation” served thus as target group to create over time “a collective that claims (or is believed) to have a common identity, common experiences, and, most importantly, a political mission for the future of the […] Community”.5 The chapter opens with two brief overview sections on Community children and youth policy, and on the EP’s involvement in the area. The analysis of the MEPs’ behaviour in children and youth policy is separated in two parts, based on the applied HSI approach. First, Sect. 6.4 discusses the policy and polity ideas underlying MEPs’ activism in the area, and shows that in the case of children and youth policy, these two types of ideas cannot be distinguished as clearly as in other social policy areas. Section 6.5 then discusses the constraining as well as enabling role of Treaty articles in MEPs’ children- and youth-related activism, and sheds light on endogenous and exogenous factors influencing MEPs’ usage of different policy-making tools in the area, resulting in different processes of gradual institutional change.

6.2 Community Social Policy Concerning Children and Youth During the period under consideration, the European Communities had no distinct children or youth policy. Most political action and legislation concerning the young citizens of the member states was located at national or regional level. If European cooperation took places at the time—crucially in the area of education and training—it happened mainly under the responsibility of the Council of Europe, and was nonbinding.6 At the foundation of the European Communities, no children or youth policy at European level was intended. Indeed, the ECSC Treaty

more overall Community action concerning vocational training, based on a sound Treaty basis. See Arts. 56 ECSC, 41 EEC, 118 EEC, 125 EEC, 128 EEC. 5 Norwig (2014: 253). 6 See Pépin (2007: 122); Harribey (2002).

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did not mention either children or youth, nor did the Euratom Treaty. Only the EEC Treaty contained a direct reference to young persons: Art. 50 EEC stated that “Member States shall, under a common programme, encourage the exchange of young workers”. The first—and for several years the only—Community action concerning young people was indeed the creation of youth exchange schemes, the first of which was established in 1964.7 They were relatively easy and inexpensive to organise, and aroused no opposition from the member states, since they did not interfere in national competences. The Commission, however—and also the EP, as discussed below—saw such exchange programmes as a means to create a European consciousness among young generations.8 Around the same time—in the early 1960s—children first entered the Community agenda, in the context of the free movement of labour.9 In general, Community policy measures concerning children remained largely side products of other initiatives prior to 1979. A proper education for migrant workers’ children remained one of the few recurring issues of children policy on which the member states could agree.10 Child-related Community measures focussed mostly on education prior to 1979. Within the period under consideration, measures were adopted,

7 See the First Programme on the exchange of young workers within the Community (64/307/EEC) (OJ 78, 22 May 1964, pp. 1226–1228). 8 See Brewster and Teague (1989: 63). 9 See i.a. Decision No. 37 of 26 January 1962 on the interpretation of Art. 42 of

Regulation No. 3 (in the version of Regulation No. 16) concerning family allowances for orphans and children of pension beneficiaries (OJ P33, 4 May 1962, pp. 1103 et seq.); Council Directive of 25 February 1964 on the abolition of restrictions on movement and residence within the Community for nationals of Member States with regard to establishment and the provision of services (64/220/EEC) (OJ P56, 4 April 1964, p. 845); Regulation (EEC) No. 1612/68 of the Council of 15 October 1968 on freedom of movement for workers within the Community, Arts. 11-12; Regulation (EEC) No. 1408/71 of the Council of 14 June 1971 on the application of social security schemes to employed persons and their families moving within the Community, Arts. 77–79; Council Decision of 27 June 1974 on action by the European Social Fund for migrant workers (74/327/EEC), Art. 3. 10 See e.g. Council Directive 77/486/EEC of 25 July 1977 on the education of the children of migrant workers.

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for instance, on special aid for girls,11 or support for language training12 and the instruction of children about health and safety risks.13 In addition, some Community action dealt with disadvantaged children, or with children of disadvantaged persons. Already in the 1960s, for instance, the EEC offered scholarships to children of Italian sulphur mine workers affected by dismissal.14 Educational grants were also paid to children of farmers of reduced means.15 In 1978, the Commission began to initiate support for disabled children.16 Moreover, children appeared as a group deserving specific attention and support in the Communities’ fight against poverty.17 A broader common policy in children’s favour, however, developed only from the 1990s, based not least on the EP’s persistent pushing for European-level action.18 The economic and financial crisis of the 1970s gave a noteworthy impetus for the intensification of Community measures in favour of young persons, whose position in the labour market worsened considerably through the crisis. Between 1974 and 1975 alone, the number of unemployed youth almost doubled in the Communities.19 In the late 1970s, in all member states more than 30 per cent of the unemployed were 24 or

11 See i.a. Education action programme at Community level: Equal opportunities in education and training for girls (second level education) (Com(78) 499 final), 3 October 1978. 12 See i.a. Education action programme at Community level: The teaching of languages in the Community (Com(78) 222 final), 14 June 1978. 13 See i.a. Council Resolution of 29 June 1978 on an action programme of the European Communities on safety and health at work (OJ C165, 11 July 1978, p. 12). 14 See Council Decision 66/740/EEC of 22 December 1966 on Community aid for the Italian Republic towards the granting of assistance to sulphur mine workers affected by dismissal and of a number of scholarships for their children. 15 See i.a. Council Resolution of 25 May 1971 on the new guidelines for the common agricultural policy (OJ L114, 26 May 1971, p. 47). 16 See Commission of the European Communities (1980): Special education in the European Community. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. 17 See i.a. Report from the Commission to the Council on the European programme of pilot schemes to combat poverty, 1976 (Com(76) 718 final), 13 January 1977, which contains several mentions of programmes in favour of children. 18 See Pringle (1998: 137 et seq. and 145 et seqq.); Ruxton (1996: 23 et seqq.). 19 See Deliège-Rott (1980: 111).

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younger, with Italy having the highest rate of more than 60 per cent.20 A factor contributing to the rapidly rising unemployment numbers was an overall increased number of young jobseekers, notably because of the high birth rates of the late 1950s and 1960s, and because more women entered the labour markets than before.21 Companies as well as politicians focused first and foremost on protecting existing employment, so that entering the labour market became particularly hard.22 As the crisis unfolded, young people looking for their first employment often had to accept jobs in firms and sectors highly sensitive to economic trends, and jobs that did not come with proper initial training, or with a chance of permanent employment.23 As a consequence, Community policy measures concerning youth focused in the 1970s strongly on helping young people to find employment. In 1975, following the Social Action Programme of 1974, ESF support was opened for unemployed young people and for vocational training.24 In 1976, the Communities’ education ministers adopted a resolution on measures to better prepare young people for working life, and to facilitate their transition from education to work.25 Indeed, up to the SEA, Community policy concerning young persons focused almost exclusively on the preparation for working life, with a specific emphasis on vocational training. A broader youth policy only began to develop from the late 1980s. “Youth for Europe”—the first large-scale Community mobility programme for youth—was introduced in 1988.26 Until today, European youth policy has not become a full EU competence, but remains complementary to national policies. 20 See European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (1983): Youth unemployment and vocational training. An attempt to summarize the most important conclusions drawn during five years of work on the subject. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, pp. 8 et seq. 21 See Shanks (1977: 20 et seq.); Debate on unemployment among young people, 10 April 1978 (PE0_AP_DE!1978_DE19780410-029900EN_9395053), 20 et seq. 22 See Deliège-Rott (1980: 112). 23 See European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (1983): Youth

unemployment and vocational training. An attempt to summarize the most important conclusions drawn during five years of work on the subject. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, p. 6. 24 See Deliège-Rott (1980: 113). 25 See Resolution of the Council and of the Ministers of Education, meeting within the

Council, of 9 February 1976 comprising an action programme in the field of education (OJ C 38, 19 February 1976, pp. 1–5). 26 See Devlin (2010: 66 et seq.).

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The European Parliament’s Policy Concerning Children and Youth

The European Parliament had no say in Community policy concerning children and youth according to the Treaties, not least given the barely existent basis of Treaty provisions in the area. Nonetheless, young persons entered the EP’s agenda just one and a half years after the EP was created, and only a year after it took up its political work: in early 1954, the Committee on Social Affairs proposed that young coal miners and workers in the iron and steel industry should spend part of their training in a country other than their home country, in order to increase young persons’ mobility. MEPs furthermore proposed to create ECSC stipends for language courses to facilitate such mobility.27 Although the High Authority answered the MEPs’ proposal for training exchanges with reserve regarding the implementation and efficiency of such mobility schemes,28 the EP continued to propose exchange programmes within the Community. Importantly, the EP swiftly went beyond the very narrow focus of children and youth measures limited to education and training. In addition to measures relevant in the young persons’ preparation for the job market, MEPs demanded a strong cultural dimension of children- and youth-related measures which would give the Communities’ young citizens a feeling of connectedness and solidarity. From the 1950s, the MEPs promoted measures to educate children and youth in favour of the Communities, to involve young European citizens in the political processes at Community levels, and to create spaces for exchange and dialogue.29

27 See Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on Chapter V of the Second General Report about the activity of the ECSC from 13 April 1953 to 11 April 1954 (employment issues), May 1954 (AC_AP_RP!ASOC.1953_AC-0018!54-mai0010DE), p. 17. 28 The Commission included the exchange of trainees only in the COMMET programme of 1986. See Council Decision 86/365/EEC of 24 July 1986 adopting the programme on cooperation between universities and enterprises regarding training in the field of technology (OJ L222, 8 August 1986, pp. 17–21). 29 A range of examples is discussed in Sect. 6.4 below.

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Given that the member states did not pursue a common children and youth policy during the period under consideration beyond some scattered measures, mostly aiming to correct imbalances, the area of children and youth policy can be considered one of the policy areas were the EP was least successful in influencing Community legislation. The majority of EP amendments to the few proposals which the Commission presented failed. Among them was an EP demand to leave more space for cultural initiatives in the first EEC exchange programme for young workers of 1964. The MEPs had emphasised that the programme should contribute not only to the participants’ qualification, but that the programme’s real value would lie in its contribution to shaping young people’s personalities—which the Council was unwilling to accept.30 All amendments proposed by the EP to the above-mentioned 1977 Directive on the education of migrant workers’ children were equally rejected, such as a bicultural education for migrants’ children, the extension of reception facilities for migrant families, harmonised curricula with respect to different cultural environments, improved exchange of teaching aids, and better information of migrant workers with regard to their rights and responsibilities concerning their children’s schooling.31 In the case of a Regulation on ESF aid for young people in 1978, the rejection of EP amendments is particularly noteworthy given that the EP was formally granted some influence on the regulation of the ESF by the EEC Treaty.32 Nonetheless, the EP called in vain—amongst others—for “a comprehensive and precise set of rules” supporting regions with particularly high unemployment, and for special support for young women and long-term unemployed.33 The only adaptation of this Commission

30 Resolution on the draft for a first Community exchange programme for young workers, 28 November 1963 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A00100!630010DE_00700358). 31 Resolution on the Commission proposal for a Directive on the education of the children of migrant workers, 13 November 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!JEUN.1973_A00375!750001EN_0001). 32 See Chapter 7. 33 See Resolution on the Commission proposals for a Regulation concerning the

creation of a new European Social Fund aid in favour of young persons, and a Decision amending Decision 75/459/EEC of 22 July 1975 on action by the European Social Fund for persons affected by employment difficulties, as amended by Decision 77/802/EEC of 20 December 1977, 9 May 1978 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A0-0088!780001EN_0001).

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proposal that can be ascribed to the EP resolution was the introduction of support for the creation of jobs that would offer young people working experience “with a vocational content”—the EP had called for “paid practical training schemes”.34 Given the limited number and narrow scope of Commission proposals and resulting legislation in the area, the EP’s children and youth policy consisted to a significant part of own initiatives. However, such selfinitiated action of the MEPs rarely had an impact, or showed consequences only after several years—sometimes decades—of pushing and reminding. Those cases in which the EP amended or initiated Community action successfully were mostly non-binding—like Commission recommendations35 or communications36 —or did not come with a bill, like the creation of a European Youth Orchestra (discussed in more detail below). The numerous cases of failed EP action in the area demonstrate that the MEPs’ ideas concerning a Community children and youth policy were rarely supported by the Council. In general, the reluctance of the member states to transfer sovereignty in the area of children and youth policy to Community level can be considered the biggest obstacle to MEPs’ ambitions. If the Council involved the EP in related decision-making, usually via consultation, it arguably did so based on the previously discussed pursuit of more democratic legitimacy of Community policies. Accepting EP amendments or supporting its initiatives, however, was not considered necessary in order to reach such increased legitimacy, as shown by the many rejected EP amendments to proposals on which the Council consulted Parliament.37

34 Council Regulation (EEC) No. 3039/78 of 18 December 1978 on the creation of two new types of aid for young people from the European Social Fund (OJ No. L361, 23 December 1978, p. 3), Art. 1; EP Resolution, paragraph 10. 35 See Resolution on a Commission proposal to the member states concerning the protection of young people at work, 18 January 1966 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A00113!650001DE_0001). 36 See Resolution on the communication from the Commission of the European Communities to the Council on measures to be taken in application of section 16 of the Hague Communiqué: recommendation for a Decision setting up a Committee for Youth Questions, recommendation for a Decision setting up a Youth Advisory Committee, 11 June 1974 (PE0_AP_RP!JEUN.1973_A0-0041!740001EN_0001). 37 See i.a. amendments proposed by Resolution on the Commission proposal for a Directive on the education of the children of migrant workers, 13 November 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!JEUN.1973_A0-0375!750001EN_0001); and Council Directive

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As in other social policy areas, the Commission mainly involved the EP because it considered Parliament an ally, sharing the policy idea of the necessity to convince young citizens of the values and benefits of European integration for closer integration. The Commission frequently consulted the EP on its youth-related proposals—mostly without reference to a specific Treaty article as basis—and usually discussed its draft proposals with the responsible EP committees.38 Given the Council’s reluctance to adopt legislation concerning children and youth at Community level, Commissioners occasionally asked MEPs to promote certain measures at the level at which children and youth policy was usually decided: in the national parliaments.39 While communication between the EP and the Commission in the area was frequent and—notably at committee level—genuinely open, it did not lead to a considerable increase in the EP’s influence on Community policy making, first and foremost because of the few Community initiatives in the area. The importance of the EP attached to children and youth issues prior to 1979 despite the many failed attempts of involvement is evident in Fig. 6.1. Out of the 3784 EP documents on social policy which have been consulted for this research, youth and children are addressed in 780. This means that 17 per cent—or roughly every sixth EP document on social policy—touched upon children and youth issues. Not all of these documents focused exclusively on children or youth. Frequent references to both groups over the years, however, point to the important role MEPs ascribed to the Community’s young citizens in fostering closer European integration. Indeed, MEPs considered policy 77/486/EEC of 25 July 1977 on the education of the children of migrant workers (OJ L199, 06 August 1977, pp. 32–33). 38 See i.a. speech by Cornelis Berkhouwer during plenary debate on 28 November 1962 (PE0_AP_DE!1963_DE19631128-039900DE_9302770), p. 174; speech by Leon-Eli Troclet during plenary debate on 18 January 1966 (PE0_AP_DE!1965_DE19660118029900DE_9303458), p. 14; Opinion by the Committee on Budgetary Affairs on the Commission proposals for a regulation concerning the creation of a new European Social Fund aid in favour of young persons and a Council decision amending Decision 75/459/EEC of 21 July 1975 on action by the European Social Fund for persons affected by employment difficulties, amended by Decision 77/802/EEC of 20 December 1977, 9 May 1978 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A0-0088!780060EN_00001000), p. 8. 39 See i.a. speech by Commissioner Albert Borschette during plenary debate on 15 September 1970 (PE0_AP_DE!1970_DE19700915-019900DE_9306641), p. 14; speech by Commissioner Hendrikus Vredeling during plenary debate on 12 January 1977 (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H-0238!760015EN_01386381), p. 65.

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Fig. 6.1 Percentage of EP documents concerning children and youth among all EP documents on social policy consulted for this research

measures in their favour so important that, in 1978, a resolution was adopted providing for the creation of an EP committee solely responsible for “education, vocational training and youth”.40 This committee, however, was not established; instead, children and youth issues remained in the portfolios of the two previously responsible EP committees: the Committees on Social and on Cultural Affairs. Figure 6.1 shows that youth issues were on the EP’s agenda considerably more often than issues concerning children. This had two main underlying reasons: on the one hand, MEPs aimed in many of their youth-related initiatives at providing the next generations with a European education, hoping for the formation of a European way of thinking and possibly identity, as is analysed in more detail below. Children were considered too young for many education initiatives, or for involvement in the process of European integration. Some EP initiatives that included provisions for young persons to spend some time in another member state 40 See Resolution on the resolution of the Council and of the Ministers of Education meeting within the Council of 13 December 1976 concerning measures to be taken to improve the preparation of young people for work and to facilitate their transition from education to working life, 14 February 1978 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A00513!770001EN_0001).

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were further expected to cause home sickness and insufficiently processed impressions, rather than the desired result of strengthened European knowledge and identity.41

6.4 Teaching the Next Generation the Values of Integration: The Ideational Basis of the EP’s Children and Youth Policy This section discusses the interwoven policy and polity ideas underlying and driving MEPs’ activism in the area of children and youth policy. Indeed, in the present case study, the otherwise applied sub-categorisation of ideas in policy and polity ideas is difficult—i.e. in ideas pursuing the strengthening of a comprehensive Community social policy, and those aspiring to the eventual creation of a European Union through the gradual extension of Community competences and the empowerment of supranational institutions. The dominating policy ideas of a European youth that was well-educated and -qualified, enabled to find and stay in employment, and feel appreciated and at home throughout the Communities were pursued by the MEPs not merely for the sake of improving young people’s living and working conditions. The Communities should also ensure these favourable living and working conditions so that the member states’ young citizens would appreciate the Communities, would be induced to stand up for Europe, and would become involved in the common cause of ever closer union which the majority of MEPs pursued. Seeking to implement these aims, the EP’s children and youth policy provided for far more than mere tools of job preparation. Indeed, MEPs’ children- and youth-related activism was driven by the dominating idea of raising generations of Europeans in favour of the Community project, and willing to get involved in the construction of a more integrated Europe.42 Naturally, there was no agreement among MEPs on how the

41 See i.a. speech by Giovanni Maria Angioy during plenary debate on 9 May 1966 (PE0_AP_DE!1966_DE19660509-039900DE_9303582), p. 12. 42 See e.g. Resolution on the 1974/75 Information Programme of the Commission

of the European Communities, 12 June 1974 (PE0_AP_RP!JEUN.1973_A00106!740001EN_0001); Written Question 355/70 by Pierre-Bernard Cousté to the Council, 18 November 1970 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0355!700010DE_137319); Written Question 365/71 by Francis Vals to the Commission, 20 October 1971 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0365!710010DE_158625); Question 122/76 by Pierre-Bernard

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future Europe should look in detail. Those who were active in the area of children and youth policy, however, shared the policy idea of Community measures helping to achieve that the young citizens of the member states should be well informed about the Communities, should be educated about the different member states, cultures and at least some of the languages, and should on this basis be(come) willing to participate in the creation of a closer Community. This dominant idea with a clear policy and polity dimension can be traced throughout the entire period of the EP’s development prior to 1979, and was officially promoted from the mid-1950s onwards. The European(ised) education of children and youth as a notable part of the endeavour to create a public that felt connected to the integration project was first proposed—unsuccessfully—by the EP Committee on Social Affairs and the Socialist Group in May 1955. In a notice, MEPs called on the High Authority to initiate the organisation of Mediterranean holidays for children of workers in the coal and steel industries. On the one hand, these vacations were expected to be beneficial for the children’s health. More importantly, however, they were seen on the other hand as an opportunity to bring together children from different nationalities: these French, German, Luxembourgish, Dutch, [Belgian,] Italian children, who would spend a month each year together on Mediterranean beaches, would transform their nationalism into a new internationalism of best quality, and would learn to feel European in the broadest and most profound sense, since they would know that they owe this healthy joy neither to their own families nor their own countries, but to [the Community].43

Cousté during Question Time on 13 October 1976 (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H0122!760015EN_01385739); speeches by Hans Merten, Diomède Catroux, Mario Pedini and Giovanni Bersani during plenary debate on 9 May 1966 (PE0_AP_DE!1966_DE19660509-039900DE_9303582); speech by Thomas Nolan during plenary debate on 14 February 1978 (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19780214059900EN_9407172), p. 103, in which he ascribed to “the youth of today” the role of becoming “the Members of this Parliament tomorrow”; speech by Heinz Schreiber during plenary debate on 23 April 1979 (PE0_AP_DE!1979_DE19790423039900EN_9319311), p. 17: “we firmly believe in the need for European integration and development and we also believe that this can only be achieved with the help of our young people”. 43 Translated by the author; original quote: “ces enfants français, allemands, luxembourgeois, néerlandais, italiens, [Belgian children are indeed not mentioned] qui iraient

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This illustrates that MEPs pursued the long-term idea of making “Europe mean anything at all to the majority of people”.44 A precondition for a commonly shared positive notion of the European project was some basic knowledge about the Communities. MEPs therefore saw a common children and youth policy as one way to meet “the need for a loyal attitude on the part of the public so that it will cooperate in the realisation of the process of European integration, the aim of which is the creation of a European Union”.45 Adding some input on the functioning and benefits of the Communities to education and training schemes seemed like a relatively easy way to spread Community-related knowledge. Children and youth thus became a target audience of MEPs’ attempts to improve public knowledge and opinion of the Communities, mainly because they were exposed to some form of educational input as it was. To this education, the MEPs tried to add a European dimension, with information on the Communities, on the member states’ cultural heritage, and on additional Community languages. Once instilled into pupils, students and trainees, the delegates hoped that favourable information about European integration would turn young people into life-long supporters of the Communities.46 MEPs pushed for education schemes on European integration and the Communities’ institutions already from the ECSC years. In the mid1950s, for instance, the Committee on Social Affairs called on the High Authority to organise seminars for young workers in the ECSC industries, in order to teach them about the functioning of the Community. Indeed, the members of the Committee on Social Affairs became active themselves

passer ensemble un mois chaque année sur une plage de la Méditerrannée transformeraient leur nationalisme en un internationalisme nouveau du meilleur aloi et apprendraient à se sentir Européens au sens le plus large et le plus profond du mot, lorsqu’ils sauraient qu’ils doivent cette joie saine, non pas à leurs propres familles, ni à leur propre patrie, mais à un organisme qui est l’expression de six pays d’Europe liés et dirigés par un organisme supranational.” See Note by Alessandro Schiavia concerning a Community intervention in favour of miners’ children, 18 May 1955 (AC_AP_RP!ASOC.1953_AC-0046!55-mai0040FR_0311030), p. 4 et seq. 44 Speech by Lady Fisher of Rednal during plenary debate on 8 March 1976 (PE0_AP_DE!1975_DE19760308-049900EN_9308336), pp. 20 et seq. 45 Resolution on the 1974/75 Information Programme of the Commission of the European Communities, 12 June 1974 (PE0_AP_RP!JEUN.1973_A00106!740001EN_0001). 46 See Roos (2021).

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as “teachers” about the ECSC and the EP’s role in it: MEPs repeatedly joined the seminars subsequently organised by the High Authority, and told young workers about the EP’s work, particularly in the area of social policy, and about their ideas for a social Europe.47 An important EP initiative in this regard was the creation of the so-called Kreyssig Fund. In 1959, the EP adopted a resolution based on a report by the German Socialist MEP Gerhard Kreyssig, which proposed a fund with the aim of promoting information on the European Communities among children and youth, and of encouraging their political participation.48 The fund was established in 1960, with an initial amount of ca. 1.4 million units of account available for projects falling under its scope.49 MEPs also sought to include education on the Communities directly into school education curricula. In 1975, the EP Committee on Cultural Affairs and Youth demanded in the context of a draft directive on the education of migrant workers’ children that school systems were to be “pluricultural” from nursery level in all member states, and that “bilingualism, at least, must be introduced in all schools”.50 Such adapted education should equally foster an understanding of young citizens for the Communities’ different cultures, and contribute to a greater feeling of unity.51 The idea of connecting Europe’s youth and instilling in them a feeling of community and solidarity hence dominated not merely MEPs’ own initiatives, but the delegates also attempted to introduce this idea into Commission proposals—though usually without success.

