The committee of the regions : institutionalizing subnational representation in the European Union : a study of the committee of the regions origins and an analysis of what factors that motivated its establishment

The topic of this thesis is subnational representation in the European Union (EU). More specifically, the present dissertation deals with the institutionalization of subnational authorities in European policy-making through the setting up of the Committee of the Regions (CoR) at the 1991 Maastricht summit. When the Treaty on European Union added the CoR to the EU s institutional framework, this was, in legal terms, the first recognition of subnational governments as important partners in European decision-making. Furthermore, it was the first time that a Community Treaty provided subnational authorities with a formal role of consultation in the making and implementation of European policies. By equipping sub-state actors with a structured channel for voicing their opinions, EU Member States confirmed the role of subnational governments in European policy-making. The establishment of the Committee of the Regions merits attention for two main reasons. First, the Committee of the Regions birth represents a process of institutional change in the EU that has not been the subject of an in-depth analysis before. Secondly, there have so far been few attempts to structure the available empirical material within a more explicit theoretical framework. The main question of this thesis reads as follows: What explanatory factors may explain the Committee of the Regions establishment? In order to provide an adequate answer to the questions of how and why the CoR came into being, I utilize two theoretical approaches: Andrew Moravcsik s liberal intergovernmentalism and Paul Pierson s historical institutionalist approach. The chosen perspectives explore various aspects of the CoR s background and I therefore consider them as complementary tools in the further examination. The descriptive part of this thesis provides an empirical account of the CoR s development. The first section of this chapter focus on the domestic preference formation of the German Federal Republic. Moreover, it illustrates how national governments with different domestic structures presented their respective positions at the 1991 Maastricht IGC. The second part highlights the preferences of supranational institutions and explores how prior institutional choices had implications for the setting up of the CoR. FINDINGS: In the case of the Committee of the Regions, strong European regions, in particular the German Länder, partly played an independent role in the drawing up of suggestions for the CoR and partly worked in close cooperation with its national government in the preparations for the Maastricht summit. The idea of establishing the Committee of the Regions received strong backing from other EC members with federalized structures of governance. In contrast, centralized Member States presented relatively few statements on subnational representation. The passive resistance of the centralized EC members explains why more radical demands regarding the CoR s framing had no change in finding support in the Maastricht negotiations. The Member States decision to establish a regional body with advisory status, limited powers and a common organizational base with the Economic and Social Committee (EcoSoc) implies that the Committee of the Regions was a lowest common denominator compromise among the EU members. Furthermore, the heterogeneous membership of the CoR indicates that that most Member States utilized their exclusive role in the intergovernmental bargains to secure their position vis-a-vis their own subnational authorities. In this regard, the liberal intergovernmental approach offers a fruitful theoretical base for identifying and explaining important formal aspects of the CoR s origins. However, the liberal intergovernmental approach loses out important aspects of the CoR s development, which are to be found in the day-to-day policies of the European Community prior to and between the major Treaty revisions. This study reveals that although national governments exercised a decisive impact on the final framing of the CoR, the Member States were to some extent unable to predict or control the effects of historical and institutional impetuses on the final decision to establish the CoR. What this thesis reveals is that the Maastricht IGC s decision to institutionalize subnational representation in the EU were not taken in a historical nor contextual vacuum. The analysis shows that supranational officials increased capacity to provide leadership in Community decision-making, along with earlier Community and regional initiatives, limited the options available to the Member States to act according to original goals. Previous institutional and political choices thus created a historical contingency, which affected the EC members influence on the CoR s development. The most significant finding of this analysis is that the setting up of the Committee of the Regions and the following institutionalization of subnational representation at the EU level formalized already established practices in Community regional policy rather than changed the Union s basic structures of governance. I therefore concluded that the CoR s institutional position limits its possibilities to play a decisive role in the future role of the European Union. Only if and when the Member States provide the CoR with extended possibilities for influence and autonomous action will the Committee of the Regions be able to constitute itself as a significant actor in the proceeding European integration process