Franco-German bilateralism and agricultural politics in the European Union: The neglected level

West European Politics

Volumn 22, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 45-67

  Webber, Douglas ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AGRICULTURAL POLICY; INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS; POLICY MAKING; POLITICAL SYSTEM;

FRANCE; GERMANY;

EID: 0033006757     PISSN: 01402382     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01402389908425286     Document Type: Article

References (63)

1. The author would like to thank INSEAD for its financial support for the research on which this article is based. He would like to express also his gratitude to the Robert Schuman Centre of the European University Institute, Florence, where, as Jean Monnet Fellow from October 1995 to April 1997, he worked on a project from which this article stems.
2. Gary Marks, Liesbet Hooghe and Kermit Blank, 'European Integration from the'1980s: State-Centric v. Multi-level Governance', Journal of Common Market Studies 34/3 (Sept. 1996) pp.346-7.
3. Alec Stone Sweet and Wayne Sandholtz, 'European Integration and Supranational Governance', Journal of European Public Policy 4/3 (Sept. 1997).
4. B. Guy Peters, 'Bureaucratic Politics and the Institutions of the European Community', in Alberta M. Sbragia (ed.) Euro-Politics: Institutions and Polity-making in the 'New' European Community (Washington DC: Brookings 1992) p.115.
5. Peters (note 4) p.119; Adrienne Héritier, "The accommodation of diversity in European policy-making and its outcomes: regulatory policy as a patchwork', Journal of European Public Policy 3/2 (June 1996) pp.440-2.
6. Simon J. Bulmer, 'New Institutionalism, The Single Market and EU Governance' (paper presented at the ECSA conference, Seattle, 29 May - 1 June 1997).
7. Ibid. p. 12; Paul Pierson, 'The Path to European Integration: A Historical Institutionalist Analysis', Comparative Political Studies 29/2 (April 1996) p. 158.
8. Andrew Moravcsik, 'Preferences and Power in the European Community: A Liberal Intergovernmentalist Approach', Journal of Common Market Studies 31/4 (Dec. 1993) p.513.
9. Andrew Moravcsik, 'Negotiating the Single European Act: National Interests and Conventional Statecraft in the European Community', International Organization 45/1 (Winter 1991)pp.25-6.
10. Ibid. p.49. See also Geoffrey Garrett, 'International Cooperation and Institutional Choice: The European Community's internal market', International Organization 46/2 (Spring 1992) p.544.
11. Moravcsik, 'Preferences and Power' (note 8) pp.499 and 502-3.
12. Preferences and Power, pp.500 and 503.
13. Philippe de Schoutheete, "The European Community and its Sub-Systems', in William Wallace (ed.) Tlie Dynamics of European Integration (London/NY: Pinter/Royal Inst. of Int. Affairs 1990)p.l09.
14. Yves Boyer, 'France and Germany', in Bertel Heurlin (ed.) Germany in Europe in the Nineties (Basingstoke/London: Macmillan 1996) p.243.
15. Interview with a permanent representative to the European Union, Brussels, 29 July 1997.
16. See the individual chapters in Douglas Webber (ed.) The Franco-Gentian Relationship in the European Union (London: Routledge, forthcoming 1999).
17. Neill Nugent, Tlie Government and Politics of the European Union (Basingstoke/London: Macmillan 1994)p.l51.
18. See the chapters in Webber (note 16).
19. The head of the German delegation, the state secretary in the Foreign Office, Lahr, described the final phase of the negotiations as follows: 'In the final night, in which we had to decide on the financing of the agricultural policy, the tough job of bringing about a Franco-German agreement in the chambre séparée [author's own words] fell to me. It had long since emerged that a Franco-German agreement is the most important pre-condition of an agreement among the Six; thus, it has become the norm for us to talk bilaterally with the French before or during the Council of Ministers. The others, especially the Italians, suspect us thereby of forming a secret society and hegemony, but in fact they are usually quite happy when the two main combatants, both ruffled and a bit weary, return to the main arena after having achieved a compromise'. After the Franco-German agreement had been reached at midnight on 13 Jan. 1962, Lahr chaired the full council meeting, which lasted another 5'/i hours: 'As important as it is for the Germans and the French to have agreed, nonetheless - or, better, precisely for this reason the others also want then to emphasise their importance. There are the Italians, who complain at such length and so movingly, the Dutch, who keep their pockets closed, and the Belgians, who feel that their European convictions are being abused. Thus, the council chairman had the job of explaining the Franco-German accord with neither too much nor too little verve, to present it as being not unalterable, but to block any changes, to listen to and praise alternative proposals without seriously taking them up and ... to have more,meat on his backside than all the others. A clear head is useful - [but] a solid backside is indispensable.' From Ralf Lahr, Zeuge von Fall und Aufstieg: Private Briefe 1934-1974 (Hamburg: Albrecht Knaus 1981) pp.354-5.