47 See Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on Chapter VII of the Fourth General Report on the activities of the ECSC (11 April 1955–8 April 1956), June 1956 (AC_AP_RP!ASOC.1953_AC-0025!56-mai0010DE), p. 9 et seq. 48 See Newbury (1985): 88; EP plenary debate on (PE0_AP_DE!1966_DE19660509-039900DE_9303582), p. 19.

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49 See Commission (2006: 131). 50 Report by the Committee on Cultural Affairs and Youth on the Commission proposal

for a directive on the education of the children of migrant workers, 12 November 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!JEUN.1973_A0-0375!750010EN_034794), p. 13; Resolution on the Commission proposal for a Directive on the education of the children of migrant workers, 13 November 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!JEUN.1973_A0-0375!750001EN_0001). 51 See also Oral Question No. 5/67 with debate on initiatives in favour of youth and adult education, 19 June 1967 (PE0_AP_DE!1967_DE19670619-059900DE_9305621); Oral Question No. 46/77 with debate on the education of children of migrant workers, 14 September 1977 (PE0_AP_QP!QO_O-0046!770010EN_238077).

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One major obstacle stood in the way of MEPs’ activism to promote the(ir) European cause: the Communities had no say in the regulation of curricula in school education or vocational training. These competences lay in some member states in national, in others (such as Italy and Germany) in regional legislators’ hands.52 The EP as well as the other Community institutions could hence at best propose that certain contents be included in curricula, but could not adopt any binding provisions. Yet, this did not stop MEPs from frequently promoting a more Europeanised education of the member states’ young citizens, which underlines once more the impact of MEPs’ shared polity ideas on their behaviour.53 In addition to Europeanised curricula, many of the initiatives proposed by MEPs concerned extracurricular activities which were compatible with Treaty provisions and Community competences. Among these extracurricular activities promoted by MEPs were different Community exchange schemes, as mentioned above. During the EP plenary debate on the Commission proposal for a second joint exchange programme in April 1979, the rapporteur of the Committee on Social Affairs and Italian Christian-Democratic MEP Maria Luisa Cassanmagnago Cerretti emphasised “that the preparation and introduction of young people to the exchange programme will eventually help to bring home the European ideal”.54 Her fellow countrywoman, the Communist MEP Vera Squarcialupi, confirmed in the same debate that the “ideal of European integration would remain a hopeless dream without these links [created through exchanges among young people], which should serve to unite the youth of Europe and, through them, also the rest of the populations”.55 MEPs proposed various forms of such fora allowing young people to meet, enter into exchanges with other young Community citizens and 52 This issue was pointed out i.a. by Ferruccio Pisoni during plenary debate on 14 February 1978 (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19780214-059900EN_9407172), p. 101. 53 See for instance speech by Wilhelm Dröscher during plenary debate on 19 June 1967 (PE0_AP_DE!1967_DE19670619-059900DE_9305621), p. 19; Resolution on the Communities’ education and youth policy, 8 February 1972 (PE0_AP_RP!POLI.1961_A0-0232!710001DE_0001); Resolution on the draft directive on the education of migrant workers’ children, 13 November 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!JEUN.1973_A0-0375!750001EN_0001). 54 Speech by Maria Luisa Cassanmagnago Cerretti during plenary debate on 23 April 1979 (PE0_AP_DE!1979_DE19790423-039900EN_9319311), p. 17. 55 Speech by Vera Squarcialupi, ibid., p. 20.

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make pleasant experiences of togetherness over the years. In 1966, for instance, the EP called in a resolution for the creation of a European sports badge56 : young people’s feeling of European solidarity should be strengthened through participation in common sports activities.57 The EP Committee on Research and Cultural Affairs even raised the future possibility of a single team jointly representing the Communities at the Olympic Games.58 However, the MEPs emphasised explicitly that the sports badge should not be an elite project, achievable merely for “Sportskanonen”,59 or sports stars. Indeed, the French, Italian and German versions of the EP resolution calling for the introduction of such a badge included the word “people’s” (“brevet sportif populaire européen” /“brevetto sportivo popolare europeo” /“Volkssportabzeichen”).60 This shows the broader idea underlying the initiative: the badge should appeal to the average young citizen, and should promote the European Communities and the idea of integration in a very simple and easily accessible way. In the mid-1960s, the EP also discussed the introduction of a European youth office, with the task to promote connections among the European youth, which were hoped to have a “noteworthy impact on the evolution of a European awareness”.61 A plenary debate on the creation 56 It should be noted that the idea of a sports badge did not come from the EP, but from the Council of Europe, which had introduced a similar badge already in 1953, although limited to young persons aged 16–18. The EP looked repeatedly to the Council of Europe for inspiration and cooperation in the area of youth policy prior to 1979, for instance also with regard to the creation of a youth fund, and the establishment of a European youth office. See i.a. Eberhard (2002); Williamson (2007); Resolution on youth and education policy in the Communities, 8 February 1972 (PE0_AP_RP!POLI.1961_A00232!710001DE_0001); Oral Question No. 17/69 with debate, 15 September 1970 (PE0_AP_DE!1970_DE19700915-019900DE_9306641). 57 See Resolution on the creation of a European sports badge, 10 March 1966 (PE0_AP_RP!RECH.1961_A0-0012!660001DE_0001). 58 See Report by the Committee on Cultural Affairs on the creation of a European sports badge, 7 March 1966 (PE0_AP_RP!RECH.1961_A0-0012!660010DE_001071), p. 3. 59 Ibid. 60 The Dutch translation referred instead to a ‘general European sports diploma’

(“algemeen Europees sportdiploma” ). See OJ P53, 24 March 1966, p. 772. 61 Translated by the author; original quote: “einen beachtlichen Einfluß auf die Bildung eines europäischen Bewußtseins”. See Motion for a resolution concerning the creation of a European Youth Office, 21 January 1965 (PE0_AP_PR_B0-0137!640010DE_00719612).

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of such a youth office in May 1966 reveals once more the interwovenness of policy and polity ideas in children and youth policy. Several MEPs pointed out how instrumental the achievement of a European awareness among young people would be in the process of constructing a united Europe. The Italian Christian Democrat Carlo Scarascia Mugnozza, for instance, declared that the youth office could become the fundament for the education of young Europeans who were to be in the vanguard of the future Europe.62 The Italian Christian Democrat Giovanni Bersani stated moreover that the youth office would not only be helpful to inform and involve the European youth; it would also help secure a wider basis of support for the EP in the population.63 The Italian Liberal MEP Giovanni Maria Angioy went so far as to announce that the creation of a European youth office would be a necessary step on the way to melting the individual member states into one European nation.64 Similar thoughts were expressed during a second debate on the youth office in June 1967—even by the French delegate Hervé Laudrin, speaking for the European Democratic Union, which was considered the only (to some extent) Eurosceptic group in the EP at the time.65 Delegates across all party groups of the EP supported hence not only the creation of a European youth office, but shared such ideas of ever closer union. Yet, hardly any Community action followed the MEPs’ passionate pleas: the only direct consequence was that the Commission slightly increased funding for the information of youth.66 For five years following the first EP resolution calling for the creation of a youth office in 1966,67

62 See speech by Carlo Scarascia Mugnozza during plenary debate on 9 May 1966 (PE0_AP_DE!1966_DE19660509-039900DE_9303582), p. 10. 63 See speech by Giovanni Bersani, ibid., p. 18. 64 See speech by Giovanni Maria Angioy, ibid., p. 12. 65 See speech by Hervé Laudrin during plenary debate following Oral Question

5/67 by the Committee on Energy, Research and Cultural Affairs to the High Authority and both Commissions, 19 June 1967 (PE0_AP_DE!1967_DE19670619059900DE_9305621), pp. 15 et seqq. 66 See Oral question No. 17/69 by the Committee on Political Affairs, 6 February 1970 (PE0_AP_QP!QO_O-0017!690010DE_235565). 67 Resolution on the creation of a European Youth Office, 9 May 1966 (PE0_AP_RP!RECH.1961_A0-0052!660001DE_0001).

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MEPs tried to push both the Commission and the Council through questions and motions for resolutions; but to no avail.68 After 1970, the idea of a Community youth office was abandoned in the EP. A European Youth Foundation relatively similar to the EP plans for a youth office was created by the Council of Europe in 1972; it still exists today.69 The European Youth Orchestra—also still existing today70 —was one of the few successful EP initiatives in the area of children and youth policy which MEPs promoted based on the policy idea of connecting Europe’s youth among each other, as well as with the Communities. The orchestra had been proposed in late 1975 by British MEPs, who gained the support of the Committee on Cultural Affairs and Youth.71 It was based on the International Festival of Youth Orchestras Foundation, which had declared its willingness to take over the organisation and—importantly—the funding. The initiating MEPs merely asked for the Community’s “official sanction and sponsorship of the project”.72 Given that no costs arose for the Community, the Commission agreed swiftly, and the orchestra was set up in spring 1976. According to the British Conservative MEP Elaine Kellett-Bowman, one of the initiators, the orchestra was supposed to show the population “that a Europe exists which is not solely an economic grouping”; and it should teach the Communities’ young citizens “that a common bond exists between them – that of a shared cultural heritage”.73 The EP emphasised its role as advocate of the Communities’ youth particularly during the 1970s, in times of rising unemployment numbers following the outbreak of the economic and financial crisis. Despite a Community-level focus on youth unemployment, the EP discourse on

68 See i.a. Written question No. 470/69 by Mr. Ramaekers to the Commission, 12 February 1970 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0470!690010DE_128339); Motion for a resolution on the creation of a European youth office, 15 September 1970 (PE0_AP_PR_B00114!700010DE_009495). 69 See https://www.coe.int/en/web/european-youth-foundation/who-we-are visit 17 February 2021).

(last

70 See http://www.euyo.eu/ (last visit 17 February 2021). 71 See Report by the Committee on Cultural Affairs and Youth on the motion for

a resolution submitted by Mrs Kellett-Bowman on the formation of an EEC Youth Orchestra, 2 March 1976 (PE0_AP_RP!JEUN.1973_A0-0537!750010EN_032957). 72 Ibid., p. 6. 73 Both ibid.

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youth policy measures was not limited to work-related issues. MEPs outlined repeatedly the ideational dimension of youth unemployment, fearing that it might lead young persons to be disappointed in the Communities, which according to the MEPs bore “the risk of utterly destroying the coming generations’ faith in Europe”.74 In a 1978 debate, the Italian Communist MEP Michele Pistillo argued that in the Communities’ ability to combat youth unemployment, the “very credibility of European integration is at stake”.75 Yet more concretely, the EP resolution “on the Council’s failure to agree on measures to promote youth employment”,76 which was adopted at the end of the same debate, warn[ed] of the negative effects [the Council’s] inability to reach a decision will have on public opinionin view of the expectations which have been raised by the considerable publicity given to the proposed Community measures.77

Such statements illustrate MEPs’ polity idea of the necessity of a “human” dimension to the Communities, and of the Communities’ mandate to promote (among others young) people’s living and working conditions. Only through a tangible improvement of their situation, Elaine KelletBowman argued in the same 1978 debate, “can, and will, the Community have real meaning for the young”.78 At that time, MEPs’ children- and youth-related activism was to some extent influenced by the imminent first direct elections to the EP. Showing and strengthening the “human aspect” of the Communities was considered by MEPs an effective way to illustrate to the member states’ citizens the relevance of the EP and its ability to work in their favour, 74 Speech by Luigi Granelli during plenary debate on 15 September 1977 (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19770915-019900EN_9317841), p. 189. See i.a. also speech by Thomas Nolan during plenary debate on 18 February 1975 (PE0_AP_DE!1974_DE19750218-059900EN_9312067), p. 82. 75 See speech by Michele Pistillo during plenary debate on 14 February 1978 (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19780214-059900EN_9407172), p. 99. See also speeches by Lord Murray of Gravesend and Liam Kavanagh during plenary debate on 7 July 1978 (PE0_AP_DE!1978_DE19780707-079900EN_9318651), pp. 269 and 271. 76 See Resolution on the Council’s failure to agree on measures to promote youth employment, 7 July 1978 (PE0_AP_PR_B0-0230!780001EN_0001). 77 Ibid. 78 See speech by Elaine Kellett-Bowman during plenary debate on 14 February 1978

(PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19780214-059900EN_9407172), p. 105.

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thereby encouraging them to participate in the elections.79 Support for young people was seen by the MEPs as a valuable tool to awaken interest and improve public opinion of the EP before the elections. In a 1977 debate, the Dutch Socialist Willem Albers argued that people would increasingly ask what the Communities could do for them, and that the EP would need to be able to give concrete answers—for instance by pointing to measures in favour of the member states’ young citizens.80 On the same note, Albers declared in a 1978 debate on a draft programme to combat youth unemployment that “[a]t last we have a subject which appeals to people”.81 The French Communist Antoine Porcu added that “vigorous social progress”, to which such a programme would contribute, would “provide a fresh impetus and upsurge of popular confidence”—which was considered necessary in light of the upcoming elections.82 It is noteworthy that even though many of the young persons at whom the EP initiatives were directed could not vote (yet), MEPs considered children- and youth-related action worth the effort in the pursuit of their institutional aims for outreach in the preparation of the elections. This fact demonstrates once more the MEPs’ long-term perspective in policy making, and confirms the finding that their behaviour was dominated by ideas rather than the short-term pursuit of political or institutional gains. The main polity idea underlying MEPs’ elections-related activism was their self-understanding as representatives of the citizens at Community level. This claim implied not only the presentation of successful EP initiatives to the citizens, but also the EP’s responsibility to connect with

79 See i.a. Resolution on the Commission proposal for a Decision on setting up a

second joint programme of exchanges of young workers within the Community, 24 April 1979 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A0-0091!790001EN_0001); Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on the resolution of the Council and of the Ministers of Education meeting within the Council of 13 December 1976 concerning measures to be taken to improve the preparation of young people for work and to facilitate their transition from education to working life, 7 February 1978 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A00513!770010EN_01277878), p. 12. 80 Speech by Willem Albers during plenary debate on 15 September 1977 (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19770915-019900EN_9317841), p. 202. 81 Speech by Willem Albers during plenary debate on (PE0_AP_DE!1978_DE19780707-079900EN_9318651), p. 266. 82 Ibid., speech by Antoine Porcu, p. 268.

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the citizens and promote their interests.83 At the same time, this role strengthened the EP’s position vis-à-vis the other Community institutions in children and youth policy, in that MEPs could argue that “the European youth”, and the Communities’ population more generally, would stand behind the delegates in their demands.84

6.5 Formal and Informal Rules Determining EP Activism Concerning Children and Youth Whereas the EP’s children and youth policy was marked by MEPs’ own initiatives, the delegates’ activism was embedded in the broader context of Community policy making. Consequently, MEPs’ activism in the area was to some extent influenced by the legal frame set by the Treaties, and by endogenous and exogenous events which had an impact on the Communities’ children and youth policy. This section discusses in an HI-based analysis to what extent the EP’s children and youth policy was shaped by Treaty provisions and such events. It also traces shifts in MEPs’ usage of different tools based on these endogenous and exogenous factors, and discusses the institutional consequences. 6.5.1

Attempts to Formally Legitimise Activism: MEPs’ Reference to the Treaty

Frequent references to the Treaties in EP documents might suggest a path dependence of the EP’s children and youth policy on the basis of Treaty provisions. However, this sub-section demonstrates that rather than guiding EP policy making, Treaty articles were strategically used and reinterpreted by MEPs in order to create the impression that their activism was in line with, or even provided by, the Treaties. To create this impression, MEPs occasionally stretched formal provisions very far— possibly too far, considering that the Council usually rejected or ignored

83 This responsibility was declared i.a. by Liam Kavanagh during plenary debate on 15 September 1977 (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19770915-019900EN_9317841), p. 201. 84 Carlo Scarascia Mugnozza, for instance, said during plenary debate on 15 September 1970 (PE0_AP_DE!1970_DE19700915-019900DE_930664, p. 9) that he hoped statements made by the Commission on youth policy would be binding and would “not disappoint the expectations of the youth and the EP”, presenting the EP as the voice of young people.

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the resulting EP initiatives. Understanding MEPs’ strategies to use the Treaties in their pursuit of specific policy aims concerning children and youth is helpful in gaining a broader understanding of the EP’s persistent intervention in Community policy making despite frequent failures. The analysis of these strategies sheds light on MEPs’ behaviour in a case where the EP’s formal role in Community policy making was virtually non-existent. The following therefore shows how MEPs attempted to circumvent limited competences, and explains their perseverance in doing so. Although the only Treaty article concerning youth provided neither for EP involvement nor, in fact, for any supranational action, MEPs referred frequently to Art. 50 EEC. Given the article’s limited scope, its applicability was in the early 1960s a topic of vivid debate within the EP.85 The full text of Art. 50 was: Member States shall, under a common programme, encourage the exchange of young workers.

Taken literally, the member states were hence supposed to merely promote, but not for instance implement or organise youth exchanges under the article. None of the other Community institutions—particularly the Commission or the EP—was mentioned in the article. Consequently, the delegates discussed how to bridge the gaps of clarity and (too limited) responsibility, and the “deficiencies of the Treaty provisions” through an “elastic interpretation of the Treaty”.86 The broader understanding of Art. 50 EEC which the EP swiftly adopted is visible in the claim that the article would have a clear cultural dimension, instead of merely supporting employment-related

85 See plenary debate on 28 November 1963 (PE0_AP_DE!1963_DE19631128039900DE_9302770). 86 See ibid., all speeches (first quote by Pierre Comte-Offenbach, p. 178—translated

by the author, original quote: “Unzulänglichkeiten der Vertragsbestimmungen”; second quote by Cornelis Berkhouwer, p. 175—translated by the author, original quote: “bei einer elastischen Auslegung des Vertrages”); Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on the draft first Community exchange programme for young workers, 27 November 1963 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0095!630010DE_00699580), p. 7.

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exchanges.87 The article was moreover seen as representing the commitment of the Communities to involve young persons in the construction of Europe.88 Whereas broad interpretations of Art. 50 were thus mostly policy-related, the EP even claimed at one instant that Art. 50 would provide for its consultation in the creation of youth exchange schemes.89 Although the article clearly did not, the Commission and Council agreed to consult the EP on virtually all children- and youth-related Community measures from the 1960s. This involvement of the EP can, however, not be seen as a path dependence originating from Art. 50. It rather constituted an element in the path-dependent process of the EP’s more generally increasing involvement in Community policy making towards the 1970s—also traced in the other case studies covered in this book— which was based first and foremost on the pursuit of more democratic legitimacy. The different attempts to fill Art. 50 EEC with additional meaning showcase once more the strong ideational dimension of the EP’s children and youth policy—as well as the MEPs’ awareness that their high-flying policy and polity ideas had to be built on a very thin Treaty basis. The delegates found a solution to the dilemma of Art. 50’s too narrow scope already in the early 1960s in more general Treaty articles such as, first and foremost, Art. 235 EEC.90 The Irish Progressive Democrat Thomas Nolan summarised the value of the article during a debate on the education of migrant workers’ children in September 1977:

87 See i.a. Opinion by the Committee on Cultural Affairs and Youth concerning

the first Community exchange programme for young workers, 30 October 1963 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0095!630010DE_00699580), p. 18; Resolution on Community action in the cultural sector, 8 March 1976 (PE0_AP_PR_B00542!750001EN_0001). 88 See Report by the Committee on Political Affairs on youth and education issues in the Communities, 2 February 1972 (PE0_AP_RP!POLI.1961_A00232!710010DE_012217), p. 19. 89 See Resolution on the Commission proposal for a Decision on setting up a second joint programme of exchanges of young workers within the Community, 24 April 1979 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A0-0091!790001EN_0001). 90 See speech by Cornelis Berkhouwer during plenary debate on 28 November 1963 (PE0_AP_DE!1963_DE19631128-039900DE_9302770), p. 175.

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Now my interpretation of Article 235 is that where it is difficult to find a solution to a problem, then you can use Article 235.91

In a 1963 report, the Committee on Social Affairs emphasised that the use of Art. 235 EEC would only be justified in case of an “absolute gap” in the Treaty.92 By the 1970s, however, references to the article with regard to children and youth were also made when MEPs considered the existing Treaty provisions as simply not going far enough.93 Art. 235 EEC thus evolved into a key for MEPs to steer their activism in directions not provided for by the Treaties. Examined from the point of view of the EEC Treaty’s authors, this shift had its roots in an unintended consequence. Art. 235 EEC was almost certainly not put into the Treaty in order to strengthen the EP, but rather to open the possibility of Community action in case of an arising necessity for measures which the Treaty’s authors had not foreseen. Yet, since the Treaties did not “provide the powers of action necessary”94 for the measures the MEPs envisaged with regard to children and youth, Art. 235 EEC seemed to them a handy tool to convince the Commission and the Council that the proposed action could be implemented within the scope of the Treaties. With Hendrikus Vredeling, at least one Commissioner shared the MEPs’ interpretation.95 During his own time as MEP (1958–1973), Vredeling had been active in the area of children and youth policy himself, in particular through parliamentary questions. Moreover, Vredeling had been a member of the EP 91 Speech by Thomas Nolan during plenary debate on 14 September 1977 (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19770914-109900EN_9317829), p 171. 92 See Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on the draft first programme for the exchange of young workers, 27 November 1963 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A00095!630010DE_00699580), p. 8. 93 See i.a. speeches by Tullia Carettoni Romagnoli and Willem Albers during plenary debate on 13 November 1975 (PE0_AP_DE!1975_DE19751113-079900EN_9312877), pp. 277 and 280; Resolution on the Commission proposal for a directive on the education of migrant workers’ children, 13 November 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!JEUN.1973_A00375!750001EN_0001). 94 Resolution on the Commission proposal for a Directive on the education of the children of migrant workers, 13 November 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!JEUN.1973_A00375!750001EN_0001). See also speech by Tullia Carettoni Romagnoli during plenary debate on 13 November 1975 (PE0_AP_DE!1975_DE19751113-079900EN_9312877), p. 277. 95 See speech by Commissioner Hendrikus Vredeling during plenary debate on 15 September 1977 (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19770915-019900EN_9317841), p. 195.

