Contenu du sommaire : Coordonner les affaires européennes

– Sharing European Affairs: the Origins of French Coordination System – The French system of European affairs coordination is characterized by a strong centralization and a strict division of labor between “Paris” with the “SGCI”, which became in 2005 the “SGAE”, and “Brussels” with the French Permanent Representation to the EU. It was originally the result of intense competition between the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs analyzed as an administrative Yalta. This article discusses the genesis of SGCI in 1948 and of the Permanent Representation in 1958 to control relations with the European institutions and then the “interministerialization” of these two “état-major” administrations and the unprecedented politicization of the function of Secretary General for European Affairs.

– The French Government's New Levers of Influence on EU Affairs – French influence in European issues is depending on the efficiency of the General Secretary of European Affairs. This administration has significantly strengthened its actions of influence, especially toward the European parliament, the monitoring of French presence in the European institutions end the corporate communication. Important progress has been carried out and the general level of competence of administration has been noticeably enhanced, but there is still room for improvement. French administration should have interest in building effective bridges with the economic world to obtain mutually profitable synergies and reinforce strategies of institutional communication.

– Aligning the General Secretariat of the Government and General Secretariat of European Affairs? What Perspective for Interministerial Coordination in France? – This article discusses the French administrative model of coordination for European affairs and more specifically on its development and possible evolution. Centralised around the Prime minister, it relies on compromises between government departments, supported by the agents of the General Secretariat for European Affairs (SGAE). This standardised process is distinct from procedures for internal matters which are coordinated by the General Secretariat of the Government (SGG) and the Prime Minister's Office. While government departments are responsible for reconciling the domestic and European approaches, such necessity doesn't really exist at the central level and the connections created between the SGG and the SGAE could be further strengthened. These connections suggest the possibility of a future increased cooperation between the internal and European coordination structures.

– “Paris-Bologna”: How is the French position prepared in the European Higher Education Area? – This article deals with the definition of the French national position within the European higher education area (EHEA), a case of “new European governance” at the margins of the EU. Can we observe an adjustment of the classical circuit of formulation of national positions or the development of alternative mechanisms? Following a qualitative inductive approach this study identifies the constellation of actors involved and their working method for defining the French national position, and analyses the polarization between the “sup' communautaire” (EU higher education initiatives) and the Bologna Process (EHEA).

– European Domestic Security and the Definition of the National Interest: revisiting the French model – This article analyses how the French administrations involved in police and criminal justice co-operation at the European scale have modified their organisations, knowledge, savoir-faire and fundamental beliefs during the last two decades of European integration. It reveals the organisational adaptations as well as the new savoir-faire that have reinforced the system of national co-ordination in this domain. However, in a post-Lisbon context of institutional recomposition, it also shows that the French state faces deeper challenges in moving from its efficient internal co-ordination towards influencing European positions and actions more strongly.

– Coordination via Concertation : The Danish Compromise – This article traces the development of the Danish coordination of European affairs emphasizing how it was created as a compromise between different ministries. As such, it reflects a system based on concertation rather than political arbitration. The article also highlights how a new type of diplomats played a crucial role in shaping the system before being challenged by other ministries. Finally, it is proposed that EU coordination is not only a question of procedures, but also of inter-ministerial mobility which is a topic that deserves more attention from academic research in the field of EU coordination systems.

UK coordination of EU policy has attracted considerable attention, but a number of issues remain unresolved. This article makes three arguments. The first is that, despite the important role line ministries play in the system, the UK is best categorized as centralized. Second, behind the strong institutional continuity it exhibits, the UK coordination system has undergone a number of significant second-order changes that are consequential for its operation. Third, the article reports new analyses showing that UK administrative efficiency does translate into effectiveness at the EU level. The UK gets a lot of what it wants in Brussels and is influential, not marginalized, as some have claimed.

– Protecting Interests and Promoting Influence: National Administrations and the Construction of European Expertise – This article explores the conditions under which member States can contribute to the production of European expertise. Commission's expert groups which comprise experts coming from national administrations can have a central role in the decision making process. Capacities of national administrations to be present and effective in those groups and so exert a real influence on European public policies are nevertheless very different : it is often limited due to human resources problems but also to the specific functioning and institutional culture of those groups. Those difficulties contribute to the fragmentation of the European decision making process and to the growing influence of private sector's expertise.

– The State back in: Comitology as supervised and Coordinated Delegation of Power – This article aims to shed light on the role of comitology as a key, but denatured, element of national coordination of European affairs at the executive level of the EU decision-making process. It shows the central position occupied by this system within the EU institutional tangle as a stronghold of member states' sovereignty, but also its loss of significance in practice, due to a logic of functioning that is decentralized and inspired by supranationalism, and which tends to push this administrative chainlink away from the epicentre of national politics except in cases of major disagreement with the European Commission.

