The Media Agenda: The Marginalization and Domestication of Europe

This chapter investigates whether the assumption that the media contribute to the communication deficit of the EU is reflected in the empirical pattern of political coverage. In particular, it explores the extent to which German media take a Europeanized perspective on political affairs and whether or not they promote the politics of European integration. The study is based on a content analysis of the editorials of German national quality newspapers covering the period between 1994 and 1998. The findings show that the media under study devote only a very small portion of their attention to European issues, thus marginalizing Europe to an extent that is not warranted by the significance of the European level of governance. If the media do focus on European issues, they predominantly address them in terms of national politics, which is interpreted as a ‘domestication’ of Europe in public discourse. At the same time, the media unanimously support the idea of European integration. This pattern of communicating Europe reflects the élite consensus on European matters in Germany and may have contributed to the alienation of the general public from European politics.

The Party System: Structure, Policy, and Europeanization

The German party system has changed since the 1980s. The relatively stable ‘two-and-a-half party’ system of the 1960s and 1970s has become a fluid five-party system. This development can generally be attributed to changes on the demand and supply sides of party competition and to the changing institutional framework. The European integration process is part of this institutional framework and this chapter deals with the question of whether it has influenced the development of the party system at the national level. To systematically analyse the possible impact, eight party-system properties are distinguished: format, fragmentation, asymmetry, volatility, polarization, legitimacy, segmentation, and coalition stability. The analysis shows that one cannot speak of a Europeanization of the German party system in the sense of a considerable impact of the European integration process on its development. Up to now, the inclusion of Germany in the systemic context of the EU has not led to noticeable changes of party-system properties. On the demand side of party competition, this is due to the fact that the EU issue does not influence the citizens' electoral decisions. On the supply side, the lack of Europeanization can be explained mainly by the traditional, interest-based pro-European élite consensus, the low potential for political mobilization around European integration, and the marginal role of ethnocentrist–authoritarian parties.

The German Länder: From Milieu-Shaping to Territorial Politics

This chapter looks at Europeanization through the lens of how the German Länder have responded to challenges posed by European integration since 1985. It does this by conceiving of ‘Europeanization’ as a two-way process in which the EU imposes adaptational pressures on, but is also subject to adaptational pressures from, the Länder. The chapter also uses the timescale of fifteen years to explore the dynamics of Europeanization. It finds that the Länder have persistently sought to minimize any perceived ‘misfit’ between the EU decision-making process and their domestic role as constituent units of the German federation. The nature of the misfit, and ideas on its resolution, have, however, changed over time as both the EU and Germany have adapted to the post-Cold War era. An initial concern for winning collective rights of access to a deepening EU is now being supplanted by a concern to protect individual Länder autonomy within the framework of the German member state from what is increasingly perceived as an unnecessarily interventionist EU.

Environmental Policy: A Leader State under Pressure?

This chapter discusses the impact of European integration on German environmental policy. For much of the 1980s, Germany acted as an ‘environmental leader’ state, successfully exporting to the EU level some of its standards, instruments, and regulatory approaches. In consequence, the Europeanization process was largely taken for granted by most domestic environmental policy actors. Overall, the Europeanization of the German environmental policy system has been an incremental and relatively subtle process that began in the 1970s, although its full implications did not become apparent until the 1980s. In the 1990s, Germany lost much of its ‘environmental leader’ status and came under pressure from the EU to reform its environmental policy system. At the beginning of the 21st century, Germany remains an ‘environmental leader’ state that pushes for stringent EU environment policy measures on air pollution control issues in particular. However, it has taken on a defensive position with regard to the EU's recent procedural measures, which have caused considerable domestic adaptational pressures. Overall, the Europeanization process has had a highly variegated effect on German environmental policy. Deeply engrained institutional structures and regulatory styles have been affected to a lesser extent than the substantive policy content.

Electricity and Telecommunications: Fit for the European Union?

This chapter examines the processes and outcomes of Europeanization in the German utilities sectors. Employing an institutionalist perspective, it focuses on interaction between the institutional system of the EU and that of Germany. The chapter argues that adaptation pressures are reduced by Germany's ability to exert ‘soft’ power to ensure that EU policy is congruent with domestic governance. The tempo of EU reform is particularly significant. Incremental legislation in telecommunications permitted Germany to liberalize at its own pace in line with domestic policy style. In electricity, by contrast, the 1996 Directive created more acute adaptation pressures. Thus, in telecommunications Germany was activist in ‘downloading’ EU legislation in line with EU requirements. In electricity, it made considerable use of the zone of discretion in the Directive to minimize the impact on domestic governance. In examining the way in which Germany responds to adaptation pressures, particular attention is given to opportunity structures, veto points, and institutional norms in the domestic policy process. The experience of the electricity reform suggests that adaptation pressures are exacerbated by a highly pluralist institutional regime with numerous veto actors capable of blocking implementation. Moreover, German reluctance to embrace independent, sector-specific regulation suggests the resistance of domestic regulatory norms to the effects of Europeanization.