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Committee on Social Affairs when this committee unanimously proposed in 1963 to use Art. 235 as a basis for the EP’s far-reaching youth policy.96 In a 1977 debate on youth unemployment, Vredeling declared—now in the role as Commissioner for Social Affairs—that the Treaty can never be an excuse for not taking action. The Treaty offers innumerable opportunities – Article 235 for a start – to do everything if we really want to and if what we always call the political will is there.97

Whereas Art. 235 EEC opened the door for EP activism, Art. 149 EEC— on the Commission’s ability to amend a proposal before the Council had made a final decision—was pointed out occasionally by MEPs in order to ensure EP amendments were accepted.98 As mentioned above, however, the EP’s success in changing the few legislative acts concerning children and youth which were adopted prior to 1979 was low. In addition to attempts of shaping Community children and youth policy directly, MEPs consequently sought to gain influence via various indirect channels. One important strategy was the connection of children- and youth-related issues to other policy areas, such as employment policy (in the case of youth unemployment) and the free movement of labour (in the case of migrant workers’ children).99

96 See Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on the draft first Community exchange programme for young workers, 27 November 1963 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0095!630010DE_00699580), pp. 7 et seq.; speech by Cornelis Berkhouwer during plenary debate on 28 November 1963 (PE0_AP_DE!1963_DE19631128-039900DE_9302770), p. 175. 97 See speech by Commissioner Hendrikus Vredeling during plenary debate on 15 September 1977 (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19770915-019900EN_9317841), p. 195. 98 See Resolution on the Commission proposal for a Directive on the education of

the children of migrant workers, 13 November 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!JEUN.1973_A00375!750001EN_0001); Resolution on a Commission proposal for a Regulation concerning the creation of a new ESF aid in favour of young persons, a Decision amending Decision 75/459/EEC of 22 July 1975 on action by the ESF for persons affected by employment difficulties, as amended by Decision 77/802/EEC of 20 December 1977, 9 May 1978 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A0-0088!780001EN_0001). 99 MEPs used references to the free movement for instance when criticising member states for discriminating migrant workers’ children, and called the Commission to consider legal action on such breaches of Treaty provisions and adopted Community legislation. See i.a. Written Question 756/74 by Ernest Glinne to the Commission, 17 February 1975 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0756!740050FR_193930); Written Question

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In those areas, the EP had swiftly established its role in Community policy making and was regularly consulted.100 In a transfer process which can be identified with HI as a conversion, MEPs redeployed established procedures by reinterpreting their applicability to stretch to the area of children and youth policy. Such a reinterpretation was easiest if connecting the issue at hand to a policy area within which the EP’s role in Community decision-making was already fairly uncontested, or even Treaty-based. Thus, MEPs connected their proposals for instance to the Communities’ regional policy,101 pointing at regional imbalances with regard to younger citizens, and at agricultural policy with regard to young people’s education and their living and working conditions in rural areas.102 Delegates also made references to policy areas gradually established in the 1960s and 1970s as Community competence, such as equality policy103 and policy concerning persons with disabilities.104 MEPs usually argued in these cases that if the Communities adopted policy measures for a group exposed to certain disadvantages, a specific focus should be put on children and youth as an often particularly disadvantaged subgroup lacking political support. Such connections to 566/76 by Ferruccio Pisoni to the Commission, 21 October 1976 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E0566!760040FR_199695). 100 See Chapter 4, Sect. 4.5. 101 See i.a. speeches by Vera Squarcialupi and Aldo Masullo during plenary debate on

12 January 1977 (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H-0238!760015EN_01386381), pp. 65 et seq. 102 See i.a. Question No. 221/76 by Ferruccio Pisoni to the Council during

Question Time on 12 January 1977 (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H-0221!760015EN_01386285); Oral Question No. 453/78 by Charles McDonald to the Commission, 15 February 1978 (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H-0453!780015EN_01391967); Oral Question No. 464/78 by Thomas Nolan to the Commission, 13 March 1979 (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H0464!780015EN_01392027). 103 See i.a. Written Question No. 638/72 by Pierre-Bernard Cousté to the Commis-

sion, 16 February 1973 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0638!720010EN_172384); Oral Question No. 312/78 by Liam Kavanagh to the Commission during Question Time on 12 December 1978 (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H-0312!780015EN_01391229); speech by Vera Squarcialupi during plenary debate on 23 April 1979 (PE0_AP_DE!1979_DE19790423039900EN_9319311), p. 20. 104 Charles McDonald recalled in an interview with the author that the Christian

Democratic Group managed to secure funding for disabled children by first introducing disabled into the Social Action Programme—with no mention of children—and later calling for specific funding in favour of disabled children based on the broader provisions in the Social Action Programme. See also Written Question by Winifred M. Ewing to the Commission, 6 September 1978 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0566!780060FR_217924).

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established Community competences helped MEPs in arguing that their ambitious proposals concerning children and youth lay within the scope of the Treaties, and could be embedded without larger complications in the Communities’ evolving social policy. MEPs’ activism in the area of children and youth policy was particularly helped through the EP’s gain in budgetary power following the two budget treaties of 1970 and 1975. In their aftermath, parliamentary proposals concerning children and youth could be strengthened by connecting them to different Community funds, such as the Regional Fund (ERDF), the Agricultural Fund (EAGGF) and—most importantly—the ESF.105 The EP could have connected its children- and youth-related demands to the ESF from the Treaties of Rome, given that the EEC Treaty already provided for EP consultation on the establishment of the ESF.106 However, the impetus of the budget treaties was seemingly necessary to induce MEPs to make regular use of their budgetary power in the area of children and youth policy, combined with mounting youth unemployment during the 1970s, and the resulting increased openness of the Nine to invest in young persons. The reinterpretation of the EP’s budgetary power by transferring Parliament’s influence to the area of children and youth policy constitutes another case of a conversion. This conversion of the EP’s budgetary power to legislative influence in the area of children and youth policy is visible for instance in two

105 For examples on the ERDF and EAGGF, see Written Question 878/77 by Liam Kavanagh and Lord Murray of Gravesend to the Commission, 9 December 1977 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0878!770040FR_207783); Resolution on the Council Resolution of 13 December 1976 on measures to improve young people’s preparation for work, 15 February 1978 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A0-0513!770001EN_0001). For examples on the ESF, see Resolution on the Commission proposals for a Regulation concerning the creation of a new European Social Fund aid in favour of young persons, and a Decision amending Decision 75/459/EEC of 22 July 1975 on action by the European Social Fund for persons affected by employment difficulties, as amended by Decision 77/802/EEC of 20 December 1977, 9 May 1978 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A00088!780001EN_0001); speech by Elaine Kellett-Bowman during plenary debate on 12 November 1975 (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H-0150!750015EN_01384401), p. 107; speech by Michael B. Yeats during plenary debate on 16 June 1976 (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H0083!760015EN_01385523), p. 92; speech by Mr. Caro during plenary debate on 10 May 1979 (PE0_AP_DE!1979_DE19790510-199900EN_9319881), p. 235. 106 See Arts. 126 and 127 EEC.

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almost identical written questions which the French Christian Democrat MEP Adrien Zeller submitted to the Commission and the Council in November 1975. In both questions, Zeller referred to an amount of 100,000 units of account which had been added on EP initiative to the part of non-obligatory spending in the Community budget of 1975, with the aim to create a European Youth Forum. At the time Zeller submitted the questions, this amount had not been touched (indeed, the forum was only created in 1978),107 which prompted Zeller to ask both institutions what the true effectiveness of the EP’s budgetary power would be in their opinion, and whether the Council would feel truly bound to budgetary decisions made by Parliament.108 Zeller furthermore asked the Commission what legal steps against the Council before the European Court of Justice it would consider possible, based on Art. 175 EEC—on the failure of institutions to act according to the Treaty—for not having respected official budgetary proceedings.109 Though both the Commission and the Council answered evasively and ignored the concrete question concerning legal action,110 this case illustrates MEPs’ attempts to translate their gained budgetary power into agenda-setting and legislative influence. References to concrete Treaty articles and established Community policies thus constituted an important component of the MEPs’ pursuit to establish a Community children and youth policy. Despite an at times insufficient Treaty basis for their ambitious demands, MEPs sought nonetheless to present their proposals as being in accordance with the Treaties. When no specific article could deliver the necessary backing, MEPs simply referred to the ‘spirit’ of the Treaties.111 Alternatively, MEPs argued that their initiatives were compatible with the Treaties 107 The creation of the forum is described in the Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on the activities of the European Youth Forum, 7 May 1979 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A0-0151!790010EN_060718), p. 7. 108 See Written Question No. 606/75 by Adrien Zeller, 20 November 1975 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0606!750020FR_196926). 109 See Written Question No. 605/75 by Adrien Zeller, 20 November 1975 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0605!750020FR_196923). 110 See Answer by the Commission to Written Question No. 605/75 by Adrien Zeller, 25 November 1975 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0605!750030FR_196924); Answer by the Council to Written Question No. 606/75 by Adrien Zeller, 25 November 1975 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0606!750030FR_196927). 111 See i.a. speech by Pierre Comte-Offenbach during plenary debate on 28 November 1963 (PE0_AP_DE!1963_DE19631128-039900DE_9302770), p. 177; Written Question

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without specifying which articles they based this assumption on, or simply stated that for their proposals no Treaty changes would be necessary.112 Such behaviour demonstrates once more that for the MEPs, Treaty compatibility was not in the first place determined by what was written in the Treaties, but by what the broadest possible interpretation of the Treaty articles allowed. Particularly in the area of children and youth policy, the effect of Treaty provisions on MEPs’ behaviour hence lay in the activism that articles such as Art. 235 EEC induced, rather than in the constraining nature of others, such as Art. 50 EEC. 6.5.2

MEPs’ Changing Usage of Policy-making Tools in Children and Youth Policy

The EP’s children and youth policy built on all established policy-making tools available to MEPs. However, in the course of the period under consideration, the usage of these tools shifted: the number of adopted resolutions and reports, for instance, decreased significantly in the aftermath of the Empty Chair crisis, whereas the frequency of parliamentary questions increased from the late 1960s. Such shifts were based on endogenous and exogenous events influencing both the EP’s and the Communities’ children and youth policy. This sub-section discusses the most important shifts and analyses their roots and consequences with the toolbox of HI. The findings help to reach a better understanding of the EP’s gradual influence gain through various institutional procedures in that they show in what context MEPs resorted to which tools. Up to the early 1960s, only a handful of EP resolutions and reports on children and youth issues were adopted (see Fig. 6.2). These early documents were in the vast majority own-initiative attempts to put young persons on the Community social agenda. Although the EP’s children and youth policy remained dominated by own initiatives throughout the 1960s and much of the 1970s, the changing frequency of EP documents

177/73 by Luigi Girardin to the Commission, 22 June 1973 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E0177!730010EN_176576). 112 See i.a. Resolution on the creation of a European youth office, 9 May 1966 (PE0_AP_RP!RECH.1961_A0-0052!660001DE_0001); Report by the Committee on Political Affairs on Community youth and education policy, 2 February 1972 (PE0_AP_RP!POLI.1961_A0-0232!710010DE_012217), p. 21.

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Fig. 6.2 Number of adopted EP resolutions and reports concerning children and youth per year

during this period was connected to Commission proposals. This connection suggests an alignment of EP policy making to Community initiatives. Even though the contents of EP demands concerning the Communities’ young citizens deviated markedly from Commission and Council documents, their connection to an ongoing Community-level discourse on specific children and youth questions seemed strategically sensible to the MEPs. Such a connection occurred first in 1963–1964 following a Commission proposal for the first exchange programme for young workers, which led to a considerable increase of adopted EP documents (visible in Fig. 6.2). Only few of these documents in fact commented on the

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exchange programme.113 However, given that through the proposal, youth issues were on the Community agenda already, MEPs seemingly decided to seize the moment and tried to expand the Community discourse on young persons in their preferred direction. Children and youth appeared in these years, for instance, in a previously unknown frequency in EP documents commenting on Commission drafts concerning the Communities’ general development, the social situation in the Communities, and the Community budget.114 The brief surge in adopted EP documents on children and youth policy in the mid-1960s was dampened—as in other social policy areas— by the Empty Chair crisis and the Luxembourg Compromise. The year 1966 stands out as an exception: in this year, the EP’s children and youth agenda was filled by own initiatives such as the introduction of a European Youth Office, and of a European Sports Badge. Thereafter, however, the number of EP resolutions and reports on children and youth policy decreased; the frequency of the mid-1960s was only reached again towards the end of the 1970s. The Empty Chair crisis had a dampening impact first and foremost on the EP’s own-initiative activism. Even though MEPs continued to propose some rather bold initiatives, the delegates were aware of the inter-institutional tensions following the compromise, and the Council’s lack of interest in a deepening of the Communities’ competences, not least in the area of social policy.115 In

113 See first and foremost the Resolution on the Commission proposal for a first exchange programme of young workers, 28 November 1963 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0100!630001DE_0001), and the connected reports by the Committee on Social Affairs, 27 November 1963 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A00095!630010DE_00699580 and PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0100!630010DE_ 00700358). 114 See i.a. Resolutions on the Seventh General Report of the activities of the Euratom 1963, 6 October 1964 (PE0_AP_RP!PARL.1958_A0-0063!640001DE_0001); on the Seventh General Report of the Commission on social situation in the EEC 1963, 27 November 1964 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0099!640001DE_0001); on the EEC draft budget for 1965, 11 December 1964 (PE0_AP_RP!BUDG.1961_A00102!640001DE_0001). 115 The inter-institutional tensions are visible for instance in a Resolution on the Communities’ education and youth policy from 8 February 1972, in which the EP complained that the Council discussed proposals coming from a youth organisation, but not the proposals submitted by the EP (PE0_AP_RP!POLI.1961_A00232!710001DE_0001).

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July 1977, the French Socialist MEP Pierre Giraud remarked during a debate on youth unemployment: The unanimity rule, which was only intended for questions of vital interest, has become for some a means of blocking every solution. I believe that the Luxembourg compromise is still one of the reasons for our weakness. We always tend to adopt the minimum position so that, as at sea, the speed of a convoy is the speed of the slowest ship.116

A reduced number of adopted EP resolutions and reports in the late 1960s and early 1970s does, however, not imply an overall reduced activity of the EP in children and youth policy. Similar to MEP activism in the area of equality policy, the Empty Chair crisis was followed by a gradual increase in parliamentary questions (see Fig. 6.3). In HI parlance, this shifting usage of policy-making instruments available to the MEPs signifies a gradual institutional change through a drift : MEPs adapted their behaviour to endogenous changes within the Communities with consequences for Community social policy-making. Considering the Council’s displayed eagerness to cement national competences, the chance of success for fully-fledged EP initiatives promoting closer integration in a largely non-Treaty based area like children and youth policy was evidently minimal. Parliamentary questions, however, were found by the delegates to be a useful tool through which initiatives (on a small scale) as well as critique could easily be presented, and to which both the Commission and the Council had (agreed) to answer. Questions thus became a valuable alternative tool to which MEPs could resort in case collective action through reports and resolutions was at risk of being ignored. Figure 6.3 shows not only that parliamentary questions became a regularly used tool in children and youth policy from the second half of the 1960s, but also that the number of questions rose significantly in the second half of the 1970s. The elevated frequency of questions in the late 1970s might be connected to the first enlargement and the entry of British MEPs, who were very fond of asking questions in the EP in general.117 However, while the almost exponential increase of questions in the later 1970s coincides with the entry of the British Labour 116 See speech by Pierre Giraud during plenary debate (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19770706-019900EN_9394669), p. 149. 117 See Chapter 5, Sect. 5.4.

on

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Fig. 6.3 Number of parliamentary questions concerning children and youth per year

Party’s delegates, British MEPs do not stand out in the area of children and youth policy as having submitted significantly more questions than delegates from other nationalities. Indeed, all nationalities except Danish and Luxembourg MEPs were well represented among those submitting written or oral questions in this area. An explanation for the high number of questions in the late 1970s hence needs to be sought elsewhere, namely in another drift in the application of policy-making procedures in the EP. As the numbers of Commission proposals increased after the Social Action Programme of 1974, the EP’s children- and youth-related resolutions and reports were increasingly aligned to Community policy making.118 The 118 See i.a. Resolution on a draft recommendation by the Commission on vocational preparation for young people who are unemployed or threatened by unemployment, 18

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MEPs’ limited capacities were consequently taken up first and foremost by the input coming from the Commission, leaving less space for own initiatives. Continuously pursuing a broader Community children and youth policy, MEPs found in parliamentary questions a tool to promote their ideas which was a lot less time-consuming in terms of preparation than own-initiative resolutions or reports. Moreover, MEPs used questions to follow up on the—often incomplete—implementation of now incrementally adopted Community legislation.119 Finally, the particularly high number of questions in 1978 can be attributed to some extent to the UN Year of the Child, which triggered a number of questions specifically to the UN Year, and directed attention to children and youth issues more generally.120 The overall elevated level of political action concerning children and youth during the 1970s both in the EP and in the Communities had several exogenous reasons. Already prior to above-mentioned events such as the 1970s crisis and the 1978 UN Year of the Child, the student unrest of 1968 “activated political attention to young people and established some of the early pan-European arrangements for youth involvement and exchange”.121 Increased attention for the interests of Europe’s youth are visible not least in the final communiqué of the Hague Summit 1969, November 1976 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A0-0398!760001EN_0001); Resolution on the Commission proposals for a regulation concerning the creation of a new European Social Fund aid in favour of young persons, and a decision amending Decision 75/459/EEC of 22 July 1975 on action by the European Social Fund for persons affected by employment difficulties, as amended by Decision 77/802/EEC of 20 December 1977, 9 May 1978 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A0-0088!780001EN_0001); Resolution on the Commission proposal for a Decision on setting up a second joint programme of exchanges of young workers within the Community, 24 April 1979 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A0-0091!790001EN_0001). 119 See i.a. Written Question No. 242/78 by Robert Thomas Ellis to the Commission, 18 May 1978 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0242!780040FR_214375); Oral Question No. 235/78 by Ferruccio Pisoni for Question Time on 10–12 October 1978 to the Commission (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H-0235!780010EN_254964); Written Question No. 765/78 by Michele Cifarelli to the Commission, 10 November 1978 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E0765!780050FR_219968). 120 See i.a. Oral Question No. 458/78 by Liam Kavanagh to the Commission, 15 February 1978 (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H-0458!780015EN_01391997); Written Question No. 616/78 by Willy Dondelinger to the Commission, 27 September 1978 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0617!780060FR_218280). 121 Williamson (2007: 70). See also Bantigny (2010: 10); Report by the Committee on Political Affairs concerning the Communities’ youth and education policy, 2 February

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which for the first time officially called for Community action in the area of youth policy: All the creative activities and the actions conducive to European growth decided upon [in the communiqué] will be assured of a better future if the younger generation is closely associated with them; the governments are resolved to endorse this and the Communities will make provision for it.122

1968/1969 thus had the potential to become a critical juncture for Community youth policy by significantly broadening Community competences in comparison to Art. 50 EEC. However, the first Commission initiatives following the communiqué, such as proposals for a European Youth Office and Youth Centre, were unsuccessful.123 Noteworthy Community measures concerning young persons evolved only from the later 1970s, as outlined above. The EP’s children and youth policy, while reacting to and addressing the above-mentioned endogenous and exogenous events, did not undergo any fundamental change prior to 1979. Whereas the ideational direction of the EP’s children- and youth-related policy making remained inherently unchanged, this sub-section has demonstrated that the tools through which MEPs pursued concrete aims in the area were adapted to contemporary circumstances. This confirms the findings of Chapter 5 on equality policy, allowing for the assumption that similar dynamics could also be found in the EP’s involvement in other policy areas, notably those building on a narrow Treaty basis and a strong ideational dimension among the MEPs.

6.6

Conclusion

The European Parliament can be considered the driving force and indeed the initiator of a Community children and youth policy. It was the first institution officially discussing the Communities’ young citizens, and

1972 (PE0_AP_RP!POLI.1961_A0-0232!710010DE_012217), p. 19; Motion for a resolution on the creation of a European youth council by the Socialist Group, 9 October 1969 (PE0_AP_PR_B0-0126!690010DE_002016). 122 Final communiqué of the Hague Summit, 2 December 1969, point 16 (https:// www.cvce.eu/en/obj/final_communique_of_the_hague_summit_2_december_1969-en33078789-8030-49c8-b4e0-15d053834507.html, last visit 17 February 2021). 123 See Bitsch (2001: 559).

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confronting the other institutions with the necessity to take action, or at least the added value of it. That being said, the EP’s children and youth policy is not a case of significant political or institutional success in the period prior to 1979, and stands far behind other areas—such as the free movement of workers and equality policy—with regard to the EP’s impact on Community policies.124 Nonetheless, the case of children and youth policy offers important insights into the early EP’s development, precisely because Parliament experienced numerous failures and setbacks in the area. This policy area allows us to understand what ideas drove MEPs to become engaged in social policy prior to the EP’s formal gain in legislative power. This chapter explains the MEPs’ behaviour based on the two theoretical approaches underlying the HSI analysis. First and foremost, the group of MEPs who steered the EP discourse on children and youth was convinced of the necessity to involve young people in European integration in order to keep the Communities viable. Future generations of citizens and potential policymakers had to identify with the Community project if closer integration was to be reached politically as well as socially and culturally, based on a common feeling of European solidarity. In order to create such a feeling, young people were supposed to be given sufficient reason to put their trust in the Communities, which MEPs wanted to reach not least through political action in favour of young persons. Notwithstanding the numerous failed EP initiatives and the overall low success of MEPs to influence Community legislation in children and youth policy, this case study is highly significant for a better understanding of the early EP’s institutional evolution. The chapter provides valuable insight particularly into the ideational factors underlying MEPs’ activism. It thus helps to answer the research question how MEPs’ involvement in Community social policy making can best be explained. In that regard, this case study stands out among the four social policy areas analysed in this book, in that it discusses the social policy area most obviously displaying the MEPs’ pro-integrationist convictions and ideas. Whereas the other case studies better demonstrate the institutionalisation processes resulting in the EP’s gradual empowerment, this chapter provides a more profound understanding of the ideational factors inspiring the MEPs’ unwavering activism. Given that most of the MEPs active in children 124 Confirmed e.g. by Commissioner Albert Borschette during the plenary debate on 15 September 1970 following the Oral Question with debate No. 17/69 (PE0_AP_DE!1970_DE19700915-019900DE_9306641), p. 13.

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and youth policy were also active in other policy areas—both within social policy and beyond—the findings of this chapter are relevant for a better understanding of EP policy making prior to 1979 more generally. After all, the ideas frequently expressed in speeches, questions, resolutions and reports on children and youth policy mirrored the MEPs’ broader approach to European integration as such. Although these ideas did not appear quite as frequently on the surface of EP policy making in other areas, they most likely influenced the MEPs’ positioning and behaviour in these areas as well.

References Bantigny, L. (2010). Genèses de l’Europe, jeunesses d’Europe. Entre enchantement et détachement. Histoire@Politique. Politique, culture, société, 10. https://www.histoire-politique.fr/documents/10/dossier/pdf/HP10_B antigny_pdf_190110.pdf. Last visit 24 February 2021. Bitsch, M.-T. (2001). Le sommet de la Haye. La mise en route de la relance de 1969. In W. Loth (Ed.), Crises and compromises: The European project 1963–1969 (pp. 539–565). Nomos/Bruylant. Brewster, C., & Teague, P. (1989). European community social policy: Its impact on the UK. Institute of Personnel Management. Deliège-Rott, D. (1980). Situation et politique sociales européennes. Ecole de Santé Publique, Université Catholique de Louvain. Devlin, M. (2010). Young people, youth work and youth policy: European developments. Youth Studies Ireland, 5(2), 66–82. Eberhard, L. (2002). The council of Europe and youth: Thirty years of experience. Council of Europe Publishing. European Commission. (2006). The history of European cooperation in education and training: Europe in the making—An example. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. Harribey, L. E. (2002). L’Europe et la jeunesse. Comprendre une politique européenne au regard de la dualité institutionnelle Conseil de l’Europe-Union européenne. L’Harmattan. Newbury, P. R.-I. (1985). The role of formal education in the promotion of European Unity, with special reference to the U.K., Netherlands, West Germany and France, Durham University (doctoral thesis). Norwig, C. (2014). A first European generation? The myth of youth and European integration in the fifties. Diplomatic History, 38(2), 251–260. Pépin, L. (2007). The history of EU cooperation in the field of education and training: How lifelong learning became a strategic objective. European Journal of Education, 42(1), 121–132.