20. Hans von der Groeben, Aufbaujahre der Europäischen Gemeinschaft: Das Ringen um den Gemeinsamen Markt und die Politische Union (1958-1966) (Baden-Baden: Nomos 1983) pp. 150-5.
21. Sicco Mansholt, La crise (Paris: Stock 1974) p.110.
22. Eugen Gerstenmaier, Streit und Friede hat seine Zeit: Ein Lebensbericht (Frankfurt am Main/Berlin/Vienna: Propyläen 1981)p.521.
23. Maurice Couve de Murville, Une politique étrangère 1958-1969 (Paris: Pion 1971) p.263.
24. John S. Odell, 'International Threats and Internal Politics: Brazil, the European Community and the United States', in Peter B. Evans, Harold K. Jacobson and Robert D. Putnam (eds.) Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: U. of California Press 1993) p.247.
25. Frankfurter Rundschau, 1 Nov. 1990.
26. Hugo Paemen and Alexandra Bensch, From the GATT to the WTO: The European Community in the Uruguay Round (U. of Lcuven Press 1995) p. 178.
27. Guy Legras, 'L'Uruguay Round et la réforme de la PAC', Politique étrangère 58/2 (Summer 1993)p.331.
28. Timothy Moyer, 'EC Decisionmaking, the MacSharry reforms of the CAP, Maastricht, and the GATT Uruguay Round' (paper presented at the third biennial ECSA Conference, Washington DC, 27 May 1993) p.15.
29. Interview with Mr René Steichen, EU Agricultural Commissioner 1993-94 and former Luxembourg Minister of Agriculture, Brussels.
30. Philip Lemaître, 'La France ne s'oppose plus àla réforme de la politique agricole commune', Le Monde, 20/21 Oct. 1991.
31. François-Gilles Le Theule and David Litvan, 'La Réforme de la PAC: Analyse d'une négociation communautaire', Revue française de science politique 43/5 (Oct. 1993) p.776; interview with an official in the section for bilatéral relations with EU member states, Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Bonn.
32. Die Welt, 24 May 1992; interview with Mr Frans Andriessen, EU Trade Commissioner, Brussels.
33. Eve Pouilleux, La cogestion àla française àl'épreuve de l'Europe: L'exemple de la réforme de la Politique Agricole Commune (Grenoble: Centre de Recherche sur le Politique, l'Administration et le Territoire 1996) p.69; interview with M. Jean-Claude Bossé, agricultural adviser to the French Presidency, Paris.
34. Interview with an official in the international affairs section, Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Bonn.
35. Blair House is an official residence of the American federal government. The two sides envisaged proposing the agreement to other GATT member states for inclusion in a final treaty - which is indeed what happened a year later. Interestingly, all participants in the negotiations -both the EU commissioners and their counterparts in the Bush administration - were to leave their respective offices within the following two months. Whether this prospect facilitated their reaching an agreement at Blair House is an open question.
36. Interview with Mr Rolf Möhler, former head of the international affairs division, DG VI (Agriculture), Brussels.
37. Edouard Balladur, Deux ans àMatignon (Paris: Pion 1995) p.145.
38. Interview with M. Yves Thibault de Silguy, head of the General Secretariat for the Interministerial Coordination of European Economic Issues (SGCI), Paris.
39. Financial Times, 27 Aug. 1993.
40. For a more comprehensive analysis of this question as well as of the Sept. 1993 Council meeting, see Douglas Webber, 'High Midnight in Brussels: French veto threats, FrancoGerman bilateralism and the September 1993 Council meeting on the GATT Uruguay Round', Journal of European Public Policy 5/4 (Dec. 1998) pp.578-94.
41. The Council meeting was a 'Jumbo' session, attended for the most part by the foreign, economics and agricultural ministers of the member states, i.e. those primarily affected by the Uruguay Round negotiations.
42. Interview with official in the Belgian Foreign Trade Ministry, Brussels.
43. The agricultural newsletter, Agra Europe, wrote of the meeting (English ed., no. 1561, 24 Sept. 1993, pp.1-2): 'A combination of French determination and German chicanery resulted in the Council ordering Trade Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan to go to Washington to seek 'clarification' of the Blair House agreement .... French politicians have been at pains to present the Council outcome as a victory for their renegotiation demands - which of course it is. The Commission has been forced to re-open the agricultural issue, which both Washington and Brussels had hitherto regarded as settled .... Juppé had every reason for claiming ... "We got exactly what we wanted'".
44. Agra Europe, English edition, no. 1572, 10 Dec. 1993.
45. For more details on the measures agreed in the EU in connection with the Uruguay Round in its closing phase, see Webber, 'High Midnight in Brussels' (note 40).
46. Interview M. Pascal Lamy, former head of the Cabinet of the President of the European Commission, M. Jacques Delors, Paris.
47. As quoted in Alain Peyrefitte, C'était de Gaulle, Vol.11 (Paris: Fayard 1997) p.248.
48. Interview with the author, Brussels.
49. Interview with M. Guy Legras, Director-General of DO VI (Agriculture), Brussels.