Interest Groups: Opportunity Structures and Governance Capacity

This chapter looks at continuity and change among German interest groups and patterns of interest intermediation in the context of European integration. In other words, it analyses the Europeanization of interest intermediation. While several analysts regard the degree of fit between the EU and the German mode of interest intermediation as a decisive influence on the responses of these groups to European integration, it is argued that it is mainly organizational capacities that explain interest group strategies in the EU multi-level system. The argument is tested in the following steps. First, the chapter provides an overview of the EU and the German systems of interest groups, of the prevalent modes of interest intermediation, and of associational self-regulation at both levels. Based on survey data of German, British, French, and EU business associations, as well as large firms, the general strategies of German interest groups in the EU are outlined. Next, a cluster analysis serves to distinguish five types of interest groups according to their access to political institutions, their access to information from these institutions, and their political activities during the policy cycle: niche organizations, occasional (national) players, (national) traditionalists, EU players, and multilevel players. The results confirm the implications of the ‘capacity’ hypothesis: in general, the changes in the institutional opportunity structure have not led to a major reshuffling of the domestic power structure or to a transformation of the weakly corporatist mode of interest intermediation in Germany.

Europeanization Compared: The Shrinking Core and the Decline of ‘Soft’ Power

This concluding chapter summarizes the empirical findings of the volume's contributions on the polity, politics, and policy dimensions of Europeanization, with an emphasis on the implications of living with Europe in terms of Germany's power to project its institutional forms and policies; the balance between the enabling and constraining implications of European integration; and domestic contestation about European integration. The overall pattern of Europeanization is characterized by the contrast between progressively Europeanized public policies, a semi-Europeanized polity, and a largely non-Europeanized politics. This finding points to a dual agenda of domestic reform: one that enables Germany to regain its benchmark status in key policy domains – most centrally in economic policy – and one that addresses the apparent unresponsiveness of domestic politics to pressures of Europeanization.

Public Law: Towards a Post-National Model

The enactment and enforcement of law is regarded as one of the most important attributes of sovereign statehood. Traditionally, ‘sovereignty’ has been understood as meaning the special quality of a state expressed in its ability to shape its own legal system and to enforce it within the territorial limits of its jurisdiction. Hence, the question of the extent to which member states of the European Union are still masters of their legal systems turns out to be a crucial test of their sovereignty. This chapter argues that the legal system of Germany is a Europeanized legal system, in terms both of a European modification of national laws and of a Europeanization of legal culture and modes of governance. This argument takes the form of testing the degree of Europeanization in six different cases, including the field of constitutional law. The conclusion is that the legal system of Germany is a Europeanized legal system and that the German legal profession is quite aware of this development.

The Federal Executive: Bureaucratic Fusion versus Governmental Bifurcation

The federal ministerial executive is a dual institution, which combines the attributes of a government and an administration. This chapter investigates how European integration has affected this dual nature. It suggests that these two qualities of the executive have been affected in a differential way. On the administrative side, progressive integration has, indeed, been associated with growing ‘multi-level fusion’, through which the ministerial administration becomes part of a closely interconnected multi-level system. By contrast, the governmental dimension of the executive is characterized by growing bifurcation. Government takes place at two levels – the European and the domestic – but institutional linkage between the two levels is limited and some of the defining features of German government, notably the defining tenets of party government, coalition government, and parliamentary government, show few signs of Europeanization.

Foreign and Security Policy: On the Cusp Between Transformation and Accommodation

Foreign and security policy-making within Germany represents a singular policy area. From its inception it emerged into an already existing multilateral framework under the conditions of semi-sovereignty. In addition, this policy area is dominated within Germany by a comparatively small number of policy élites, with little or no sectoral interests outside that of central government to push for increased co-operation. Nonetheless, central to this chapter is the question of why there has not thus far been a far-reaching Europeanization of policy, despite Germany's apparent deep commitment to European integration and EU foreign and security policy co-ordination. German foreign and security policy finds itself on the cusp between accommodation and transformation and has not progressed further as a result of internal and external factors that continue to define German security policy as a distinctive case.