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Pringle, K. (1998). Children and social welfare in Europe. Open University Press. Roos, M. (2021). The European Parliament’s youth policy, 1952–1979: An attempt to create a collective memory of an integrated Europe. Politique européenne, 71(1), 28–52. Ruxton, S. (1996). Children in Europe. Action for Children. Shanks, M. (1977). European social policy, today and tomorrow. Oxford/New York/Toronto/Sydney/Paris/Frankfurt: Pergamon Press. Williamson, H. (2007). A complex but increasingly coherent journey? The emergence of ‘youth policy’ in Europe. Youth and Policy, 95, 57–72.

CHAPTER 7

Controlling the Purse: How the European Parliament Shaped Social Policy Through the European Social Fund

7.1

Introduction

The EP’s budgetary power has been shown to have played an important role in the EP’s institutional evolution prior to 1979. MEPs swiftly learned to use their power over the Community budget not only to influence expenditure, but also to enhance the EP’s role in Community legislation, as discussed in Chapter 3. The Community’s1 structural funds were among the mechanisms allowing for such EP activism. This chapter focuses on the EP’s involvement in the establishment and regulation of the first Community structural fund: the European Social Fund. The chapter analyses how MEPs used the ESF in order to attain political aims on the one hand, and to strengthen the EP’s parliamentary powers on the other. In focusing on a mechanism rather than a concrete policy area, this chapter adds a case study to the overall analysis of the EP’s power gain in Community social policy which sheds light specifically on the strategies and procedures contributing to the EP’s gradual empowerment. Indeed, the study of evolving legislative, control and initiative procedures and of 1 As in the case of equality policy, this case study is limited to the EEC, given that the ESF was a tool created on the basis of the EEC Treaty, and with a remit limited to the EEC.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Roos, The Parliamentary Roots of European Social Policy, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78233-7_7

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institutionalisation processes takes more space in this chapter than the analysis of concrete policy aims pursued by MEPs. Thus, the analysis of the EP’s involvement in the regulation of the ESF helps gain a better understanding of the institutional framework within which EP activism took place prior to 1979, and provides new insight into MEPs’ strategies to use, and extend, the EP’s limited formal powers in order to influence Community legislation beyond Treaty provisions. The chapter opens with a brief historical overview of the ESF’s establishment and its operation prior to 1979. In Sect. 7.3, the first—and biggest—part of the analysis then studies how the EP’s involvement in the regulation of the ESF influenced parliamentarisation processes in the EP through different path dependencies and processes of gradual institutional change. Thereafter, Sect. 7.4 discusses the ideational basis of MEPs’ attempts to push the boundaries of EP involvement in Community social policy through the development of the ESF. For this purpose, the section also sheds light on the role that the two committees most involved in ESF-related EP policymaking played in the promotion of the identified ideas, namely the Committee on Social Affairs and the Committee on Budgets.

7.2

The Establishment of the ESF

The ESF was established through Arts. 123–128 of the EEC Treaty, and swiftly developed into the main instrument of Community social policy. According to the Treaty, the fund’s main task was to promote “employment facilities and the geographical and occupational mobility of workers” within the EEC, and thus to “improve opportunities of employment [and] contribute to raising the standard of living” in the Community (Art. 123 EEC). Funding was consequently intended solely for the working population. This orientation corresponded to the focus of Community social policy throughout the period under consideration, being directed almost exclusively at currently, potentially or previously employed persons. Whilst being the first and oldest of the structural funds, the ESF was not the first Community aid scheme for workers. An adaptation fund had already been established under the ECSC Treaty, providing financial assistance to workers losing their jobs due to technological development or the consequences of the establishment of the common coal and steel

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market.2 In comparison to the narrow scope of the ECSC fund, the Treaty articles regulating the establishment of the ESF were rather vague, defining neither clear objectives nor resources.3 While this vagueness can be considered one major reason for the fund’s slow and initially not particularly effective set-up, it allowed from the 1970s for the repeated extension of ESF allocations, and with it a re-definition of the Community’s social policy. The analysis below looks into several examples marking this re-definition, and the EP’s influential role therein. The ESF became operational in 1960 through Council Regulation No. 9 of 25 August 1960.4 Prior to its first two major revisions in 1971 and 1977, the ESF’s application remained as limited as the Communities’ overall social policy at the time, not least due to the fund’s small budget: until the first reform, the ESF budget amounted to 420 million units of account,5 representing around 3 per cent of the Community budget.6 Throughout the 1960s, general economic growth in the Community made a bigger budget for the ESF seem unnecessary to most member states—with the exception of Italy, which grappled with the highest unemployment numbers among the Six.7 Moreover, the assumption still persisted among governments that full employment—which was expected to come with economic growth—would sufficiently answer workers’ social needs.8 This assumption was squarely challenged only in the 1970s, when the repercussions of the financial and economic crisis considerably increased the number of workers in need of support. In addition, with Ireland and the UK, two countries joined the Community in 1973 which were struggling with poverty and high unemployment in some regions.9 These new challenges coincided with an increased willingness of the member

2 See Art. 56 ECSC; Vergès (1966: 87) et seq. 3 See Varsori (2010: 243). 4 Regulation No. 9 of 25 August 1960 on the European Social Fund (OJ P56, 31 August 1960, pp. 1189–1198); Brine (2004: 779). 5 One unit of account corresponded to 0.88867088 g of fine gold. See Leboutte (2008: 654). 6 See Tomé (2013: 343). 7 See i.a. Kaelble (2007: 65). 8 See Anderson (1995: 135, et seqq.). 9 See ibid.: 137.

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states to strengthen the social dimension of the Community, as declared first during the Hague Summit of 1969, and confirmed at the Paris Summit of 1972.10 In combination, these factors led to a re-definition of the ESF’s objectives. During the 1960s, ESF funding had mostly been corrective, providing “aids for industrial re-conversion, re-installation and re-education”.11 Following the changes in the Community labour market after the 1970s crisis and the first enlargement, the focus of ESF funding was extended—to some extent based on EP initiatives—to support job creation and better job preparation on the one hand, and on the other hand to assist particularly disadvantaged groups, such as long-term unemployed persons, youth, women and disabled. In addition, the ESF now intervened in sectors hit especially hard by economic developments, such as agriculture, the textile and shipbuilding industries. The increased need for financial support in the wake of the crisis furthermore led to an adaptation of the ESF’s functioning with the aim to make it more efficient. Initially, it was not in the Commission’s, but in the member states’ hands to set eligibility criteria, and the available means were—as mentioned above—very limited. In the course of the 1970s, the ESF was allocated a greater share of the Community’s annual budget: available funding was increased by almost 500 per cent between 1972 and 1976.12 Moreover, the Commission obtained greater power in the decision-making on the distribution of appropriations, which led to an increase in the take-up of aids and generally higher flexibility of the fund.13 Despite these structural and financial improvements, the ESF could not provide sufficient and—most importantly—timely support for those suffering from the effects of the 1970s crisis. Consequently, the ESF was once more considerably reformed during the 1980s and 1990s, notably through an increase of the fund’s budget, and of its administrational efficacy. These reforms turned the ESF from a still mostly retroactive into a more proactive instrument, “used to direct and implement a European Community-wide employment policy”.14 Funding was aimed not merely

10 See i.a. Varsori (2010: 259); Leboutte (2008: 666); Varsori and Mechi (2007: 225, et seqq.); Murray (2001: 91). 11 O’Grada (1969: 99). 12 See Anderson (1995: 138); Shanks (1997: 15). 13 See Tomé (2013: 346); Brine (2004: 781); Anderson (1995: 134, et seqq.). 14 Brine (2002: 27).

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to help those negatively affected by changes in the labour market and detrimental effects of European policies, but was also directed to help prevent unemployment, and to enable workers to adapt to labour-market changes by themselves.15

7.3

The EP’s Gain in Power Through the ESF

Among the most noteworthy Treaty articles providing for EP involvement in Community social policy were Arts. 126 and 127 EEC, which stipulated the consultation of the EP in the creation and revision of the ESF. Since MEPs had few possibilities formally to influence social policy other than based on these provisions, the two articles became an important steppingstone for the delegates’ socio-political activism. Given that the EP did not have to overcome the initial hurdle of affirming the justification and added value of its involvement in the ESF—as in the other social policy cases analysed in this book—the EP could influence the fund’s establishment from the very beginning. MEPs’ broader understanding of Community social policy, particularly in comparison to that of the Council, already shows in the EP’s comments and amendments to the very first Commission proposal on the ESF’s rules of procedure from 1959. Consulted by the Council as required by Art. 127 EEC, the EP adopted its first resolution on the ESF in January 1960.16 In this resolution, the EP commented not only on the underlying Commission proposal, but also expressed its wider vision of what it expected the ESF to become: “one of the instruments with the help of which both the social and the general aims of the Treaty can be reached”.17 With an eye on what the previous chapters identified as MEPs’ multifaceted understanding of the Treaties’ social aims, this

15 See Tomé (2013: 345); Brine (2004: 781). 16 See Consultation of the EP on the implementing regulation of Arts. 124-126 EEC

for the ESF, 14 January 1960 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1958_A0-0081!590001DE_0001). 17 Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on the Consultation of the EP

on the implementing regulation of Arts. 124-126 EEC for 1959 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1958_A0-0081!590010DE_00435578), author—original quote: “Der Europäische Sozialfonds ist eines dessen Hilfe sowohl die sozialen als auch die allgemeinen Ziele des sind”.

the ESF, December p. 1; translated by the der Instrumente, mit Vertrages zu erreichen

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quote illustrates the strategic value MEPs dedicated to the ESF from the beginning. Already in this first consultation, the EP succeeded in widening the ESF’s scope as compared to the initial Commission proposal. Most of the amendments adopted by the EP were taken over into the adapted proposal, becoming Regulation No. 9. These successful EP amendments included the extension of the ESF to accept a broader definition of unemployment than the Commission draft had proposed, and to support the implementation of a common vocational training policy.18 From 1959, the EP also used its ESF-related powers to get involved in Community social policy in order to push for its own initiatives. In that regard, two early resolutions deserve attention which dealt with social issues arising through the coal crisis of the late 1950s.19 These resolutions are the first two examples of the EP using its say in the setup of the ESF in order to initiate social action for Community citizens in need of support—at a time when the ESF was in fact not yet established. Moreover, the two resolutions dealt with an issue that lay beyond the ESF’s area of operation: coal workers were clearly the ECSC’s responsibility, whereas the ESF was an EEC instrument. It is thus no surprise that neither of the two resolutions was successful in initiating Community action, not least because they came too early: ESF funding was not available to anyone at the time. 7.3.1

Gradual Institutional Change in the EP’s Involvement in the ESF

This sub-section analyses in more detail the EP’s involvement in the regulation of the ESF, based on both consultations and EP own initiatives. This involvement took place largely in a frame set by Treaty provisions and Community legislation. Even beyond Treaty-provided EP consultations, MEPs’ ESF-based activism—i.e., the strategic usage of references to

18 See Regulation No. 9 of 25 August 1960, Arts. 1 and 2; amended Commission proposal KOM(60) 6 rev. (HAEU, CM2/1960-747); Forsyth (1964: 139). 19 See Resolution on the social aspects of the current coal issues, 15 April 1959 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1958_A0-0026!590001DE_0001), and Resolution on the adaptation measures in the coal mining sector and the social situation of miners as well as certain social issues discussed in the Eighth General Report on the Activity of the ECSC, 1 July 1960 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1958_A0-0057!600001DE_0001).

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the ESF in order to attain technically unconnected political aims—evolved largely in alignment with Community decision-making on the ESF. In its analysis of this activism, this sub-section makes once more (similar to the previous Chapters 4, 5 and 6) a distinction between the usage of reports and resolutions on the one hand, and of parliamentary questions on the other. The adopted documents (i.e. the resolutions and reports) through which the EP tried formally to influence Community legislation stood in clear alignment to Community policy making throughout the period under consideration, following a path of inter-institutional procedures set out by Arts. 126 and 127 EEC. The EP adopted numerous resolutions and reports discussing ESF funding throughout the entire period under consideration, beginning—as mentioned above—in 1959 (see Fig. 7.1).20 Although short periods of intensified action can be deduced from Fig. 7.1, no noteworthy long-term increase or decrease of ESF policymaking through resolutions and reports concerning the ESF is visible prior to 1979. Four peaks in the frequency of adopted EP documents deserve closer attention in the analysis of the path dependencies underlying EP policy making on the ESF. These four peaks occurred, as visible in Fig. 7.1, in the years 1963–1965, 1971, 1974–1975, and towards the end of the 1970s. The first of these short periods of elevated activity was caused by a 1962 Commission proposal for the first revision of Regulation No. 9, through which the ESF had entered into force in 1960.21 Whereas only a handful of EP reports and resolutions dealt directly with this Commission proposal and follow-up documents on the adaptation of the ESF, the revision process induced MEPs to use the temporarily increased attention to the ESF at Community level in order to broaden Community social policy based on their ideas of closer integration. Between 1963 and 1965, MEPs referred to the ESF repeatedly in their own initiative demands for new Community intervention. One example of an EP initiative in that regard was ESF funding for workers in the Italian sulphur industry. In

20 It should be noted that not all EP documents which were coded for these figures are exclusively focused on the ESF. Several contain references to the ESF as a tool to reach political aims with regard to other social policy issues, not all of which are connected to the ESF according to the EEC Treaty, the ESF’s rules of procedure, or Community legislation. 21 Commission proposal for a regulation on the revision of Regulation No. 9 on the ESF, 25 September 1962 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0131!630030DE_00701009).

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Fig. 7.1 Number of adopted EP resolutions and reports concerning the ESF per year

February 1963, the EP Committee on Social Affairs adopted a report on the need to restructure said industry, and to support the workers and their families who suffered under economic problems in the sector, based on a study trip to Sicily.22 In its report, the committee outlined concrete possibilities of ESF intervention. This report was taken up by the Commission in a 1965 proposal on different ESF aid schemes for concerned persons in Italy’s sulphur industry. The EP was consulted on the proposal by the Council—however, with reference to Arts. 127 and 235 EEC, rather than

22 Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on the need to restructure the sulphur industry in Sicily, 4 February 1963 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A00133!630010DE_00700983).

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the EP’s own initiative.23 This example demonstrates that even the EP’s early own-initiative activism in connection to the ESF was embedded in the official framework of procedures established by the Treaty for the regulation of the ESF.24 Through references to the ESF, as in the case of the Italian sulphur industry, the EP aimed thus to solidify its influence on the Community budget and on Community social policy. The ESF was indeed a door to both, and the EP’s right to be consulted on all Community legislation with ESF-related consequences was a key in the MEPs’ hands to increase their influence in both areas. A series of EP resolutions and reports adopted in 1964 showcase the perceived added value of references to the ESF: during that year, the EP and its committees adopted no document based on a consultation directly related to the ESF. Nonetheless, out of 47 adopted documents in the area of social policy that year, roughly a third contained a reference to the ESF, many of them based on MEPs’ own initiatives . Among them were, for instance, requests for (further) funding to improve the living and working conditions of the rural population,25 and of Community migrants.26 The impact of the 1965–1966 Empty Chair crisis and the following Luxembourg Compromise on the Commission’s willingness to propose action in the area of social policy has been discussed in previous chapters. The Commission’s temporary reluctance to initiate legislation was also tangible with regard to further adaptations of the ESF. The crisis hampered MEPs’ ESF-based activism, although the repercussions were 23 Commission proposals concerning social measures in favour of workers in the Italian sulphur mines, 13 April 1965 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0090!650030DE_000359). 24 This is, for instance, also visible in a Resolution on Commission proposals for regulations on the more effective organisation of ESF aids, 16 June 1965 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0053!650001DE_0001). In this case, the EP—and through the attached report in particular its social committee—used a consultation based on Arts. 127 and 235 in order to present concrete proposals for the ‘activation’ (i.e., extension) of the ESF. 25 See i.a. Resolution on a Commission proposal for a regulation concerning compensatory measures and Community plans on the improvement of the rural populations’ living conditions, 8 January 1964 (PE0_AP_RP!AGRI.1958_A0-0107!630001DE_0001). 26 See i.a. Resolution on the results of a study trip regarding the particular problems of free movement, 23 January 1964 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A0-0118!630001DE); Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on results of a study trip regarding the particular problems of free movement, 20 January 1964 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1961_A00118!640010DE_00699509), p. 5 et seq.

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not as significant as, for instance, with regard to the EP’s free movement policy (see Fig. 4.1), equality policy (see Fig. 5.1) or children and youth policy (see Fig. 6.2). While the overall number of adopted EP reports and resolutions was reduced after the Empty Chair crisis, the proportion of adopted documents containing a reference to the ESF did not change significantly. Both in 1967 and 1969, approximately every third adopted document contained a reference to the ESF. The fact that only two of these documents—one report and the resulting EP resolution27 — discussed a Commission proposal for a revision of the ESF shows that the fund did not lose its strategic value in the MEPs’ broader activism. The ESF’s first major revision in 1971, in which both the fund’s budget and scope of application were increased, caused a second peak in ESF-related EP resolutions and reports. The EP was strongly involved in the revision process, partly through consultation, and partly based on its own initiative, but again with a firm Treaty basis. Over the following years, the EP attempted to make the ESF more efficient through its Treaty-based right of involvement, and to further increase its remit. Particularly in the early 1970s, the EP demanded emphatically to change the ESF from a fund for reparation to a motor of stimulation and orientation.28 In that endeavour, the EP adopted an elevated number of reports and resolutions in another peak of ESF-related activism during the years 1974–1975. These years were marked both by the adoption of the Community’s first Social Action Programme, and by the effects of the economic and financial crisis. In this context, the EP began to push for ESF aid to support particularly disadvantaged groups of persons. Most of them had been on the EP’s agenda from the 1950s or 1960s, including youth,29 elderly30 and persons with disabilities.31 However, 27 Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on the opinion of the Commission concerning the reform of the ESF, 4 December 1969 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A00170!690010DE_008129), and connected EP Resolution, 9 December 1969 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A0-0170!690001DE_0001). 28 See Varsori (2010: 261). 29 See Chapter 6. 30 Elderly were first mentioned in an adopted EP document in November 1956. See Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on the social aspects of the report by the head of delegation of the inter-state committee created by the Conference of Messina, November 1956 (AC_AP_RP!ASOC.1953_AC-0002!56-novembre0010DE_00001000). 31 People with disabilities were first mentioned in an adopted EP document in June 1963. See Report drawn up in accordance with the Resolution of 25th March,

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up to the 1970s, MEPs did not succeed in gaining much support from the Council for their policy ideas on measures specifically aimed at these groups. The extension of the ESF in the early 1970s and an increased willingness on the side of the member states to agree on Community social measures changed the circumstances under which the EP pushed for concrete action in the different groups’ favour. These shifts in Community social policy making can be considered with HI as a drift in the EP’s ability to influence Community social policy. In particular, these shifts improved the chances of success of previously established tools in MEPs’ hands. Namely, resolutions and reports seeking to establish support for concrete groups of disadvantaged persons through references to the ESF now developed a larger impact. The fourth and final peak of ESF-related EP resolutions and reports between 1977 and 1979 can be connected above all to the second major revision of the ESF in 1977. This revision included not only EP consultations, but it also triggered the first ESF-related conciliation procedure between the EP and the Council (discussed in more detail below).32 MEPs furthermore continued to use the ESF as a tool with which to push for an extension of Community social policy, for instance to support workers in the textile and agriculture sectors, and to enhance the EP’s own position in Community social policy making.33 At this point, not least through parliamentary activism based on the ESF-related Treaty articles, the EP had reached a powerful bargaining position in (and beyond) social policy.

1963, on the Eleventh General Report on the activities of the ECSC, 18 June 1963 (PE0_AP_RP!PARL.1958_A0-0036!630010EN_00717271). 32 For consultations during this fourth peak, see i.a. Resolution embodying the opinion

of the European Parliament on the communication from the Commission of the European Communities to the Council on the review of the rules governing the tasks and operations of the European Social Fund, 12 May 1977 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A00084!770001EN_0001); Resolution on Commission proposals for a Decision regarding European Social Fund assistance towards women, and a Regulation concerning operations qualifying for a higher rate of intervention by the European Social Fund, 11 October 1977 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A0-0314!770001EN_0001). 33 See i.a. Resolution on the crisis in the textile industry, 9 January 1978 (PE0_AP_RP!ECON.1973_A0-0438!770001EN_0001); Resolution on the conclusions of the Seminar held by the Committee on Agriculture in Echternach, 5 June 1979 (PE0_AP_RP!AGRI.1958_A0-0128!790001EN_0001).

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Given that the EP’s involvement in the ESF was formalised in the EEC Treaty, institutional procedures underlying ESF-related EP activism did not change in their essence between 1959 and 1979. As a consequence, parliamentary questions served another function in this area compared to the other case studies analysed in this book. In the EP’s involvement in free movement, equality, and children and youth policy, MEPs resorted to questions for instance in order to replace other policymaking tools which had lost some of their effectiveness, or which had become too work-intensive in times when the Council consulted the EP with increasing frequency. With regard to the ESF, however, no such dynamics of displacement in institutional procedures occurred. Yet, although the EP’s involvement in ESF-related Community policy making did not fundamentally change, the MEPs’ usage of parliamentary questions concerning the ESF underwent a significant development prior to 1979 (see Fig. 7.2). In the analysis of this development, it should first be remarked that with regard to the ESF, parliamentary questions did not gain the same importance as in the other case studies discussed in this book. This is visible already in the total number of questions concerning the ESF, which stayed well below the numbers of questions traced in the other case studies.34 Second, MEPs began to submit parliamentary questions concerning the ESF in an elevated frequency several years later than in the other case studies, i.e. not in the aftermath of the Empty Chair crisis, but only in the mid-1970s. The significant increase of ESF-related questions in the mid-1970s had two main causes. On the one hand, several British and some Irish delegates who had entered the EP in the mid-1970s displayed their fondness of direct exchanges with the Commission and the Council35 by submitting numerous questions on the amounts and distribution of approved aids, often with a national or regional focus.36 On the other

34 Whereas, for instance, 20 ESF-related parliamentary questions were submitted during 1976 as the year with the highest frequency of questions on the ESF, there were over 30 questions on equality issues and over 40 questions concerning children and youth policy in 1978. 35 See Westlake (1990). 36 One of the most

active British delegates in asking ESF-related questions was Lord O’Hagan. See i.a. Written Questions 668/73, 31 January 1974 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0668!730060EN_183501); 738/73, 28 February

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Fig. 7.2 Number of parliamentary questions concerning the ESF per year

hand, the combination of the ESF’s first major revision in 1971 and the EP’s increased budgetary power through the treaties of 1970 and 1975 seemingly induced MEPs to exercise control over ESF expenditure more frequently than before, i.e. when the EP’s control over ESF expenditure had been based merely on annual reports by the Commission. Many of MEPs’ ESF-related questions submitted during the 1970s demanded detailed information on how funding was used, and what the Commission and the Council undertook in order to guarantee the ESF’s adequate

1974 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0738!730060EN_182983); 143/74, 28 May 1974 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0143!740040FR_186113); and 286/74, 7 August 1974 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0286!740040EN_187645) by Lord O’Hagan to the Commission.