50. The way in which the Agricultural Commissioner at the time, Mansholt, described the process by which he and his officials drafted the package containing the common cereals price ultimately accepted without further modification by the Council testifies - presumably unwittingly - to the significance that he attached to accommodating the various national, especially French and German, preferences: 'I left the [Council] meeting ... with only two officials ... I still had the file where all the positions had been marked. Schwarz [the German minister] wants that, Pisani [the French minister] wants this, etc. It was a chart with the 15 unresolved issues .... In a half an hour, we managed to draw up an overall scheme and looked at how we could give something, something attractive to everyone; every minister had to have something to show in his country, so that he could say: I have won this. I still had some coloured crayons and drawings of little flags: blue, white and red for Pisani, red, black and gold for Schwarz, that I put on my table, right in front of my eyes. Everyone could succeed in winning on some issues at the price of making concessions. The main thing was to make a good job of combining and presenting the package. But always in such a way that we reached our objective: the good functioning of the common market. I never made a concession on this point. Naturally, the Commission had taken a stance on and decided the cereal price. We hadn't changed anything. But we gave something to Schwarz and to Pisani, etc.' (Mansholt, note 21, pp.112-13).
51. Pouilleux (note 33), pp.69 and 72-9; interview with M. Jean-Claude Bossé, agricultural adviser to the French Presidency, Paris.
52. On relations between the agricultural ministry and farmers' unions in France, for example, see Paul J. Epstein, 'Beyond Policy Community: French Agriculture and the GATT', Journal of European Public Policy 4/3 (Sept. 1997) pp.355-72 and Pouilleux (note 33). The French minister normally meets heads of the farmers' unions weekly. From Oct. 1992 to March 1993, the then Agricultural Minister Soisson met the leaders of the main two unions before every major EU meeting at which the Uruguay Round was discussed. After the centre-Right parties came to power, Prime Minister Balladur and his agricultural minister received them monthly to discuss the Uruguay Round. In his opposition to the CAP reform, Soisson's predecessor, Mermaz, was characterised by fanners' unions' officials as representing their position more strongly than they did themselves ('le minisire était plus syndicaliste que nous) (Pouilleux, note 33, p.60). If the Agricultural Commissioner and his DirectorateGeneral were similarly 'captured' by agricultural lobbies as the agricultural ministries in the member states, it would be hard to explain their regular attempts to reform the CAP against their opposition.
53. My analysis of the conflict over the Blair House accord and its implications is different from that of Marks et al. (note 2), pp.350-2, who argue that the Luxembourg Compromise is nowadays redundant.
54. See Lahr (note 19) p.246, Peyrefitte (note 47) pp.289, 294 and 298-301 and Newhouse, 'Die Krise der EWG' in Karl Carstens, Dietrich Mende, Christiane Rajewsky and Wolfgang Wagner (eds.), Die internationale Politik 1964-1965 (Munich/Vienna: Oldenbourg 1972) p.269.
55. Pouilleux (note 33) pp.72-82 shows very clearly how, in the interministerial coordination process in the French government on the CAP reform, the Ministry of Agriculture was isolated and the traditional agricultural policy network sidelined and the reform facilitated especially by the stances taken by the Economics and Finance Ministry and the Secretariat for the interministerial coordination of French European policy (SGCI).
56. On the Council's consensus orientation, see Fiona Hayes-Renshavv and Helen Wallace, The Council of Ministers (Basingstoke/London: Macmillan 1997), David Spence, 'Negotiations, coalitions and the resolution of inter-state conflicts', in Martin Westlake (ed.) The Council of the European Union (London: Cartermill 1995) and Nugent (note 17).
57. Interview with official in the section for bilateral relations with EU member states, Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Bonn.
58. See the present author's concluding chapter in The Franco-German Relationship in the European Union (note 16).
59. A striking example of the functioning of the Franco-German relationship is the process by which, at the Dublin meeting of the European Council in Dec. 1996, the 'Stability and Growth Pactwas adopted. After, following a violent dispute between Chancellor Kohl and the French President Chirac, a Franco-German accord had been found, the Irish Council president addressed the Council, saying: 'If I understand correctly, an accord has been found between the French and the Germans on the stability pact. Are there any objections? No? Okay, then let's move on to Bosnia.' Quoted in Gabriel Milesi, Le Roman de l'Euro (Paris: Hachette 1998) p.147. On the role of France and Germany in decision making on the single currency project, see the chapter by Jonathan Story in Webber (note 16).
60. On the role of France and Germany in the determination of electricity liberalisation policy in the EU, see the chapter by Susanne Schmidt in Webber (note 16).
61. Susanne K. Schmidt, 'Commission activism: subsuming telecommunications and electricity under European competition law', Journal of European Public Policy 5/1 (March 1998) pp. 169-84.
62. See Jean Quatremcr, 'Beaucoup de bruit pour rien', Libération, 19 Sept. 1997.
63. Couve de Murville (note 23) p.262.