"Domestic politics vs. the European Union: Alcohol, abortion, and drug policy"

One of the greatest challenges in the post-Maastricht era is whether national governments of the member states of the European Union (EU) can protect national regulatory regimes, which are clearly at odds with Community law or international intergovernmental agreements. How do chief government executives balance the trends toward convergence with their belief that certain areas of government activities are unsuitable for Europeanization or deeper collaboration? My answer will be based upon the examples of abortion policy in Ireland, drug policy in the Netherlands, and alcohol control policy in Finland and Sweden, that national officials face an incredibly difficult task if they seek to shelter sensitive policy areas from European integration. They rely extensively on complicated diplomatic formulas to preserve domestic regulatory regimes, with however, mixed results. One solution is to create different ‘pillars’ (the way in which the Treaty of European Union is designed) in order to place sensitive domains of national sovereignty out of the jurisdiction of Community law and European actors. How do governments of these member states shelter areas of national importance that are exposed to Community law and supranational authority? Moreover, even in the intergovernmental pillars of the EU, cooperation is recommended and mandated for areas that individual national governments do not consider an appropriate field of activity for greater European collaboration and harmonization