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functioning as required by contemporary circumstances.37 Occasionally, MEPs also used questions in order to push the Commission and the Council to overcome delays in reforming the ESF, or to criticise a lack of Community engagement.38 This intensified usage of questions as a control tool from the mid1970s—in addition to EP resolutions and reports fulfilling a similar task from the establishment of the ESF—can with HI be defined as a process of layering . The increased number of parliamentary questions slightly changed procedures of EP involvement in the ESF: through the questions, MEPs received information in a new—publicly accessible and usually condensed—format. Moreover, MEPs could make their opinion heard more frequently and with less effort than through preparationintensive reports and resolutions. Again, however, it should be emphasised that in connection to the ESF, questions did not develop the same intensity as in other areas. Whereas MEPs strategically submitted series of coordinated questions in other policy areas in order to exert pressure on the Commission or the Council in the pursuit of concrete aims, the Treaty articles on the ESF gave the EP sufficient formal power of involvement in decision-making procedures to pursue specific aims generally more successfully via resolutions and reports. 7.3.2

The EP’s Informal Empowerment Through the ESF

Even though the EP’s involvement in the ESF took shape based on the Treaty provisions regulating the fund’s establishment, the previous subsection has shown that the EP did not limit its involvement to what 37 See i.a. Written Question 537/77 by Willem Albers to the Commission, 31 August 1977 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0537!770040FR_205050); Written Question 633/77 by Aart Geurtsen to the Commission, 30 September 1977 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E0633!770040FR_205219); Question 37/79 by Ferruccio Pisoni to the Commission, 27 March 1979 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0037!790050FR_224807); Question 421/78 by Liam Kavanagh to the Commission during Question Time on 18 January 1979 (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H-0421!780015EN_01391787). 38 See

i.a. Written Question 624/74 by Luigi Girardin to the Commission, 10 January 1975 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0624!740010EN_192587); Written Question 338/76 by Ernest Glinne and Willy Dondelinger to the Commission, 22 July 1976 (PE0_AP_QP!QE_E-0338!760060FR_208825); Question 40 to the Council by Pietro Lezzi during Question Time on 13 December 1978 (PE0_AP_QP!QH_H0354!780015EN_01391451).

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the Treaty stipulated. While aligning their activism to Community policy making, and embedding it in the framework of the ESF’s functioning as provided by the Treaty, MEPs frequently sought to enhance their influence on Community legislation via the ESF. Equally based on the analytical toolbox of HI, this sub-section discusses the most important informal strategies through which MEPs sought to empower the EP, and to pursue specific policy aims. Given that the ESF constituted a part of the Community budget, and was established and revised in several stages, it became a convenient instrument for MEPs to repeatedly test and strengthen the EP’s budgetary power. At the same time, the ESF offered the potential to transfer parliamentary powers formally provided for some budget-related procedures to other policy areas. In that regard, MEPs benefitted from the fact that the EP’s budgetary power in the establishment of the ESF had several dimensions from the beginning. Based on the EEC Treaty, the EP was supposed to be consulted on the regulation of the ESF’s set-up, and was hence intended to be involved in the decision-making on funding guidelines. In connection to the EP’s power of control over the Commission, Parliament had at the same time some power of ex-post control over ESF spending and the fund’s functioning. Namely, Art. 124 EEC provided that “[t]he administration of the Fund shall be incumbent on the Commission”—which in turn was controlled by the EP. In combining this pre-decision consultation and ex-post control, the EP had the power to be permanently involved in the regulation of the ESF. The EP held both of these powers of involvement already prior to the 1970 budget treaty. However, Parliament was meaningfully and frequently able to execute them only from the 1970s, when ESF activity increased, based on the member states’ broader acceptance to expand the ESF’s scope and funding. Nevertheless, the roots of the EP’s influence on the budget via the ESF question the notion of the two budget treaties of 1970 and 1975 as watershed moments in the EP’s institutional development.39 The previous section has pointed out the EP’s frequent involvement in decision-making related to Community expenditure through the ESF already from the Treaties of Rome. Consequently, the EP’s gain in budgetary power in the 1970s was a path-dependent 39 The budget treaties of 1970 and 1975 have been pointed out as such watershed moments in the EP’s history for instance by Hix and Høyland (2013); Doutriaux and Lequesne (2007); Burban (2005); and Burgess (2000).

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result of gradual institutional change rather than a rupture suddenly empowering the EP. However, this section does not aim to downplay the significance of the two treaties for the EP’s institutional evolution, not least in combination with the ESF. Although the EP had succeeded in amending Community spending through the regulation of the ESF already prior to 1970, EP opinions obtained through the two treaties a binding character for the first time. Being consulted on the regulation of the ESF, and having to give its approval to the Community budget—including the possibility to reject the budget—were after all two fundamentally different points on the scale of formal parliamentary power. The EP was eager to safeguard and extend its new formal power during the 1970s. On the basis of the budget treaties, MEPs swiftly developed an understanding of having a right to co-decide on the ESF’s operations as an inherent part of the EP’s budgetary power. Already in 1970, when a rumour reached the MEPs that the Council would aim to set a maximum limit to ESF funding, Parliament protested vehemently, considering this a restriction of its new treaty-based budgetary power.40 In 1977, the EP’s Committee on Budgets called out the Council and the Commission on another case of what the delegates saw as an infringement of the EP’s budgetary power. Following internal difficulties in the Council to agree on crisis-related ESF measures, the Commission had transferred appropriations within the ESF with the Council’s assent, whereas the “Parliament, partner in the Budgetary Authority, was not even consulted”.41 From 1975, the EP was in a position to counter such cases of perceived infringements via conciliation procedures, introduced in a joint declaration of the EP, the Council and the Commission in March 1975.42 The EP threatened to open a first conciliation procedure concerning the ESF in May 1977, in case the Council would intend to depart from the EP’s opinion regarding a Commission proposal on the revision of the rules

40 See Resolution on the reform of the ESF, 8 October 1970 (PE0_AP_PR_B0-

0141!700001DE_0001). 41 See Opinion of the Committee on Budgets on the communication from the Commission to the Council concerning the review of the rules governing the tasks and operations of the European Social Fund, 27 April 1977 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A00084!770010EN_044929), p. 25 (emphasis added). 42 See Chapter 3.

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governing the operations of the ESF.43 Although the Council did not adopt all of the EP’s suggestions, the EP eventually refrained in this case from initiating a conciliation procedure, arguing that the ESF’s revision should not be delayed. The resolution of December 1977 announcing this decision, however, emphasised that henceforth, “the European Parliament will initiate the conciliation procedure whenever future decisions of the Council clash with its own proposals”44 —a statement interestingly not limited to the area of budgetary procedures. Through a conversion of the initially narrowly defined rules, the EP thus triggered conciliation procedures beyond budgetary debates. The German Social-Democratic MEP Heinz Schreiber confirmed the practice in an interview and recalled that he himself took part in such a non-budget-related procedure prior to 1979.45 Thus, MEPs turned the conciliation procedure into a more generally applicable tool of leverage over the Council. They tested and refined the strategic usage of the procedure not least on ESF-related issues. As was the case in many elements of the EP’s early gain in power, the efficiency of the EP’s influence via its budgetary power was enhanced through various informal routines. The MEPs’ double mandate allowed many of them to have direct, often personal contacts to their ministers. In cases where the EP and the Council disagreed, a formal conciliation procedure was not always necessary, since MEPs could exert some pressure on national governments by warning them that in case they would not accommodate the EP’s wishes, Parliament might consider withholding its approval on the budget, or would stall negotiations through a lengthy conciliation procedure. The Luxembourg Liberal Colette Flesch

43 See Resolution on the communication from the Commission of the European Communities to the Council on the review of the rules governing the tasks and operations of the European Social Fund, 12 May 1977 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A00084!770001EN_0001). 44 Resolution on the implementation of the conciliation procedure referred to in paragraph 14 of the European Parliament’s resolution of 12 May 1977 on the revision of the European Social Fund, 16 December 1977 (PE0_AP_PR_B0-0436!770001EN_0001). 45 See interview with Heinz Schreiber, who could unfortunately not remember the

precise issue at hand. Quote from the interview: “that as an issue which had nothing to do with the budget; that was an issue in which there was controversy between the [EP’s and the Council’s] opinion” (original quote: “das war aber eine Sache, die hatte nichts mit dem Haushalt zu tun; das war eine Sachfrage, und da gab es Streit zwischen der Auffassung [des Europäischen Parlaments und des Rates]”).

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explained that MEPs from small states in particular—like the Grand Duchy, or also Ireland—made use of this possibility of exchange, given that they had easier access to their ministers than delegates from bigger member states.46 She emphasised that this informal tool of pressure only worked because of the double mandate: ministers listened to MEPs not only as European parliamentarians, but also as members of the national parliaments which had a much stronger power of control over them. In addition to conversations with members of the governments, MEPs spoke—when necessary or considered helpful—with the member states’ permanent representatives in Brussels. Coreper members were reported by several interviewees to have been more open to exchanges with MEPs than Council members.47 Moreover, they often had a better understanding of the dynamics in Community decision-making than ministers. Colette Flesch recalled that permanent representatives occasionally advised their governments to accept EP amendments or demands if they saw that the EP insisted on certain points: they argued that it might not be worth the trouble ministers would face at Community level if stubbornly sticking to their position.48 While the EP could theoretically use both its control and budgetary powers as a means of pressure over the Commission, the two institutions usually tended to help each other in their pursuit of common aims also in budgetary issues. They shared the same general attitudes in favour of a broader scope of action of the ESF, and also in favour of a stronger social dimension of the Communities. Consequently, both had an interest in collaboration, from which the EP—as the less powerful actor of the

46 See interview with Colette Flesch, confirmed also by Charles McDonald. 47 See interviews with Doeke Eisma, Colette Flesch and Fionnuala Richardson. 48 On a similar note, the German Socialist MEP Willy Odenthal called for a more inten-

sive involvement of the EP in the regulation of the ESF and argued that leaving out the EP might lead to “rebellions and political situations which none of us desires. We expect hence that the Treaties of Rome are implemented not only according to the letter, but to the spirit” (translated by the author; full original quote: “Sonst könnte es passieren, daß es über die Funktionen der Exekutive und der Legislative, die sich heute in einer Hand beim Ministerrat befinden, der uns durch seine Anwesenheit recht selten beglückt, zu Rebellionen und politischen Zuständen kommt, die uns allen nicht erwünscht sind. Wir erwarten deshalb, daß die Verträge von Rom nicht nur dem Buchstaben, sondern ihrem Geist und Inhalt nach erfüllt werden.”). See speech by Willy Odenthal during plenary debate on 11 January 1960 (PE0_AP_DE!1960_DE19600111-039900DE_9302138), p. 27.

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two—benefitted. For instance, the Commission called the Council to consult the EP even in ESF-related cases for which the Treaties did not explicitly demand EP involvement.49 Such initially informal and voluntary, but gradually institutionalised, consultations contributed to the EP’s path-dependent gain in legislative influence. This influence was increased further through regular exchanges of Commission members and MEPs in committee meetings. Already in the preparation of the first EP report and resolution concerning the establishment of the ESF in 1959/1960, Commission members and staff worked closely together with the EP Committee on Social Affairs. The expertise which the MEPs gained thus allowed the author of the resulting draft report and resolution—the Belgian Christian Democrat Marguerite De Riemaecker-Legot—to “stretch the Treaty to its juridical limits” with regard to the limited and vague provisions on the ESF, which both the Commission and the EP sought to expand.50 Shared aims between the Commission and the EP are also visible in the above-mentioned case of the first announced ESF-related conciliation procedure, the initiation of which the Commission encouraged the EP to undertake.51 The Commission’s strategic interest in backing up its own position through EP support hence contributed to the EP’s gradual gain in power over Community expenditure through the ESF. It should not, however, be assumed that the benefits arising for the EP from its close collaboration with the Commission stopped MEPs from executing their formal control function over the executive. In their involvement in the regulation of the ESF, MEPs resorted not merely to established control tools such as questions and exchanges with members of the Commission in plenary and committee sessions. The delegates also sought to strengthen and further institutionalise their control over the Commission—and over the ESF—through new tools. MEPs demanded, 49 This practice was pointed out, amongst others, by the EP budget committee in an opinion on a Commission proposal for a regulation on certain administrative and financial modalities of the ESF, 10 December 1971 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A00209!710010DE_010914), p. 14. 50 See speech by Gerard Nederhorst during plenary debate on 11 January 1960 (PE0_AP_DE!1960_DE19600111-039900DE_9302138), p. 16; translated by the author; original quote: “alles aus dem Vertrag herauszuholen, was juristisch in ihm enthalten ist”. 51 Resolution on the communication from the Commission to the Council on the review of the rules governing the tasks and operations of the European Social Fund, 12 May 1977, paragraph 14.

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for instance, that the Commission presented an annual report on the ESF’s operations. The introduction of this report, to which the Commission agreed in 1971,52 constitutes another case of gradual institutional change through layering : a new procedure was introduced on top of the existing instruments of parliamentary control. Once established, the MEPs swiftly transformed this annual report through a conversion of institutionalised procedures into a tool of legislative and budgetary influence. Already in the EP resolution on the Commission’s first report, Parliament declared that it intended to use its assessment of the report in order “to give the Commission suggestions and advice on the best use of funds available”.53 Aiming to gain as much influence as possible, MEPs notably from the Committee on Social Affairs insisted on receiving the annual report well in advance of the proposal for the Community’s annual budget.54 This early reception should give Parliament the possibility to amend the budget provisions for the ESF according to needs for change arising from the annual report. Moreover, it allowed the EP to use its power of approving or rejecting the Community budget in order to press for an adaptation of the ESF’s regulation beyond purely financial issues. MEPs used their budgetary power and tools like the annual report both to increase ESF expenditure, and to expand the fund’s scope. The Irish MEP Charles McDonald recalled that the EP, and in particular the Christian Democratic Group (of which he was a member), insisted that the Commission would propose to the Council to adopt funding not only if an economic return was guaranteed.55 For instance, the EP successfully called in the 1970s for ESF support for disabled children, even though neither children nor disabled appeared in the Treaties.56 The EP insisted

52 See speech by Commissioner Albert Coppé during plenary debate on 16 December 1971 (PE0_AP_DE!1971_DE19711216-029900DE_9307589), p. 30. 53 Resolution on the first annual report on the activities of the new European Social Fund—financial year 1972, 25 April 1974 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A00018!740001EN_0001). 54 See Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on the first annual report on the activities of the new European Social Fund—financial year 1972, 2 April 1974 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A0-0018!740010EN_024489), pp. 9–11. 55 See also Varsori (2010: 261). 56 See Resolution concerning, amongst other issues, the social and occupational inte-

gration of disabled, 12 February 1974 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A0-0354!730001EN).

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more generally, as expressed in a 1969 resolution, on making the ESF a flexible tool that could swiftly be adapted to contemporary events and evolving social needs.57 MEPs thus used their influence resulting from their involvement in the ESF and the Community budget in pursuit of policy aims in areas on which the EP was not formally supposed to have any influence.58 The Scottish MEP John Corrie confirmed that “any way whatsoever” was used in which the budget could be linked to an issue the EP wanted to address.59 When examining the EP’s growing power through the ESF and its influence on the budget, the question arises why the Council allowed the EP to gain so much influence. The Council had ensured in all founding Treaties that the EP had no control over it, and that Parliament had no strong legislative decision-making power, which was to remain instead with the Council itself. In the case of the ESF—as in many policy areas— the EP had a merely consultative role; while the Council had to listen to Parliament, it initially did not have to abide by the EP’s demands. Nonetheless, the EP succeeded in introducing a significant number of legislative changes and initiatives, as demonstrated above. Once more, the main reason for the Council’s yielding to the EP’s incremental gain in influence over and via the ESF needs to be sought in the member state governments’ interest in increasing democratic legitimacy. The EP’s visible participation in decision-making was in the Council’s interest in order to avoid the blame of having decided on a policy without the involvement of a body representing the people. In addition, it should not be assumed that all Council members were staunch Eurosceptics, on the contrary. Governments of countries that included economically and hence also socially weak regions—such as first and foremost Italy, and from the 1970s also Ireland—had a strong interest in an effective ESF. Moreover, some governments supported the EP’s gradual empowerment based on pro-integrationist convictions as represented by the respective national party. In a plenary debate in July 1976,

57 See i.a. Resolution on the Commission’s opinion concerning the reform of the ESF, 9 December 1969 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A0-0170!690001DE_0001). 58 See interviews with Lothar Ibrügger and Vera Squarcialupi. 59 Interview with John Corrie. Ole Espersen also said in an interview with the author

that the EP used the budget in order to have a say on issues in the discussion of which it would otherwise not have been involved.

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for instance, the Council representative Laurens Jan Brinkhorst—at the time Dutch Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs—pointed out: [W]hen one talks about budgetary priorities, it is the Parliament, with budgetary rights over the Social Fund, that must draw up clear priorities.60

This task of setting ESF priorities which Brinkhorst ascribed to the EP was not provided for by the Treaty. The statement thus suggests a favourable attitude on Brinkhorst’s part towards an enhanced role of the EP in the regulation of the ESF, which he presumably also represented during Council meetings. It can hence be expected that the EP’s gradual gain in power through its impact on the ESF’s regulation was supported not least by the positioning of individual Council members in favour of intensified EP involvement.

7.4 Policy and Polity Ideas Driving MEPs’ ESF-Related Activism This section explains in an SI analysis what ideas induced MEPs’ ESFrelated activism, which was targeted at extending the scope of the ESF, as well as at enhancing the EP’s position in Community social policy. As demonstrated below, this activism resulted, on the one hand, from policy ideas on the extension of the ESF’s funding and scope, driven by the greater aim to turn the ESF into an instrument to establish a broader Community social dimension. On the other hand, the ESF served the MEPs in their pursuit of polity ideas of closer institutional integration, and especially of enhancing the powers of the EP. 7.4.1

Policy Ideas: The ESF as a Means to Establish a Community Social Dimension

The main policy idea underlying MEPs’ ESF-related activism was the creation of a broader Community social policy that was not limited to the aim of stimulating economic growth, but which aimed at securing the improvement of citizens’ living and working conditions—including those

60 Speech by Laurens Jan Brinkhorst during plenary debate, (PE0_AP_DE!1976_DE19760707-079900EN_9314095), p. 148.

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not working, such as youth, elderly and children.61 This idea drove MEPs’ activism from the time of the ESF’s creation. Already in the 1960 debate in which the later Regulation No. 9—making the ESF operational—was discussed, the Belgian Christian Democrat Alfred Bertrand appealed to his co-delegates: We must not forget that all articles in the Treaty of Rome have as their main aim to improve the living standard of the Community’s peoples. If this was not the case, the EEC Treaty would in our opinion not have any meaning.62

The EP considered the Council and the member states responsible to ensure—not least through the ESF—the steady improvement of the citizens’ living and working conditions. In the MEPs’ eyes, however, the Council did not live up to this responsibility. A long list of individual questions submitted by the EP Committee on Social Affairs to the Council in the form of an oral question with debate in 1973 illustrates the MEPs’ dissatisfaction with the Council’s permanent rejection of the ideas of a broader Community social policy promoted by the EP. In this list of questions, the committee asked the Council whether it considered its systematic reduction of Commission proposals for the extension of ESF appropriations to be in accordance with the spirit of the 1972 Paris Summit and the 1974 Social Action Programme—both of which called for an extension of Community social policy.63 This criticism underlines that, as shown above, MEPs used references to the ESF in order to push for broader social aims. Their critique was 61 A 1974 report by the Committee on Social Affairs, for instance, criticised a Commission proposal concerning ESF aid for disabled persons for “put[ing] too much stress on the economic aspects, and too little on the social aspects of the problem of disablement”. See Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on Commission proposals for two decisions and a regulation concerning ESF aids for different groups of persons, 11 February 1974 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A0-0354!730010EN_018884), p. 11 (emphasis in the original). 62 See i.a. speech by Alfred Bertrand during plenary debate on 11 January 1960 (PE0_AP_DE!1960_DE19600111-039900DE_9302138), p. 22 (emphasis added by the author); translated by the author—original quote: “Wir dürfen nicht vergessen, daß alle Artikel des Vertrages von Rom zum Hauptziel die Hebung der Lebenshaltung der Völker der Gemeinschaft haben. Wäre dies nicht der Fall, so hätte nach unserer Meinung der EWG-Vertrag keinen Sinn.”. 63 See Oral Question 116/73 with debate by the Committee on Social Affairs to the Council, 5 October 1973 (PE0_AP_QP!QO_O-0116!730010FR_230395).

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not limited to the Council’s too narrow application of the fund: MEPs also admonished the Commission to adopt the EP’s more comprehensive approach to the ESF as a tool to reach broader socio-political aims. In February 1978, for instance, three Dutch MEPs—a Christian Democrat, a Socialist and a Liberal—pointed out to the Commission in a written question that the Commissioner for Social Affairs, Hendrikus Vredeling, had in an interview depicted the ESF as merely a vocational training fund. The three MEPs criticised this attitude—which they called “unwise in terms of political strategy in the present difficult economic situation”— and called on the Commission to confirm the much broader remit of the ESF.64 A resolution of April 1977 similarly called on the Commission to “give considerably more publicity” to the ESF, and to foster greater awareness of its significance “for the Community’s policy and actions in the social sector”.65 In the MEPs’ pursuit of more social integration, the ESF was ascribed “great importance for structuring the Community’s social policy”.66 The fund was defined as “the superlative instrument for a Community labour market policy”,67 and as a “driving force giving direction” to social integration.68 This underlines MEPs’ expectation to be able to use the Fund as a tool of agenda-setting and policy making beyond its Treaty-given limits. Numerous EP resolutions and reports demanded to make the ESF an instrument primarily serving Community—not national—interests, and supporting the implementation of Community policies and action

64 See Written Question 1299/77 by Frans Van Der Gun, Willem Albers and Aart Geurtsen to the Commission, 28 February 1978 (OJ C175, 24 July 1978, p. 25). 65 See Resolution on the Fourth Report on the activities of the European Social Fund in 1975, 21 April 1977 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A0-0578!760001EN_0001). 66 Report drawn up on behalf of the Committee on Social Affairs, Employment and Education on the Fourth Report on the Activities of the European Social Fund—1975, 7 March 1977 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A0-0578!760010EN_037469), p. 11. 67 Resolution embodying the Opinion of the European Parliament on the proposal from the Commission of the European Communities to the Council for a Decision on European Social Fund measures to aid vocational adaptation operations, 14 November 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A0-0357!750001EN_0001). 68 See Resolution on the reform of the ESF, 15 May 1970 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A0-0043!700001DE_0001); translated by the author—original quote: “treibende und richtungsweisende Kraft”.

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programmes.69 The broader policy ideas of a comprehensive Community social dimension, and of the ESF as the main instrument to implement this dimension, constituted the frame for much of the EP’s more concrete socio-political activism, as shown through a number of examples in the other case studies of this book. 7.4.2

Polity Ideas: The ESF as a Means of Empowerment

The policy ideas discussed in the previous sub-section were inherently connected to the MEPs’ polity ideas of the EP’s role: MEPs saw it as their task to promote, as representatives of the citizens, social measures in the citizens’ favour. In order to be able to assert the EP’s role as the people’s representative, and to be capable of implementing political change, the EP needed to gain a more powerful position than the Treaties provided. Consequently, MEPs followed in their behaviour a logic of appropriateness regarding the rights and duties coming with an EP mandate based on their idea of a powerful Parliament, rather than on the Treaty provisions concerning the EP. This logic of appropriateness in the MEPs’ eyes justified the strategic usage and extension of the EP’s influence through the ESF. Only by reaching a tangible improvement of people’s living and working conditions—or by meeting “the real needs” of the Community’s citizens, as the Dutch Socialist Willem Albers remarked in a 1977 debate—could the EP successfully convey the message. that the Community is the place where [the citizen’s] daily life and his future are steered along the road to satisfaction.70

The ESF was swiftly turned into a crucial instrument in that endeavour. Its relevance increased in particular once the EP approached its first direct elections. Rather than through explicit connections of the ESF to the upcoming elections, the increasing frequency of references to 69 See i.a. Resolution on the first annual report on the activities of the ESF, 2 April 1974 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A0-0018!740010EN_024489); Resolution on the Commission proposal for a Decision on ESF measures to aid vocational adaptation operations, 14 November 1975 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A0-0357!750001EN_0001); Resolution on the Fourth Report on the activities of the ESF, 21 April 1977 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1976_A0-0578!760030EN_037481). 70 Speech by Willem Albers during plenary debate on (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19770512-029900EN_9317481), p. 203.