– The Role of Local and Regional Authorities in Building National Positions on Cohesion Policy – In the system of European multi-level governance, national positions are not designed or promoted by central governments only: local and regional authorities are involved as well. Cohesion policy and its periodic reforms show it clearly. Based on the German, French, Italian and Belgian examples, the article describes the functioning of the ecosystem associated with this policy, its actors, its discussion fora and its coordination mechanisms. It analyses how national positions have been driven or strongly influenced by local and regional authorities during the negotiations on the 2014-2020 programming period.

– A Central Bank above nations? Taking into account national interests within the European Central Bank – Even though the European Central Bank (ECB) is one of the most independant central banks in the world, national leaders can still influence its activities through the nomination of its six members' board of directors. This article examines first how a two-level game structures the nomination process in which domestic leaders must take into account domestic influences and intergovernemental constraints. Then it presents the discrepancy between the issues generated by the ECB's answer to the crisis and the stakes of the nomination process.

– The influence of the European External Action Service (EEAS) on the ministries of Foreign Affairs: a French-Austrian comparison – This article examines the effects of the EEAS on the EU member states' foreign policy coordination. The analysis focuses on France and Austria in particular. As the two countries are marked by differences in population, military and foreign policy ambitions, the impact of the EEAS on their respective national foreign policy is differing. The analysis illustrates that the effect of the EEAS is substantial on the central administration and on the permanent representations in Brussels, but less so on the national embassies located in third countries.

– From national coordination to supranational supervision: Greece towards the EU programs of economic adjustment – This article assesses the impact of European economic governance on the political and administrative system of Greece in the context of the sovereign debt crisis. It describes the changes in the coordination and administrative system that Greece has put in place according to the requirements of the economic adjustment programmes in order to adapt to the new environment at national and European level. The article assesses how the strict conditions of the Greek membership in the Eurozone have weakened the centrality of the State, the administrative and political sovereignty of Greek governments and their bargaining power in the intergovernmental decision-making bodies governing the Eurozone.

– The Formulation of National Positions within the Context of the European Semester – The European Semester is usually considered as a strengthened coordination mechanism of national economic policies. Given its characteristics and its relationship with the compliance of the budgetary requirements, it can be seen as a shift in the practice of coordination. This change can be portrayed both in the nature of the coordination which is at stake between the EU and the Member States, but also regarding the practice of coordination in the making of national economic and social policies that fall under the scope of the European Semester. This papers explores these substantial changes in the nature of coordination and shows the consequences of economic coordination on the formulation of the (French) national positions characterised by a growing centralization both at the level of the French Ministry of Finance (Directorate of Treasure) and at the level of the SGAE (French General Secretary for European affairs).

– An insular governance: national participation and European interests in defining international sanitary norms – The Codex is an intergovernmental organisation mandated to elaborate international food safety standards. In 2003, the EU became a full member of Codex. It generates an innovative way for the European participation to multilateralism. This article shows that this reconfiguration lead to an increase of the autonomy of both national and European administrative teams that participate into Codex works. Furthermore, the European Commission took the leadership in those negotiations; this is especially observed in the management of the competitive scientific expertise underlying Codex standards.

– Better Regulation between European coordination and triangular relationships: the European Union, the OECD and the Member States – The presence of the EU in the OECD allows the study of the European coordination in a multilateral context. Like the EU member countries, the EU has a permanent representation to the OECD; the officials of the European Commission are invited to attend the Committees and Networks which form the backbone of the OECD. Based on documentary analysis and on interviews with the actors engaged in the reform of the regulatory policy (better regulation), our study shows how in certain fields, the institutional coordination gives way to triangular games of national and international actors which delineate of a diplomacy of “influence”.

– The four pillars of the Social Security of the EU employees – This study aims to give a global view of the whole system of Social Security for European Union employees. It focuses on the benefits provided and financing. The approach is to draw a parallel with the four branches of the regime of the existing Social Security in France. It presents respectively the pensions scheme, the EU Joint Sickness Insurance System, the accident coverage for EU officials and staff and, at last, the family branch of the EU Social Security.

– Questioning the “Modernisation de l'action publique” – Launched after 2012, the French public administration reform program called « Modernisation de l'action publique » (Modernisation of Public Activity) sought to distinguish itself from the previous « Révision générale des politiques publiques» (French Programmes Review), thanks to its methods and approaches. Through successive stages, this policy changed its own steering mechanism and priorities. The innovations it provides can't be neglected but follow, to a large extent, what was already initiated.