Another Road to Maastricht: The Christian Democrat Coalition and the Quest for European Union

Abstract

This article breaks new ground in our understanding of the Maastricht outcome by examining the role of the European People’s Party (EPP) and its member parties. Special emphasis is placed on the meetings of Christian Democrat leaders. At the time of the 1991 parallel Intergovernmental Conferences, six out of 12 heads of government met in the EPP. The article argues that the Treaty on European Union was facilitated by the transnational coalition of the Christian Democrats and by the shared ideological identity of this federalist movement. This weakens the intergovernmental approach to European integration.

Europartis et politiques publiques: les sociaux-démocrates et la quête d'une politique fiscale

“…Le chercheur suédois KarlMagnus Johansson a déjà montré l'apport de l'approche des Europartis pour les tenants des théories intergouvernementales (Johansson 2002b). En complément à l'analyse de Johansson, notre approche analytique sur les Europartis comporte aussi des implications par rapport à d'autres écoles de pensée de l'intégration européenne, telles que les approches institutionnelle et cognitive.…”

“…Ensuite, Simon Hix et Christopher Lord ont observé les tentatives d'influence des Europartis sur le Conseil européen -institution de l'UE regroupant au moins deux fois l'an les chefs d'Etat et de gouvernements (Hix et Lord 1997;Hix 1999). Dans la même optique, KarlMagnus Johansson a analysé en détail l'influence du PPE sur l'Acte unique européen et le Traité de Maastricht et celle du Parti des socialistes européens (PSE) sur le Traité d'Amsterdam (Johansson 1999(Johansson , 2002a(Johansson , 2002b. Confirmant l'analyse de Johansson, Robert Ladrech a distingué les petites FEP des grandes.…”

Party politics in the European Council

“…The pre-summit meetings among party leaders are a central aspect of this mobilization process, and their significance appears to vary over time and across party families. There are instances when party political mobilization through pre-meetings has been decisive for decision-making in the European Council (Hix and Lord 1997;Johansson 1999Johansson , 2002aJohansson , 2002b). Yet, there is also evidence that a lack of commitment to these meetings among the heads of government has reduced their significance.…”

Europe's party-political centre of gravity, 1957–2003

“…In these studies, party affiliation constantly turns out to be a significant predictor for the observable voting patterns in the Council and in the EP, often a better predictor than nationality or regional economic interests. This even seems to hold for Intergovernmental Conferences (Johansson 1999(Johansson , 2002Aspinwall 2002). These findings call for a more systematic inquiry into the party composition of EU member state governments and therefore also into the party-political centre of gravity of an EU institution like the Council, which often has been conceived to be 'purely intergovernmentalist' (Schmitt and Thomassen 1999: 6).…”

“…Not surprisingly, the relaunch of European integration between the mid-1980 and the early 1990s took place under the auspices of a Christian Democrat-liberal coalition -and was centred on economic integration (cf. Johansson 2002).…”