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the ESF in EP documents in the 30 months before the elections (see Fig. 7.1) suggests that MEPs sought to demonstrate the EP’s ability to improve people’s living and working conditions. In that regard, the year 1979 stands out: with 13 reports and resolutions, more documents were adopted in the first half of 1979 than in most full years prior to the EP’s first direct elections. Even in the years with the highest frequency of ESF-related documents between 1952 and 1979, a maximum of 15 reports and resolutions were adopted. Given that no major revision of the ESF was debated at Community level in 1979, the extraordinarily high number of ESF-related reports and resolutions therefore arguably stood in connection to the MEPs’ aim to showcase the EP’s role as the citizens’ representative through reaching more effective social policy measures. The MEPs’ self-understanding as representatives of the people constituted the main polity idea underlying the EP’s ESF-related activism, not only in the run-up to the elections, but from the fund’s creation. As the Community’s “democratic monitoring body”,71 MEPs considered it their task to safeguard democratic legitimacy in Community social policy making and the distribution of ESF aids. The EP Committee on Social Affairs even went as far as claiming that “Parliament alone, as the representative of public opinion in the Community”, would be “entitled to make” the political choice on the best use of available ESF funding.72 An element of MEPs’ idea of their institution as the provider of democratic legitimacy at Community level was the perceived need to balance the transfer of budgetary (among others) competences from national parliaments to Community level, also with regard to the ESF. Since national Parliaments had no say in the regulation of the ESF, MEPs regarded it to be their responsibility as European parliamentarians to fill the otherwise emerging gap of democratic legitimacy and control. This endeavour was carried not only by those EP committees typically involved in Community social policy: in a 1969 opinion, for instance, the EP Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs emphasised that a mere consultation of the EP on the creation of the ESF or Parliament’s 71 Opinion of the Committee on Budgets on a Commission opinion concerning the reform of the ESF, 26 November 1969 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A00170!690010DE_008129), p. 26. 72 Report by the Committee on Social Affairs on the first report of the activities of the ESF in 1972, 2 April 1974 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1973_A0-0018!740010EN_024489), p. 10 (emphasis added).

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ex-post control on funding would be insufficient. Instead, the committee demanded “that the European Parliament be closely involved in all stages of the [ESF’s] creation and operation”.73 This underlines once more that MEPs’ behaviour was based on their idea of the EP as a fully-fledged supranational parliament, i.e., as an institution gaining powers comparable to those usually held by parliaments in liberal democracies. Indeed, EP committees played an important role in the transfer of such ideas. Reports and draft resolutions on the ESF were mostly prepared either by the Committee on Social Affairs, or by the Committee on Budgets. The ideas underlying these two committees’ ESF-related activism differed remarkably. In fact, the committees’ attitudes can be separated according to the policy and polity ideas discussed above. The Committee on Social Affairs, on the one hand, aimed mainly to extend the Communities’ social dimension, and to reach specific political aims in favour of the Communities’ citizens. In other words, it promoted the policy ideas discussed above. The Committee on Budgets, on the other hand, focused first and foremost on the safeguarding and extension of the EP’s budgetary power, as well as its legislative influence.74 In so doing, it promoted the above-mentioned polity ideas on the parliamentary powers of the EP. Given that both committees shaped EP policy making significantly through their reports and draft resolutions, and through the contributions of their members to plenary debates, both types of ideas determined the EP discourse on the regulation of the ESF. While no open conflict arose from these different positions between the two committees in the case of the ESF (in other cases, such conflicts occasionally occurred),75 a certain jealousy evolved among some MEPs

73 See i.a. Opinion of the Committee on Economic Affairs on the Commission’s opinion concerning the reform of the ESF, 4 December 1969 (PE0_AP_RP!ASOC.1967_A0-0170!690010DE_008129), 24; translated by the author—original quote: “daß das Europäische Parlament an allen Stadien der Schaffung und der Arbeit des erneuerten Sozialfonds eng beteiligt wird”. See also the speech by Ilse Elsner during plenary debate on 9 December 1969 (PE0_AP_DE!1969_DE19691209-039900DE_9306313), p. 51. 74 Confirmed in an interview with Colette Flesch. She named as an example of a particularly engaged member of the Committee on Budgets the French Socialist MEP Georges Spénale, chairman of the committee, who—according to Flesch—“always” had in the back of his mind in his actions how to strengthen the EP. 75 See Report by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection on the draft resolution of the Council on a Community action programme

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towards the role and power of the Committee on Budgets. The interviewees John Corrie, Ole Espersen, Alain Terrenoire, Hans-Werner Müller, Heinz Schreiber and Colette Flesch, who were all members of the committee during their time in the EP, emphasised the budget committee’s special importance in the EP’s gradual gain in power. Indeed, Flesch stated that the EP “extended its influence via the Committee on Budgets”.76 Terrenoire specified that “this committee advanced the budgetary powers of the European Parliament” already prior to the adoption of the budget treaties.77 Espersen called the committee “the only decision-making body of any importance” within the EP. Schreiber recalled that when he was in Parliament, the committee was seen as effectively controlling the Commission on behalf of the EP, “because then we knew where the money came from, and where it was going”, which was seen as politically highly important.78 Müller remembered that the special role of the Committee on Budgets was not only acknowledged by the MEPs themselves, but equally by the Council: he recalled that “it was always the best people who were sent” by the Council to consultations with the budget committee, and that these representatives came well prepared.79 The German Socialist MEP Erwin Lange, chairman of the committee in the 1970s, emphasised the committee’s resulting selfconfidence, but also stressed the arising tensions with other committees, in a speech during the EP plenary debate on the second major revision of the ESF, on 12 May 1977: on safety and health at work, 9 May 1978, including the opinions of the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Social Affairs, Employment and Education, 9 May 1978 (PE0_AP_RP!ENVI.1976_A0-0097!780010EN_058193). The conflict in this case concerned the assignment of the case to a responsible committee: the social committee considered the subject to be within its area of responsibility, rather than the environment committee’s. The budget committee complained moreover about proceedings in the adoption of the report prior to the reception of all requested opinions from other committees (including the budget committee’s own opinion). 76 Translated by the author; original quote: “Es [the EP] hat seinen Einfluss über den Haushaltsausschuss ausgebaut.” See interview with Colette Flesch. 77 Translated by the author; original quote: “cette commission a fait avancer les pouvoirs

budgétaires du Parlement européen”. See interview with Alain Terrenoire. 78 Translated by the author; original quote: “Der Haushaltsausschuss kontrolliert für das Parlament die Kommission, denn dann wissen wir, wo das Geld hin geht und wo es raus geht”. See interview with Heinz Schreiber. 79 Translated by the author; original quote: “[zum Haushaltsausschuss] sind immer die besten Leute hingeschickt worden”. See interview with Hans-Werner Müller.

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I am aware of the concern of many colleagues that the Committee on Budgets might develop into the guardian of all the other committees. Ladies and gentlemen, this will not happen. The Committee on Budgets has only one task, namely to secure, or to help secure and expand, the responsibilities of this Parliament in the fields of budgetary policy and budgetary law. […] Only to that extent, ladies and gentlemen, does the Committee on Budgets have to make its presence felt, among other things to preserve the rights of this Parliament. So let there be no fears that it would like to develop into another committee’s guardian or, as someone once said, a supercommittee.80

Driven by this polity idea of “preserving” (or attaining in the first place) the EP’s parliamentary powers, the budget committee managed to gradually increase the EP’s influence through its strategic exploitation of the Parliament’s budgetary and ESF-based competences.81 It should be noted that concerns about the budget committee’s role or power on the part of other committees’ members did not hamper EP activism in the case of the ESF. The policy and polity ideas promoted by the Committees on Budgets and on Social Affairs were compatible and often indeed intertwined. In their combined impact on MEPs’ behaviour, these ideas formed an important component of the ideational basis underlying the early EP’s institutional evolution.

7.5

Conclusion

This chapter stands out among the case studies analysed in this book, in that it provides insights into the procedures and strategies underlying the EP’s involvement in Community social policy more generally, rather than shedding light on EP activism in a specific policy (sub-)area. The findings of this chapter therefore help gain a better understanding of how MEPs

80 Speech by Erwin Lange during plenary debate on (PE0_AP_DE!1977_DE19770512-029900EN_9317481), p. 206.

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81 Confirmed by Julian Priestley (2008), who worked for the EP Committee on Budgets in the late 1970s, and who recalled that “an amendment to the remarks column of the budget could establish political conditions for the implementation of Community activities, whatever a regulation might say. This audaciously extensive definition of Parliament’s budgetary powers was ultimately tested and found wanting in the Court of Justice. But by then Parliament’s legislative influence was beginning to catch up with its considerable but not unlimited budgetary powers” (121 et seq.).

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achieved socio-political aims, instead of focusing first and foremost on the aims themselves. This case study demonstrates that the EP’s growing influence on Community social policy relied heavily on its Treaty-based right to be involved in the creation and revision of the ESF. Through MEPs’ activism, which was largely aligned to Community policy making concerning the operation of the ESF, the EP could extend the scope of European social policy into several non-Treaty-based areas, and enhance its institutional position at the same time. This chapter demonstrates that the EP could gain influence through its involvement in the ESF via layering processes of both formal and informal procedures. The above analysis of such processes of institutional change helps to better contextualise larger developments in the EP’s parliamentarisation. Among them is the EP’s gain in budgetary power, which the HI section of the analysis points out to be rooted not in the 1970s—with the two budget treaties of 1970 and 1975—but already in the EEC Treaty, and in subsequently established and extended routines of EP involvement. Similar to previous chapters, the SI-based part of the analysis identifies a range of policy and polity ideas underlying MEPs’ activism in the examined case. More specifically the EP’s involvement in the creation and regulation of the ESF reveals the delegates’ shared policy idea of a comprehensive Community social policy, and of the ESF as the main instrument to establish this policy. At the same time, the analysis sheds light on the MEPs’ perception of having the duty to become involved in the regulation of the ESF based on the shared polity idea of the EP as the people’s representative, and as provider of democratic legitimacy to Community legislation and expenditure. The policy and polity ideas traced in this case study are of a more general character than those identified in the other case studies, given that the ESF was used by MEPs in the pursuit of a wide variety of aims. The broader ideas underlying the EP’s involvement in the ESF formed the ideational frame for MEPs’ activism in the pursuit of more specific social policy aims. This becomes visible when juxtaposing the findings from the different case studies analysed in this book: all policy and polity ideas traced in Chapters 4–6 fit into the ideational frame discussed here. Through the strategic usage of the EP’s ESF-related powers, MEPs transformed more general aims into concrete action, which in turn led to reflection and refinement processes concerning the pursued role of the EP in Community policy making, and the establishment of a European social

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dimension. The ESF can consequently be considered not only an important mechanism through which the EP gained parliamentary power, but also a medium for the projection and implementation of MEPs’ shared policy and polity ideas.

References Anderson, J. J. (1995). Structural funds and the social dimension of EU Policy: Springboard or stumbling block? In S. Leibfried & P. Pierson (Eds.), European social policy. Between fragmentation and integration (pp. 123–158). The Brookings Institutions. Brine, J. (2002). The European Social Fund and the EU. Flexibility, growth, stability. Sheffield Academic Press. Brine, J. (2004). The European Social Fund: The Commission, the Member State and levels of governance. European Educational Research Journal, 3(4), 777–789. Burban, J.-L. (2005).Les institutions européennes. Paris: Vuibert. Burgess, M. (2000). Federalism and European Union: The building of Europe, 1950-2000. Routledge. Doutriaux, Y., & Lequesne, C. (2007). Les institutions de l’Union européenne. La Documentation française. Forsyth, M. (1964). Das Parlament der Europäischen Gemeinschaften. Cologne: Europa Union Verlag. Hix, S., & Høyland, B. (2013). Empowerment of the European Parliament. Annual Review of Political Science, 16, 171–189. Kaelble, H. (2007). Sozialgeschichte Europas. 1945 bis zur Gegenwart. C.H. Beck. Leboutte, R. (2008). Histoire économique et sociale de la construction européenne. P.I.E. Peter Lang. Murray, J. (2001). Transnational Labour Regulation. The ILO and EC compared. KLUWER Law International. O’Grada, C. (1969). The vocational training policy of the EEC and the free movement of skilled labour. Journal of Common Market Studies, 8(2), 79– 109. Priestley, J. (2008). Six battles that shaped Europe’s Parliament. John Harper. Shanks, M. (1977). European Social Policy, today and tomorrow. Pergamon Press. Tomé, E. (2013). The European Social Fund: A very specific case instrument of HRD policy. European Journal of Training and Development, 37 (4), 336– 356. Varsori, A. (2010). Le développement d’une politique sociale européenne. In G. Bossuat et al. (Eds.), L’expérience européenne. 50 ans de construction de l’Europe 1957–2007. Des historiens en dialogue. Actes du colloque international de Rome 2007 (pp. 235–269). Bruylant/L.G.D.J./Nomos.

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Varsori, A., & Mechi, L. (2007). At the origins of the European structural policy: The Community’s social and regional policies from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s. In J. van der Harst (Ed.), Beyond the Customs Union: The European Community’s Quest for deepening, widening and completion, 1969–1975 (pp. 223–250). Bruylant/L.G.D.J./Nomos. Vergès, J.-R. (1966). La participation du Parlement européen à l’élaboration du droit communautaire dans le cadre des Traités de Rome. In A.-M. Houbdine & J.-R. Vergès (Eds.), Le Parlement européen dans la construction de l’Europe des Six (pp. 53–180). Presses Universitaires de France. Westlake, M. (1990). The origin and development of the question time procedure in the European Parliament (EUI Working Paper No. 90/4). EUI.

CHAPTER 8

Conclusion: The Making of a Parliament

8.1

Introduction

From its early years, the European Parliament has been treated as the gold standard with regard to the parliamentarisation of supranational assemblies.1 Whereas this may come as no surprise when looking at today’s EP—holding a wide range of powers typical to parliaments in liberal democracies—few aspects in the EP’s formal establishment as the Assembly of the European Communities in the 1950s pointed to its subsequent development into a near fully-fledged supranational parliament.2 Indeed, comparisons of the early EP to a parliament reflected (unfulfilled) potential, ambitions and expectations rather than realities. This book has sought to explain the trajectory of the EP from an assembly with few formal powers towards an institution that already held noteworthy (though to a significant extent informal) legislative, budgetary, initiative and control powers at the point of its first direct elections in 1979. The above-mentioned differences between expectations

1 See i.a. Stein (1959); Bubba (1969); Manzanarès and Quentin (1979); Krumrey (2018). 2 While much literature discusses the various ways in which the EP gained parliamentary powers and influence, Brack and Costa (2018) and Ripoll Servent (2018), amongst others, point out to what extent the EP cannot yet be considered a ‘normal parliament’.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Roos, The Parliamentary Roots of European Social Policy, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78233-7_8

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and reality played a crucial role in the EP’s institutional development, as the chapters of this book illustrate. MEPs’ expectations with regard to what their institution should be(come), which were based on shared ideas of ever closer European political and institutional integration, are shown to have considerably influenced their behaviour in the context of Community policy making. The chapters of this book furthermore analyse how different processes of institutional change provided fertile ground for MEPs to implement their ideas, while other institutional processes constrained their activism. In providing an in-depth study of the EP’s involvement in Community policy making, this book has therefore accomplished its objective, namely to demonstrate and explain the EP’s gradual gain in power prior to 1979. The scope of the analysis has been focussed on the area of social policy, through which MEPs hoped to convince the member states’ citizens of the Communities’ value—an important element in the MEPs’ pursuit to be perceived as the people’s representative. In addition, given that the Treaty provisions on social policy were limited in scope, precision and number, but that the member states agreed gradually to extend Community competences in social policy, the area offered much leeway for MEPs’ activism beyond the equally limited mandate provided for the EP by the Treaties. Indeed, the case studies analysed in this book demonstrate that the area of social policy is eminently suited to shed light on various strategies applied by MEPs to reach different aims of political and institutional integration, as well as the institutional framework of rules and procedures delimiting and steering the MEPs’ behaviour. At the same time, the analysis of MEPs’ socio-political activism provides new insight into the important role played by the EP in the establishment and frequent expansion beyond Treaty paragraphs of the Communities’ social dimension. This concluding chapter assesses the applicability of the findings from the previous chapters for the EP’s institutional development and the coming into being of a European social dimension more generally. For this purpose, as a first step, the most important findings of the case study chapters are discussed below. These insights are then embedded in the larger context of the EP’s institutional development until and beyond 1979. In so doing, the chapter demonstrates the contribution of this book to a better understanding of today’s EP, and of the roots of European social policy. The chapter closes with an outlook on opportunities for further research building on the findings of this book.

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8.2

281

Main Findings

As formulated in the main research question and the two sub-questions underlying the analysis, this book seeks to explain the EP’s gain in power in Community social policy through studying the MEPs’ behaviour on the one hand, notably with tools from sociological institutionalism, and through the analysis of institutionalisation processes on the other, drawing on the toolbox of historical institutionalism. Each chapter in the main part of the book contributes to answering the research questions from different angles, which in their combination provide a detailed picture of the early EP’s functioning and involvement in Community social policy making, and of the institutional change the Parliament-to-be underwent. This section combines these findings, and places them in the broader context of the EP’s institutional development and the evolution of European social policy. 8.2.1

The Impact of Ideas, Norms and Socialisation on MEPs’ Behaviour

All chapters of this book confirm and provide ample evidence that the MEPs’ behaviour was influenced significantly by their ideas of European integration. Ideas which were shared by a majority among the MEPs proved to have a lasting impact on the EP’s institutional development. The chapters point out two different types of ideas that influenced the MEPs’ behaviour in different ways: policy ideas on the one hand, and polity ideas on the other. Policy ideas of concrete Community competences, of closer political cooperation and integration shaped the EP’s social policy agenda to a significant extent. Driven by these ideas, MEPs were able to influence Community legislation through resolutions and reports proposing amendments to legislative proposals, as well as through parliamentary questions and informal exchanges with members of the Commission and the Council. Usually only elements of EP output were embraced and adopted by the Commission and the Council. Despite such limited chance of success, the underlying ideas induced persistent activism which led MEPs to deviate frequently from narrow Treaty provisions. Such deviating action on the part of MEPs was rarely actively punished by the Commission and the Council. Indeed, the worst-case scenario of consequences would typically be that the Council, and sometimes the

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Commission, ignored EP initiatives. Every success in influencing Community policy making and the Communities’ social policy agenda, however, meant for the MEPs another step towards a more social Europe—which implied not least better social regulation and an extension of sociopolitical competence at Community level. Such success also contributed to the gradual empowerment of the EP through the establishment of non-Treaty-based EP involvement. MEP’s ambitions to empower the EP, and to extend the competences of the Communities’ supranational institutions, were rooted in their polity ideas . Manifold documents presented in the different chapters of this book as well as all interviews conducted for this research have confirmed that a vast majority of MEPs shared the idea of the EP gaining those powers typical to parliaments in liberal democracies, in order to be not merely the Treaty-based consultative assembly of the Communities, but indeed their fully-fledged Parliament. MEPs sought to give the EP the powers it in their opinion rightfully deserved, notably in order to provide democratic legitimacy to the Communities. Consequently, as pointed out in the SI parts of the analysis in different chapters, MEPs’ behaviour followed a logic of appropriateness that was rooted not primarily in the Treaties, but rather in the normative framework of the delegates’ perception of what the EP should be(come). In order to give the EP a more parliamentary character than provided by the Treaties, MEPs gave it the structure of a parliament through establishing party groups and committees, and organised their everyday work accordingly. As an element thereof, intra-group unity prevailed within the EP despite the fact that the groups’ leadership had hardly any possibility of punishing MEPs for defecting from party-group lines, and that MEPs’ careers were decided by their national parties rather than by EP groups. Moreover, from the 1950s, MEPs met on a much more regular basis in the EP, in its committees and groups than would have been necessary to fulfil the tasks placed on the EP by the Treaties. The delegates produced detailed reports, conducted study trips in all member states on different policy issues, and commented on virtually all Commission proposals for social legislation instead of merely the small number of areas in which the Treaties provided for EP consultation. The analysis of the effect of polity ideas on MEPs’ activism identified a strong impact of socialisation—both within the EP and beyond—on their behaviour. The delegates’ experiences as national parliamentarians

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shaped their ideas of what a Parliament—also at supranational level— should be able to do, and how it should work. These experiences outside of the EP consequently influenced the logics of appropriateness according to which MEPs acted at European level, in that they saw the EP as the people’s representative, and themselves in their MEP mandates as Euro-parliamentarians rather than national delegates. These logics of appropriateness induced MEPs to try and translate their procedural expertise as parliamentarians from national level into efficient working procedures in the EP. Among other areas, they transferred their experience in strategies to influence the political executive from national to Community level. Naturally, such transfers of procedures implied an adaptation process to the Communities’ institutional structures and policy areas. In this regard, this book has found evidence for another dimension of socialisation which the MEPs passed, namely a socialisation into the unique rules and procedures of the EP. The chapters of this book point out this supranational-level socialisation as having usually been swift and efficient in aligning MEPs’ behaviour, despite a relatively high turnover of delegates. Some of the chapters (notably Chapters 5 and 6), however, discuss that when a bigger group of MEPs similarly socialised in their national parliaments joined the EP—specifically, with the Communities’ first enlargement—their integration into the EP brought with it some changes in the usage of established procedures, namely in a swiftly increasing frequency of parliamentary questions, and in initial opposition of some British MEPs towards the practice of issues being resolved in (non-public) committees and groups rather than (public) plenary debates. The sociological institutionalist analysis of MEPs’ behaviour traced not only a socialisation with regard to procedures, but also to norms and ideas. The consistency of the social policy positions promoted by the EP— confirmed in all case studies—suggests that MEPs were swiftly socialised into supporting established EP policies. This consistency is remarkable particularly considering the above-mentioned high MEP turnover at the time, and the fact that Community social policy changed significantly during the period under consideration, which might be expected to have steered the EP’s social policy making more in terms of contents than was actually the case. Chapter 3 explains how MEPs’ socialisation into the EP resulted among other factors from MEPs’ vague and overall limited expectations upon entering the EP, which meant that ideas promoted by more experienced MEPs did not have to compete much with ideas already held

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by newer delegates. Instead, they could fill relative voids, facilitated by most MEPs’ generally favourable opinion of closer European integration. This finding regarding MEPs’ intra-EP socialisation has been shown to apply to both policy and polity ideas: not only did new MEPs usually take on and develop further ideas regarding concrete socio-political measures promoted by the EP, but they also swiftly acknowledged the EP’s parliamentary structures and the pursuit of the EP’s empowerment as just and appropriate, visible in many cases of rapidly developing activism. Striking evidence of this are the norm entrepreneurs identified in the different chapters of this book, many of whom took on that role only months after having entered the EP. The importance of such norm entrepreneurs for the EP’s institutional development is traced in several of the case studies analysed in this book. The influence of these small groups of particularly activist MEPs is evident especially in the two chapters on social policy areas in which the MEPs’ far-reaching ambitions for Community intervention were supported only by a very thin Treaty basis—i.e., equality policy, and children and youth policy. In addition, norm entrepreneurs played a significant role in the process of translating polity ideas of EP empowerment into strategic action, a process illustrated amongst others in Chapters 3 and 7 for the case of MEPs’ strategic usage of their growing budgetary power. Norm entrepreneurs have been shown to have played an important role in promoting activism in the form of deviation from narrow Treaty provisions which was considered necessary in order to reach specific policy and polity ideas of closer integration. These particularly activist delegates defined EP policies and shaped the ideas and norms subsequently taken over by the bulk of MEPs by drafting reports, motions for resolutions and amendments to Community legislation, which were normally only modified slightly prior to EP adoption. Norm entrepreneurs furthermore had an impact on EP policy making through individual speeches and parliamentary questions which were subsequently used as references in collective EP activism. The case studies of this book demonstrate that, not least based on priorities shaped by the norm entrepreneurs, MEPs’ involvement in Community policy making was in some areas more dominated by shared policy ideas, whereas in others polity ideas came to the fore more clearly. In the framework of this book, two case studies demonstrate these shifting ideational balances with particular clarity: Chapter 7, on the one hand, reveals how MEPs used the EP’s involvement in the establishment of the

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ESF in order to pursue their large-scale polity idea of a stronger supranational Parliament, representing the citizens and guaranteeing democratic legitimacy of Community policy making. Chapter 5, on the other hand, shows that in the area of equality policy, polity ideas of EP empowerment played only a marginal role as opposed to much more influential ideas of comprehensive equality between male and female workers. Indeed, Chapter 5 stands out as the only case in which MEPs’ activism was only to a very limited extent driven by integration-related ideas, both in terms of political and institutional integration. Instead, those MEPs driving the EP’s discourse on equality saw the Communities as a useful forum for the promotion of their more general ideas of equality and emancipation. No other case study revealed such an instrumental usage of EP tools in order to pursue non-integration related policy ideas. In addition, the case study on equality policy stands out among those social policy areas analysed here which MEPs used the least in order to strengthen the connection of Community policy making to the citizens, and to emphasise the EP’s role as the people’ representative. In all other case studies, this dimension was found to have played an important role in the EP social discourse, and in the argumentation for EP involvement in Community politics. 8.2.2

Processes of Institutional Change Resulting in the EP’s Gradual Gain in Power

In connection to this SI-based analysis, the chapters of this book explore how and why EP activism gradually turned into EP empowerment. Through the application of HI tools and concepts, the different case studies reveal a range of processes which resulted in the institutionalisation of often informally established rules and procedures, and eventually in institutional change. The most important of these processes are summarised in the individual chapters’ conclusions. This section points out the larger trends of institutional change to which these processes contributed, and contextualises their relevance in the EP’s overall institutional development. The largest and most obvious trend in this development, which all case studies confirm, lies in the considerable increase of the EP’s parliamentary influence in Community policy making. While this is not a new finding in itself, having been noted in a variety of studies on the EP’s institutional evolution, this book provides important new insights into this gain in power particularly in the first decades of the EP’s existence. The analysis

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shows that, contrary to the narrative presented in much historical as well as political science literature on the EP, the Parliament’s empowerment process was neither linear, nor did its power remain static up to the 1970s. Instead, this book demonstrates that the EP’s institutional development was shaped by progress in the MEPs’ pursuit of more influence as well as by stagnation and regress, under the influence of different endogenous and exogenous events and developments in and around the Communities. Though studied here only for the area of social policy, this finding can with some confidence be applied to the EP’s institutional development more generally. The exogenous and endogenous events which are shown to have had a marked impact on the EP’s influence in Community policy making, such as the Empty Chair crisis, the 1970s economic and financial crisis, the first enlargement and the 1970s budget treaties, had broad implications beyond one single policy area. Indeed, their effects on Community social policy making were often merely side phenomena, as opposed to large-scale repercussions for instance in the areas of economic and fiscal policy. It can consequently be assumed that such events shaped the EP’s involvement in Community policy making more generally. This leads to the second major finding with regard to the EP’s more general institutional development: the case studies of this book show that events which have so far been considered critical junctures in the EP’s early history, and major leaps towards more parliamentary power, to some extent merely formalised what had been accepted practice for some time previously. An important example is the EP’s power gain through the budget treaties of 1970 and 1975, as discussed in Chapter 7, which were preceded by a noteworthy increase of the EP’s budgetary power not least through Parliament’s involvement in the establishment of the ESF from the late 1950s onwards. Processes of only gradually formalised empowerment can also be traced with regard to the EP’s legislative power. Consultation as the first form of legislative influence evolved informally already during the 1950s, though being codified only with the Treaties of Rome, and was then extended (among other areas) throughout the area of Community social policy. Chapters 6 and 7 discuss furthermore the development of an indirect power of initiative in the 1960s, which MEPs established by urging the Commission to put issues on the Communities’ social agenda, and to propose Community action or legislation. Like the EP’s co-legislative power, this indirect parliamentary power was only codified later, notably through the Maastricht Treaty (though the EP’s power of initiativeremains restricted: Parliament relies until today on the

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Commission’s support in the implementation of its initiatives).3 Indeed, this book finds that, overall, the EP did not deviate significantly from the path set by its earliest members in the 1950s, underlining the SI-based finding of a strong socialisation of MEPs into the EP, and the HI-based finding of a high level of stability in the rules and procedures structuring the EP’s work. The third general finding of this book from an HI perspective is that the EP’s empowerment took shape considerably earlier than assumed by much of the existing literature, namely through informally established rules and procedures that were formalised and codified over time. Indeed, this book discusses numerous examples of increasingly routinised and regularised EP influence on Community legislation. Though the book provides evidence for this finding again only for the area of social policy, broader statements consistent with this finding by interviewees and the few existing studies looking into the early EP’s involvement in Community policy making in other policy areas support the assumption that the finding applies to the EP’s institutional development more generally. Based on its analysis of the EP’s multifaceted informal empowerment in the area of social policy prior to its first direct elections, this book agrees with Meyer (2011) that “1979 was less of a turning point than usually assumed”.4 Whereas the first elections granted MEPs the direct democratic legitimacy at Community level which their delegated predecessors had been missing, that year did not bring any fundamental change in procedures, structures, or even in the self-understanding of the EP’s members as Euro-parliamentarians. The HI part of the analysis provides an in-depth explanation of different institutional dynamics underlining these three main findings, with a specific focus on the concrete gains in parliamentary influence with regard to legislative, budgetary, initiative and control powers. The case studies show that the EP’s empowerment was solidified through a combination of different modes of gradual institutional change, unintended consequences, and a number of path-dependent developments. One of the most important examples of such a combination of different dynamics in the EP’s institutional development has been named above— specifically, the extension of the consultation procedure. In the area of 3 See Kreppel and Webb (2019) for an in-depth discussion of the EP’s lacking power to directly introduce legislative bills, and of resulting EP attempts during the period 2000–2015 to put issues on the EU policy agenda via own-initiative resolutions. 4 Meyer (2011: 85).

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social policy, this power extension typically began with a conversion— one of the modes of gradual institutional change identified by HI—of the consultation procedure from one area of legislation where the Treaty provided for EP involvement to another in which no EP consultation was foreseen. The MEPs reached such a conversion among other strategies through rhetorical entrapment of the Council and the Commission, i.e. by arguing that the involvement of the EP was necessary in order to guarantee the democratic legitimacy of Community decision-making. In combination with the Council’s and Commission’s perception of a lack of such democratic legitimacy, increasing substantially from the late 1960s, MEPs’ activism triggered a normative path dependence of institutionalising the consultation procedure even in areas where the Treaties did not provide for it. Once introduced, abandoning the procedure would have been perceived as a step backwards in the pursuit of more democratic legitimacy for Community politics. To the Council in particular, this seemed more costly than hearing the EP, especially since consultation did not automatically imply that the EP’s positions were accepted and its amendments taken over into Community legislation. The Commission, however, did take over a significant number of amendments proposed by the EP into its revised proposals which it then re-submitted to the Council, thus making the extended consultation procedure not merely a routinised formality, but an efficient tool of increasing EP influence. This dynamic of gradual empowerment went hand in hand with another dynamic of institutional development identified in the case studies of this book: as the Communities’ actions in the area of social policy intensified, MEPs increasingly aligned their activism with Commission proposals. This alignment occurred naturally only in those cases where the Commission made proposals providing a sufficient basis for MEPs to embed and connect their own policy and polity ideas, such as in the areas of free movement policy (see Chapter 4) and—albeit to a lesser extent—equality policy (see Chapter 5), though not as much in the area of children and youth policy (see Chapter 6). In connection to this finding, the chapters of this book demonstrate that the EP’s empowerment depended to some extent upon, and was influenced by, MEPs’ relations to the other Community institutions. Personnel changes in the case of the Commissioner responsible for the social portfolio, for instance, were found to have caused dynamics of gradual institutional change, specifically: drifts in the institutional environment within which the EP’s policy making was embedded. After all, the Commission’s (through the

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respectively responsible Commissioners’ and their cabinet’s) willingness to involve Parliament affected the extent to which the EP was able to influence Community legislation. Chapters 3 and 7 point out furthermore that MEPs also used close contacts to their national ministers, and tried to exert pressure on them via their double mandate as national and European parliamentarians, in order to influence the Council and push it to involve the EP more frequently. 8.2.3

Why Did the Commission and the Council Accept the EP’s Empowerment?

The gradual empowerment of the EP poses the question of why the Commission and the Council allowed MEP activism to continue, and thereby (more or less) tacitly accepted an incremental gain in power for the EP. The case studies of this book provide a range of answers, connected to the different EP attempts to influence decision-making. The fact that the Commission accepted, and often indeed embraced, the EP’s empowerment is relatively easy to explain. First, the Communities’ executive was controlled by the EP, which had the power to dismiss the college of commissioners at any given point. The Commission thus had an interest in retaining the EP’s favour, notably through involving it in legislative procedures, and by providing the information the EP requested in order to be able to properly assess Community policies and the institutional procedures behind them. Second, and more importantly, the Commission (especially the Commissioner for Social Affairs) and the EP usually shared the same general attitudes in favour of a stronger social dimension of the Communities. Consequently, the two institutions tended to push together in the same direction, wherein the third motivation for the Commission to grant the EP more influence can be found: the EP’s empowerment was to some extent in the Commission’s own interest, because the EP usually supported the Commission’s policy line, particularly in pro-integrationist issues on which Council members tended to be more sceptical. Having the EP’s backing thus granted the Commission a stronger bargaining position, and the stronger the EP’s position in decision-making, the stronger the support which it could lend. In addition, the EP is shown in this book to have demanded a strengthening of the Commission’s mandate whenever pushing for the extension of the Communities’ socio-political competences. Enabling the EP to reach its aims was thus equally in the Commission’s interest. Based on these

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reasons, the Commission generally embraced a strengthening of the EP’s powers and influence prior to 1979.5 The case of the Council’s approval of EP empowerment is more complex. Council and Parliament were the two most outspoken institutional opponents in the Communities: the members of the former represented mostly national interests; the members of the latter—as shown in this book—supranational ideas. In the area of social policy, the Council usually sought to tone down Commission proposals for new Community competences, whereas the EP generally criticised the proposals for not going far enough. In its relation with the Council, the EP was in a weaker position than with regard to the Commission, because the Treaties’ authors had ensured that the EP had no control over the Council, and that Parliament had formally no significant legislative power, which remained instead with the Council itself. Yet, despite the fact that there was no Treaty change prior to the 1970s budget treaties, and no formal gain in legislative power until the SEA, the EP succeeded in influencing Community policy making and legislation to an increasing extent already prior to its first direct elections. Most importantly, this book confirms that the Council agreed to the involvement of the EP beyond Treaty provisions first and foremost based on the above-mentioned perception of a lack of democratic legitimacy in Community decision-making. Throughout the period under consideration, the EP held the (perceived) monopoly of being able to provide such legitimacy through its role as representative of the people, which its members vociferously defended, as the case studies of this book show. One further reason for the Council’s acceptance of EP involvement has been referred to in the previous section: all MEPs were at the same time members of national parliaments, and could hence exert some pressure on

5 Research on the EP beyond its first direct elections has shown that the Commission’s relatively unequivocal support for EP empowerment waned to some extent when, in the 1990s, the Amsterdam Treaty formalised and extended the EP’s co-legislation power through the co-decision procedure. This procedure took away the Commission’s powerful role as mediator between the Council and the EP by shifting much of the decision-making process to direct exchanges between these two actors (see Costa & Magnette, 2003). This underlines the finding presented here that Commission support for EP empowerment had an intrinsic dimension of self-interest to retain and enhance the Commission’s own powers. This self-interest was seemingly not perceived as being endangered by the empowerment of the EP prior to 1979.

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their respective ministers in their home parliaments, as well as via national parties. Moreover, it should not be assumed that all Council members were staunch Eurosceptics—both with regard to the EP’s role and to a deepening of Community social policy—to the contrary. Particularly from the Hague Summit of 1969 onwards, member state governments demonstrated their openness to a stronger social dimension, and through it their support of a more “human face” for the Communities, which implied the extension of Community competences in the area. The push by member states in favour of political integration usually went hand in hand with an acceptance of further institutional integration, including a strengthening of the EP either directly, e.g. via extended consultation, or indirectly via a stronger mandate for the Commission, which usually involved the EP in policy making, as explained above. This book demonstrates also, however, that EP empowerment was often an unintended consequence or a tolerated side effect rather than a target in itself of Council decisions. Indeed, the chapters of this book outline a number of cases in which the Council members’ pursuit of short-term policy aims led to a long-term increase of EP influence which the Council had not aimed for. The broader concession of extending the consultation procedure explained above, for instance, was not made with the main aim to grant the EP more legislative power in the long term, but rather to visibly and swiftly gain democratic legitimacy; yet it turned out to be a steppingstone in the EP’s increasing legislative powers. On a smaller scale, Chapter 3 points out that the Council’s agreement to answer parliamentary questions from MEPs in the late 1950s evolved into a mechanism of parliamentary scrutiny which, though non-binding, institutionalised EP-Council relations of a kind from which the Treaties’ authors had explicitly refrained. Another aspect should not be underestimated in the Council’s contribution to the EP’s empowerment, as this book discusses in a number of concrete examples: namely the close personal contacts of MEPs to commissioners, ministers and staff members in other Community institutions. At a time when all these institutions were of much smaller size than today, which implies a greater accessibility, MEPs could make much informal use of their good connections to persons who had a say in formal decision-making. Some of these close contacts had their roots in the EP itself: given that the Parliament was so small, MEPs knew (and got to know) each other well, not least given the time they frequently shared

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away from their homes, friends and families. After their time as MEPs, many of the delegates returned to Community level in changed roles— as commissioners, ministers in the Council, or as members of staff. Since several MEPs made the shift immediately after the end of their European mandate—indeed, some left the EP in order to take up for instance a ministerial post—they still knew many of the MEPs sitting in Strasbourg and Luxembourg. Moreover, MEPs had been socialised into the Parliament, its procedures, norms and ideas, many of which they had adopted as their own and promoted during their time in the EP. As a result, these former MEPs often demonstrated a noteworthy openness to exchanges with the MEPs in their new positions in the Commission or Council, and showed understanding of the position of the delegates on the other side of the plenary hall. One noteworthy example, as demonstrated in several chapters, is the former MEP Hendrikus Vredeling, later Commissioner for Social Affairs. Given the focus of this book on Community social policy, all evidence provided by the case studies for the findings concerning the Commission’s and Council’s acceptance of EP empowerment comes from this policy area. Yet, this book also claims to make a broader contribution to a better understanding of the early EP’s general institutional development. This claim can be upheld with some certainty because, whereas the presented evidence is largely limited to the area of social policy, the analysed phenomena are not. The Commission benefitted from the EP’s support in other policy areas as well; and the EP’s control over the Commission was comprehensive. The good EP–Commission relations, their pursuit of similar policy ideas and mutual attempts to strengthen the respective other have been confirmed for the area of environment policy during the 1970s and 1980s by Meyer (2014), and have also been stated by Corbett (1998), Westlake (1994) and Schwed (1978) for the period prior to 1979 and by Héritier et al. (2019) throughout the EP’s institutional development more generally. The lack of democratic legitimacy was perceived to be a potential weakness of Community policy making that was not limited to any specific policy area. The assumption that the Council agreed to an increasing EP involvement based on the pursuit of more democratic legitimacy has been discussed and confirmed, among others, by Ripoll Servent (2018), Meyer (2011), Héritier (2007) and Rittberger (2003, 2005). With regard to the impact of informal inter-institutional relations on the EP’s empowerment, a number of interviewees recalled various instances of personal contacts leading to increased EP involvement for a number of

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cases beyond the area of social policy.6 In short, the social policy-based findings of this book identify a series of broader dynamics and reasons for the early EP’s more general gain in power and influence. The systematic analysis of these dynamics on a larger scale and throughout the EP’s entire institutional development remains subject to further research. 8.2.4

Bringing the Community Project Closer to the People: The EP’s Impact on the Evolution of European Social Policy

No broad and comprehensive social dimension to the common market had evolved by the time of the EP’s first direct elections. Nevertheless, the period under examination in this book witnessed some noteworthy development in the area of Community social policy, not least as regards the setting of common minimum standards and the harmonisation of national legislation. Beyond such incremental steps towards laying the grounds of European social law, Community social policy was extended to cover not only employment-related areas, but also aspects contributing more generally to the improvement of the member state citizens’ living conditions. In the same vein, the target group of social policy measures was extended to comprise not only working people and their relatives, but also different disadvantaged groups of persons regardless of (or at least not with an exclusive focus on) their employability, such as children, youth, elderly and persons with disabilities. The early EP played an important role in these various extensions, as Chapters 4–7 of this book have shown for a selection of case studies. Despite the twofold Treaty-based restriction of limited parliamentary powers on the one hand, and only few and fragmented social Treaty provisions on the other, MEPs became intensely involved in the Commission’s socio-political activism and succeeded in a number of cases in shaping Community social policy according to their ideas of a Europe for and of the people. Through a variety of measures in favour of the member states’ citizens, MEPs hoped to convince the people of the value of closer integration for them personally, and to counter perceptions of the Communities as a top-down, technocratic and purely economic entity. To what extent they succeeded in this endeavour of instilling in the people a feeling of Europeanness remains subject to further research. This book 6 See i.a. interviews with Jean-Pierre Cot, Ole Espersen, Colette Flesch, Lothar Ibrügger, Charles McDonald and Arie van der Hek.

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does provide evidence, however, for the noteworthy extent to which the EP could shape European social policy in the early years of its emergence. Indeed, even if the Community’s social dimension remained far from MEPs’ often far-reaching ambitions, the EP could exert some measurable influence on Community social policy. First and foremost, the increasing frequency of EP consultations through the Council and the involvement of the EP by the Commission at the drafting stage of proposals allowed MEPs successfully to introduce amendments to Community legislation, and to shift the focus and scope of some proposals according to their ideas. MEPs also managed to extend Community social policy by using their institution’s budgetary power, notably as regards the EP’s say on the functioning and remit of the ESF, and its influence on Community expenditure via the two budget treaties of 1970 and 1975 and the connected Joint Declaration. Moreover, the chapters of this book shed light on a number of cases in which the EP—although holding no formal power of initiative—could initiate socio-political action at Community level via its good contacts to the Commission. Through parliamentary questions, study trips and insights from their own constituencies, MEPs could furthermore exert some pressure on the member states’ governments to better implement adopted Community legislation. MEPs’ socio-political activism was not purely altruistic, as this book has shown, but also served the purpose of cementing the EP’s role as representative of the people, and thereby of increasing its powers and influence in Community politics. Regardless of such institutional ambitions, this book provides ample evidence that the gradual extension of European social policy is rooted to a noteworthy extent in early EP activism. The EP’s success in influencing European social policy varied, however, from area to area, as the chapters of this book equally demonstrate. Namely, where there was hardly any Treaty basis to start with, and no economic gain to be expected from the social measures promoted by MEPs, member states were hard to convince to give in to EP demands and proposals for closer social integration. This is visible for instance in the areas of equality policy and children and youth policy, as discussed in Chapters 5 and 6—although even in these areas, MEPs managed to extend (equality policy), or even to initiate in the first place (children and youth policy), some Community legislation and action, next to a large number of failed examples of EP activism. In the few areas where the

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Treaties did provide for social measures, MEPs naturally faced less obstacles in their pursuit of specific policy aims and could achieve a higher rate of successes, as shown in Chapters 4 and 7. Whereas the instances of EP influence examined in this book may on first sight seem to be fragmentary and limited, measured against MEPs’ larger aims of a comprehensive social dimension to the Communities, they do point in a direction which later developments in European social policy followed. This concerns both concrete initiatives promoted by the EP which were adopted and/or implemented years, sometimes decades, after they had entered the Community political agenda, and larger patterns characterising EU social policy until today. Examples of the former have been discussed at several points in this book—among them the decadeslong institutional battle to establish European-level rules on maternity protection (see Chapter 5), and different measures to improve the living and working conditions of persons moving within the Community (see Chapter 4). The latter aspect—larger patterns in EU social policy—can be traced not least in EP attempts to turn socio-political soft-law measures into binding legislation,7 but also to continuously resort to soft-law mechanisms in order to further extend the social dimension of the EU.8 The EP itself has retained its role as proactive player in and promoter of closer social integration until today.9 Through its case studies, this book contributes important insights to our better understanding of the coming into being of European social policy, and of the EP’s crucial role therein.

8.3

Added Value of the Hybrid HSI Approach

In applying a hybrid HSI approach, this book builds on a novel theoretical approach in the study of European integration. The findings of this analysis demonstrate the distinct added value of this approach in the study of processes in the early stages of integration, namely in the formation and evolution of institutions, rules and procedures. Whereas 7 See e.g. Dawson (2011). 8 See e.g. Dawson (2011) on the EP’s role in the Open Method of Coordination;

Burns (2005) on the EP’s strategic usage of its budgetary power to pursue social aims; Geyer (2007) on EP activism in the area of anti-discrimination action. 9 See e.g. Crespy (2019); Goetschy (2006). Roos (2021) sheds light on continuities and shifts in the EP’s involvement in European social policy from the 1970s to the 1980s.

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this book focuses on the EP’s institutional development, it can be argued that the combination of the HI and SI toolboxes also allows for a better understanding of other institutional actors which developed powers and took on roles that deviated from the original intentions of the authors of Treaties and formal agreements. Importantly, this book does not merely juxtapose two individual studies. Instead, the findings presented in each chapter and above build on the combination of the insights reached through this two-angle approach, which allows for better contextualisation and a more multifaceted understanding of the examined aspects. Regarding the reasons why the Commission and the Council accepted the EP’s empowerment, for instance, processes of institutional change, such as path dependences and unintended consequences, as well as the impact of shared ideas (notably of required democratic legitimacy), logics of appropriateness (regarding the role of a parliamentary institution in policymaking procedures) and socialisation processes (of former MEPs entering the Commission and the Council) were shown to have influenced the consolidation of the EP’s gain in power. These different factors, however, cannot be treated as having influenced the EP’s development independent from each other, as the chapters of this book demonstrate: only when processes triggered by certain shared ideas became institutionalised did they develop a lasting impact on the EP’s institutional evolution. Similarly, the MEPs’ supranational activism, the importance of which to the EP’s empowerment is evident throughout this book, can only be fully understood if examining both the ideas which caused and nourished it—against rational objections such as the EP’s relative powerlessness and repeated failures of EP initiatives—and the institutional context which either enabled or constrained it. An analysis limited to an SI approach could only have accounted for the individual actors’ reasons behind such activism, but it could not have fully explained how such activism took shape, and why it was successful or not in certain cases. Vice versa, a purely HI-based analysis would have been insufficient in explaining the roots of MEPs’ activism, and of MEPs’ persistence in pushing for more political and institutional integration. The findings resulting from a combination of HI and SI not only deepen our understanding of the early EP’s gain in power, but they also help clarify why this hybrid theoretical approach is particularly useful to provide answers to the research questions of the book. In merging the two institutionalisms, more ground is covered in

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the analysis through the wider variety of identified factors in the EP’s institutional development. A multi-dimensional analysis of the EP as a construct of its members and their actions on the one hand, and as a body influenced by various endogenous dynamics of institutional change and exogenous events on the other hand, similarly enables a more in-depth understanding of the EP’s gain in power. Importantly, in this regard, this book does not simply treat the EP as a unitary actor. Instead, the book shows—based on SI— that the early EP was shaped by individual MEPs, and to a particularly significant extent by a group of norm entrepreneurs. In the analysis of the MEPs’ behaviour, this book reveals much common ground with regard to shared ideas and the MEPs’ socialisation. At the same time, MEPs could evidently influence the EP’s institutional development only to a certain extent; a focus solely on their behaviour might consequently risk overemphasising their impact on the EP’s empowerment. By zooming out and tracing different dynamics of institutional change which shaped the EP as well as the other Community institutions on whose actions the EP’s role in Community decision-making depended, this book thus contextualises the SI-based findings with the HI-dimension of its analysis, and demonstrates that the early EP’s gain in power can only be understood as the combination of both individual activism and broader institutional change.

8.4

Outlook

There are, as usual, many possibilities to further explore the various issues studied in this book. Before looking at some options, it should be noted that some limitations of this analysis cannot be remedied through more research. These unsolvable limitations are connected to the fact that the period under consideration lies several decades in the past. This means that only a limited number of contemporary witnesses remain who could be asked about the actions and behaviour of those who shaped the early EP, as well as processes of Community policy making in other Community institutions and bodies. Given that much activism at the time took place in informal settings, research relies to a significant extent on such personal evidence, since many actions, intra- and inter-institutional exchanges were not recorded on any medium, nor were they deemed important enough to be described by many of those contemporary witnesses who wrote down their experiences in the form of personal or published memoirs. Moreover, the statements that can still be collected have to be treated

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with caution by the researcher, given that, for one reason or other, some contemporary witnesses tend to generalisation, nostalgia, the mixing up of details, or the presentation of some facts in a certain way to appear in the best possible light.10 In short, it is increasingly difficult to collect the required information via personal statements, making it impossible at some point to conduct research beyond issues related to structures and procedures for which evidence exists in some kind of documentary form. This difficulty of gathering evidence weighs heavily in one area on which the author would like to see more research conducted in the belief that much remains unknown which might change our image of early European integration. As with a large part of research on European integration history, this book does not pay much attention to the institutions’ members of staff. Whereas the author sought to demonstrate the crucial role played by staff members in the EP’s institutional evolution on specific occasions, this book could for reasons of space restrictions and in the pursuit of analytical coherence not provide a deeper analysis of their contribution to the EP’s empowerment, although the author is convinced that this contribution was remarkable. Staff members’ influence on the EP’s institutional development was arguably at least as extensive, if not more so, during the first three decades of the EP’s existence as it was in the decades thereafter, for two major reasons: first, as has been discussed in this book, what happens early on in an institution’s development usually shapes this institution to a greater extent than later processes, which take place within an increasingly established and institutionalised framework more resistant to change. Second, in contrast to the period after the first direct elections, all MEPs between 1952 and 1979 had to divide their time and efforts between a national parliamentary mandate and a European one, in some cases in addition to a day job.11 Staff members of the EP and its groups filled the crucial task of 10 The author of this book was confronted with the same challenge in the analysis of the interviews conducted for this research with former MEPs and members of staff. Based on methodological strategies developed in the area of oral history, the material used in this book was contextualised, if necessary filtered, and most importantly cross-checked—as far as possible—through the consultation of secondary literature, written primary sources such as EP documents and memoirs, and through similar questions to other MEPs as well as follow-up interviews with individual interviewees. 11 Some of the parliamentarians who sat in upper chambers in their home parliaments had another job in addition to their mandates, if their national mandate was not a fulltime job. The Dutch former MEP Doeke Eisma, for instance, said in an interview with

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bridging the gaps between plenary sessions, committee and party-group meetings, of coordinating MEPs’ work and ensuring the coherence of the groups’ and committees’ policy making. The author’s interviews with Fionnuala Richardson and Arnaldo Ferragni offered intriguing insight into the role played by staff members in the early EP: among other tasks, they provided MEPs with crucial information, drafted parliamentary questions and helped in the preparation of reports and motions for resolutions. Both these two interviewees and several of the former MEPs moreover recalled that staff members helped the delegates to figure out strategies of how to expand or even circumvent Treaty provisions in the pursuit of policy and polity ideas of closer integration. This suggests that staff members did indeed play an important role in the EP’s early informal empowerment, an aspect which consequently deserves further research. Such research, however, would have to build to a significant extent on interviews with former staff members, which may be difficult to organise for the above-mentioned reasons, and because it is harder to seek out persons who—contrary to the former MEPs—did not hold a public office, and of whom consequently no as easily accessible lists and contact points exist. An easier task would be to follow the repeated call from various sections above to extend the study of the early EP’s institutional development to policy areas beyond social policy. The required archival material for such studies lies easily accessible in the Historical Archives of the EP and the EU; much of the information provided by the interviews conducted for this research would also be useful for such further studies, given that many of the interviewees’ statements were not limited to the area of social policy. The findings of research on the EP’s involvement in other policy areas could then be compared with the findings of this analysis. This would allow for a proper assessment of whether the MEPs’ activism in the area of social policy stands out as unique (although this is improbable, as has been argued above), or whether similar findings arise from the study of EP activism in other areas. The findings of this book may further be useful for comparative analyses not only of the early EP’s institutional evolution with regard to different policy areas, but also for studies in the broader field of inter-, the author that he was a “scientific assistant in urban development” in addition to his national mandate (which occupied him for one day a week) and his European mandate (which filled another day per week).

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trans- and supranational assemblies. In analysing the coming into being of a supranational parliament, this book makes a relevant contribution to the broader literature on parliamentarisation and the evolution of legislatives more generally. In particular, the book discusses the case of a parliamentary institution which did not slowly evolve in the context of state-building processes—as most national and regional parliaments did up to the nineteenth century—but which was established “in the spur of a moment”12 by elite groups. Examples of such installed parliaments can be found both at national level, such as the Frankfurt Assembly of 1848/49, and at international level, such as the Assemblies of the Council of Europe, the WEU, or NATO. Whereas a number of scholars have in the past argued that the EP is a sui generis case, given that it was the first supranational assembly to hold a number of powers typical of national parliaments in liberal democracies, and to be directly elected,13 many works now acknowledge the comparability of the EP to other international parliamentary institutions, and to some extent also to national parliaments, notably in federal systems, such as first and foremost the US Congress.14 Krumrey (2018) even argues that based on its gradual empowerment and parliamentarisation, the EP “became a template for other assemblies” at international level.15 The findings of this book can help gain a better understanding of the evolution and institutionalisation of legislative procedures and parliamentary powers in such parliamentary assemblies. A comparative approach could, for instance, be applied in order to analyse to what extent the lack of different parliamentary powers on the side of the respective parliamentary institutions hindered the scope of action of their members, and to what extent the power distribution in the respective institutional system enabled or even encouraged institutional activism, leading to gradual

12 See Herrmann and Sieberer (2018: 1). 13 See i.a. Neuhold (2001); Coombes (1979). 14 See i.a. McElroy (2006); Lindner and Rittberger (2003); Stein (1959). Saurugger (2014) provides an overview of the academic literature comparing the EU with national federal systems such as notably the US, Canada and Germany. 15 Krumrey (2018: 209 et seq.).

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shifts in the distribution and balance of powers.16 The comparative analysis of parliamentary institutions’ evolving internal structures, routines and procedures could produce some more general findings concerning processes of institutionalisation. In this respect, it is particularly revealing to study the early years of parliamentary institutions, as is demonstrated in this book, and as has been shown in various studies on the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe,17 the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly,18 and supranational parliamentary institutions such as the Latin American, Central American, Andean, Mercosur and PanAfrican Parliaments.19 With its contribution to the early evolution of the EP, this book may thus be relevant for researchers in the wider field of legislative studies, particularly those studying the coming into being of parliamentary institutions both at national and at trans- or supranational level. Finally, the findings of this book could be further contextualised not only by testing their applicability to other policy areas, and to other parliamentary assemblies, but also to other—later—periods in the EP’s own institutional development. A growing number of studies sheds light on the EP’s empowerment in new areas of EU competence following Treaty changes, for instance Cardwell and Janˇci´c (2019) on EU development cooperation, and Rosén (2016) on the EP’s involvement in EU external trade policy. Similar to this book, these works discuss to what extent the EP managed to shape emerging European policy areas—albeit at a later point in time—and by what means MEPs pursued more institutional power and influence in the respective areas. Juxtaposing and comparing the EP’s gain in power in different policy areas until today would allow a deeper understanding of whether shared ideas, MEPs’ strategies and the processes of institutional change identified as influential 16 For a recent in-depth comparative analysis of international parliaments, see Schimmelfennig et al. (2020). Sabic (2008) provides an extensive overview of international parliamentary institutions and identifies a number of characteristics based on which they could be compared, such as parliamentary powers, membership, time and funding constraints, ideological and normative factors influencing the members’ behaviour, and the relations with (other) international institutions and organisations, states and NGOs. 17 See i.a. Krumrey (2018) and Costa (2001); and on the Assembly’s later development Perchoc (2014). 18 See i.a. Pace and Stavridis (2010); Seimenis and Makriyannis (2005). 19 For an overview of these supranational parliamentary institutions, see Malamud and

Stavridis (2011).

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by this book played a role in the EP’s long-term institutional development, or whether their impact changed over time, notably with the increasing institutionalisation and formalisation of the EP’s involvement in Community legislation. Such an angle might provide new insight in particular on informal processes through which the EP increased its influence—an area of study in which there is still much potential for further research.20 European social policy remains, in that regard, an interesting case study: this policy area is still to a large extent regulated via soft-law mechanisms, and EU competences in the area remain limited. Moreover, the EP has remained and continues to be one of the most fervent promoters of more integration in EU social policy, and for the binding regulation of higher social standards.21 Some of the parameters of the role of the EP with regard to EU social policy are strikingly similar to those in the 1950s to 1970s. It would consequently be interesting to see to what extent MEPs’ behaviour has changed, for instance through the EP’s considerably increased formal powers, which are, however, regarded by many MEPs as still insufficient and—when set against the vision of the EP as a fully-fledged supranational parliament—incomplete.22 MEPs’ constant pursuit of empowerment—which not least Héritier et al. (2019) and Ripoll Servent (2018) have shown to be one of the red threads running through the EP’s entire history—connects the findings of this book about the EP’s beginnings as a consultative assembly with the relatively powerful Parliament of today. A better understanding of how the EP’s role and its powers were shaped in the early years of its existence helps contextualise much of the EP’s activism and empowerment over subsequent decades. Despite the substantive shifts in the EP’s powers over time, its structure and its internal working procedures remain roughly the same today as had been established by the first delegates in the early to mid-1950s. This book demonstrates that one major element of the EP’s working procedures from its very beginnings was MEPs’ activism beyond Treaty provisions, based on the MEPs’ ideas of integration rather than on formal rules. This activism can be traced to the present day. It is clearly visible, for instance, in the EP’s recent attempt to gain a stronger say in

20 See Roos and Heumen (2019). 21 See i.a. Anderson (2015: 208); Hantrais (2007); Goetschy (2006: 49). 22 On the MEPs’ continuous pursuit of their institution’s empowerment, see i.a. Ripoll

Servent (2018).

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the selection procedure of the Commission President, whom the MEPs attempted to have—in effect—elected by the European voters through EP elections, instead of being nominated by the member state governments, as formally provided.23 Much of today’s complex dynamics of EU policy making can better be explained through an understanding of their often informal and activism-based roots. This book offers a guide to the early EP’s involvement in these policy-making dynamics. It shows that in the absence of clear formal provisions, in the context of favourable interinstitutional conditions and on the basis of strong and unified convictions, an assembly with little more than the “power of nuisance”24 could turn itself into a parliament.

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23 See i.a. Laffan (2019). 24 So expressed by the interviewee Jean-Pierre Cot.

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Dawson, M. (2011). New governance and the transformation of European law: Coordinating EU social law and policy. Cambridge University Press. Geyer, R. (2007). Exploring European social policy. Polity Press. Goetschy, J. (2006). Taking stock of social Europe: Is there such a thing as a community social model? In M. Jepsen & A. Serrano Pascual (Eds.), Unwrapping the European social model (pp. 47–72). The Policy Press. Hantrais, L. (2007). Social policy in the European Union. Palgrave Macmillan. Héritier, A. (2007). Explaining institutional change in Europe. Oxford University Press. Héritier, A. et al. (2019). European parliament ascendant: Parliamentary strategies of self-empowerment in the EU. Palgrave Macmillan. Herrmann, M., & Sieberer, U. (2018). The basic space of a revolutionary parliament. Scaling the Frankfurt Assembly of 1848/49. Party Politics, 25(3), 1–13. Kreppel, A., & Webb, M. (2019). European Parliament resolutions—effective agenda setting or whistling into the wind? Journal of European Integration, 41(3), 383–404. Krumrey, J. (2018). The symbolic politics of European integration: Staging Europe. Palgrave Macmillan. Laffan, B. (2019). The European Parliament in turbulent political times: Concluding reflections. Journal of European Integration, 41(3), 405–416. Lindner, J., & Rittberger, B. (2003). The creation, interpretation and contestation of institutions—Revisiting historical institutionalism. Journal of Common Market Studies, 41(3), 445–473. Malamud, A., & Stavridis, S. (2011). Parliaments and parliamentarians as international actors. In B. Reinalda (Ed.), The Ashgate research companion to non-state actors (pp. 101–115). Routledge. Manzanarès, H., & Quentin, J.-P. (1979). Pourquoi un Parlement européen? Berger-Levrault. McElroy, G. (2006). Committee representation in the European Parliament. European Union Politics, 7 (1), 5–29. Meyer, J.-H. (2011). Green activism: The European Parliament’s environmental committee promoting a European Environmental policy in the 1970s. Journal of European Integration History, 17 (1), 73–85. Meyer, J.-H. (2014). Getting started: Agenda-setting in European Environmental Policy in the 1970s. In J. Laursen (Ed.), The institutions and dynamics of the European community, 1973–83 (pp. 221–242). Nomos. Neuhold, C. (2001). The “Legislative Backbone” keeping the Institution upright? The Role of European Parliament Committees in the EU policymaking process. European Integration online Paper (EIoP), 5, 10.

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Pace, R., & Stavridis, S. (2010). The Euro-Mediterranean parliamentary assembly, 2004–2008: Assessing the first years of the parliamentary dimension of the Barcelona process. Mediterranean Quarterly, 21(2), 90–113. Perchoc, P. (2014). Un passé, deux assemblées. L’Assemblée parlementaire du Conseil de l’Europe, le Parlement européen et l’interprétation de l’histoire (2004–2009). Revue d’études comparatives Est-Ouest, 45(3–4), 205–235. Ripoll Servent, A. (2018). The European Parliament. Palgrave Macmillan. Rittberger, B. (2003). The creation and empowerment of the European Parliament. Journal of Common Market Studies, 41(2), 203–225. Rittberger, B. (2005). Building Europe’s parliament: Democratic representation beyond the nation state. Oxford University Press. Roos, M. (2021). A Parliament for the People?—The European Parliament’s Activism in the Area of Social Policy from the Early 1970s to the Single European Act. Journal of European Integration History, 27 (1), 37–56. Roos, M., & van Heumen, L. (2019). Introduction. In L. van Heumen & M. Roos (Eds.), The informal construction of Europe (pp. 3–19). Routledge. Rosén, G. (2016). The impact of norms on political decision-making: How to account for the European Parliament’s empowerment in EU external trade policy. Journal of European Public Policy, 24(10), 1450–1470. Sabic, Z. (2008). Building democratic and responsible global governance: The role of international parliamentary institutions. Parliamentary Affairs, 61(2), 255–271. Saurugger, S. (2014). Theoretical approaches to European integration. Palgrave Macmillan. Schimmelfennig, F. et al. (2020). The rise of international parliaments: Strategic legitimation in international organizations. Oxford University Press. Schwed, J.-J. (1978). The parliament and the commission. In R. D. Lambert et al. (Eds.), The European community after twenty years (pp. 33–41). American Academy of Political Science. Seimenis, I., & Makriyannis, M. (2005). Reinvigorating the parliamentary dimension of the Barcelona process: The establishment of the Euro-Mediterranean parliamentary assembly. Mediterranean Quarterly, 16(2), 85–105. Stein, E. (1959). The European parliamentary assembly: Techniques of emerging “political control.” International Organization, 13(2), 233–254. Westlake, M. (1994). The commission and the parliament: Partners and rivals in the European Policy-making process. Butterworths.

Index

A Albers, Willem Amsterdam Treaty Andean Parliament Andersen, Poul Nyboe Angioy, Giovanni Maria Assemblée Nationale (lower chamber of the French national parliament) B Ballardini, Renato Belgium Bermani, Alessandro Bersani, Giovanni Bertrand, Alfred Brinkhorst, Laurens Jan British referendum on Community membership (1975) Brown, Anthony Budgetary procedure Budget Treaty (1970). See also Treaty amending certain budgetary provisions (1970)

Budget Treaty (1975). See also Treaty amending certain financial provisions (1975) Bundestag (lower chamber of the German national parliament)

C Carettoni Romagnoli, Tullia Cassanmagnago Cerretti, Maria Luisa Central American Parliament Children and youth policy Clerfayt, Georges Coal crisis (1950s) Co-decision procedure Co-legislative power Collapse of the Bretton Woods system (1971) Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper) Committee of Presidents Committees of the European Parliament

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Roos, The Parliamentary Roots of European Social Policy, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78233-7

307

308

INDEX

Auditing and Administrative Committee Committee on Budgets Committee on Cultural Affairs and Youth Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee on Legal Affairs Committee on Political Affairs Committee on Social Affairs Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Common Market Community Action Programme in favour of migrant workers and their families (1974) Community citizenship Community expenditure compulsory expenditure non-compulsory expenditure Conciliation procedure Constituencies Constructivism Consultation procedure Corrie, John Alexander Cot, Jean-Pierre Council of Europe Assembly Council of Ministers Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) Critical juncture

D Dahlerup, Karen Marie Defrenne, Gabrielle court cases de Gaulle, Charles Democratic legitimacy Denmark De Riemaecker-Legot, Marguerite Direct elections Discrimination Dondelinger, Willy Double mandate Dunwoody, Gwyneth

E Economic and financial crisis (1970s) ECSC Treaty Education policy mutual recognition of qualifications EEC Treaty Eisma, Doeke Elderly Empty Chair crisis (1965–66) Engwirda, Maarten Equality policy equal access to promotion equal access to social security equal access to training equal pay equal working conditions maternity women (as target group of other policy areas) Erhard, Ludwig Espersen, Ole Euratom Treaty Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF) European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) European citizenship European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) European Commission Commissioner for Social Affairs Commissioners’ cabinets officials proposal by the Commission European Court of Justice (ECJ) European Defence Community (EDC) European Economic and Social Committee (ESC) European Economic Community (EEC) European Health Insurance Card

INDEX

European Office for the Coordination and Balancing of Employment Supply and Demand European Political Community (EPC) European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) European Social Fund (ESF) European sports badge European Youth Forum European Youth Foundation European Youth Office European Youth Orchestra Europe des patries Ever closer union Ex-ante control Ex-post control

F Faure, Edgar Federalism (European-level) Ferragni, Arnaldo First Community enlargement (1973) First World War Fisher of Rednal, Baroness Doris Flesch, Colette France Frankfurt Assembly (Frankfurter Nationalversammlung, 1948/49) Freedom of movement

G Germany Giraud, Pierre Gradual institutional change Conversion (mode of gradual institutional change) Displacement (mode of gradual institutional change) Drift (mode of gradual institutional change) Layering (mode of gradual institutional change)

309

H Hallstein, Walter Harmonisation Hek, Arie van der Hillery, Patrick Historical Institutionalism (HI) Historical-sociological institutionalism (HSI) House of Commons (lower chamber of the British national parliament) Housing policy

I Ibrügger, Lothar Infringement procedure Initiative Inter-institutional collaboration European Parliament and Commission European Parliament and Council International Festival of Youth Orchestras Foundation International Labour Organisation (ILO) Intra-committee unity Intra-group unity Ireland Italy

J Jahn, Hans Edgar Joint Declaration of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission (1975)

K Kavanagh, Liam Kellett-Bowman, Elaine Klepsch, Egon Kreyssig Fund Kreyssig, Gerhard

310

INDEX

Kruchow, Clara Edele Bengta L Lange, Erwin Latin-American Parliament Laudrin, Hervé Levi Sandri, Lionello Logic of appropriateness Lulling, Astrid Luxembourg Luxembourg Compromise (1966) M Maastricht Treaty Marcinelle, mine accident (1956) McDonald, Charles Media Mercosur Parliament Merger Treaty Migration children of migrant workers Community exchange programmes forced migration free movement labour card pensioners qualified workers refugees seasonal workers stateless persons students and apprentices voting rights Monnet, Jean Motion of censure Müller, Hans-Werner N National ministers National parliaments National parties NATO Assembly Netherlands Nolan, Thomas

Norm entrepreneur

O Occupational safety Oil shock (1973) Olympic Games

P Pan-African Parliament Pan-European Union Paris Summit (1972) Parliamentary powers budgetary power legislative power power of control power of initiative Parliamentary questions oral questions Question Time written questions Party groups of the European Parliament Christian Democratic Group (CDG) Communist Group Conservative Group European Democratic Union European Progressive Democratic Group (Union démocratique européenne) Liberals and Allies Group Socialist Group Path dependence Peace Persons with disabilities Pflimlin, Pierre Pinay, Antoine Pisoni, Ferruccio Pistillo, Michele Policy idea Polity idea Porcu, Antoine Poverty Public opinion

INDEX

R Rational-Choice Institutionalism (RCI) Regional policy Rhetorical entrapment Richardson, Fionnuala Rules of Procedure

S Santer, Jacques Scarascia Mugnozza, Carlo Scelba, Mario Schreiber, Heinz Schuman Declaration (1950) Schuman, Robert Second-wave feminism Second World War Seefeld, Horst Single European Act (SEA) Social Action Programme (1974) Socialisation Socialist International Social justice Social partners Social security Sociological Institutionalism (SI) Soft law Spaak Report (1956) Spénale, Georges Spitzenkandidaten procedure Squarcialupi, Vera Staff female staff of the Commission of the Council of the European Parliament Student unrest 1968 Study trips by MEPs Système Européen de Diffusion des Offres et demandes d’emploi en Compensation (SEDOC)

T Taverne, Dick

311

Technological development Terrenoire, Alain The Hague Summit (1969) Communiqué Tindemans Report (1975) Trade unions Transport policy Treaties of Rome. See also Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community; Treaty establishing the European Economic Community Treaty amending certain budgetary provisions (1970) Treaty amending certain financial provisions (1975) Treaty establishing a single Council and a single Commission of the European Communities Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community Treaty establishing the European Economic Community Treaty of Paris Treaty on Own Resources (1970) Troclet, Leon-Eli

U Unemployment Unintended consequence United Kingdom United Nations (UN) UN Year of the Child 1978 UN Year of the Woman 1975 US Congress

V Vocational training Vote of confidence Vredeling, Hendrikus

312

INDEX

W Wehner, Herbert

Y Yeats, Michael Youth policy

Western European Union (WEU) Assembly Wieldraaijer, Ep

Z Zeller, Adrien Zywietz, Werner