Notes

Akerke Amangeldina

What can explain Britain’s reluctance to adopt certain EU policies fully?

European Union treaties impact member-states’ policymaking processes variably. While some member-states have adopted EU policies domestically, others such as Britain have in some cases resisted the Europeanization of their policymaking process. So, the research question of this work is "What can explain Britain’s reluctance to adopt certain EU policies fully?" In order to find proper response for this question, literature review is done. Investigation of ideas and results of previous authors gives an overview of British euroscepticism and shines a light over theories explaining it. Also, after reviewing literature, new approach on eurscepticism is presented.

Generally other authors explain this issue in terms of historical and geo-political variables.
This paper argues that Britain reluctance stems from its perceived status as “different” from continental EU states. This “difference” can be traced in the history of its membership that has been characterized by close ties with the United States, concerns over sovereignty, and high levels of euroskepticism. I test my argument qualitatively by examining Britain and its policymakers’ reactions to certain aspects of British membership in the EU and the level of EU
policy implementation. This paper clarifies the growing British reluctance to deeper European integration.

This paper is basically about policy making process in UK and the level of influence on it of EU. Firstly, let’s clarify the notion “policymaking processes”. It is a complicated process influenced by different interest groups on how, when and what should certain policies pursue.
This work differs from others with a different perspective over euroscepticism in the UK. Here responsiveness of the UK to EU process and product standardization is viewed from historical institutionalism perspective.



British Euroscpeticism started at the very beginning of coal and steel community in Europe after World War Two. Being a winner of the war, it was getting its most benefits from economic "Golden Age", that lasted till 1960s(Corner, Mark 2007). United Kingdom's politics and economics were not aligned with the objectives that six first coal and steal community organizers were pursuing. Germany, France and their allies were working to coordinate their powers and economics to avoid continental disputes and cooperate in peace under ECSC (Yesilada,Wood 2010). Whereas Britain at those times could not see profits to itself of being part of that community. When inner six states created EEC, Britain with other seven outer commenced economic and trade cooperation in EFTA. The main difference between EEC and EFTA was that the latter had no one common external customs tariff. This seemed more democratic and was more profitable to its member states (Yesilada,Wood 2010). But the main point here is that Britain initiated own organization instead of joining the existing one. This illustrates how its approach differed from EEC at the very start.


However later UK started experiencing external disorders like the increase of oil price and internal challenges like budgetary deficit. These caused British inflation in mid-1970. Facing these economic imbroglios UK had to modify its economic policies. So UK left EFTA and joined EEC. This was a beginning of European cooperation with more members in it, which caused divergence in voices. From the very initial decisions, UK strongly opposed to the actions on extraordinary agenda. This caused slowing down of development of this organization and presented eurocentrists new dilemma (Yesilada,Wood 2010).


After joining EEC in 1973, UK faced a problem in Common Agriculture policy, that was unfair from British perspective. Margaret Thatcher was the person very clear in her position, that no integration was possible unless this unfairness finds its resolution. This again demonstrates how UK's beliefs varied from other six members of EEC. Moreover, Thatcher was opposite towards European Monetary Union, that was signed in Maastrich Treaty. She resisted this policy implementation in her state as much as possible. Her behavior is explained by wish to maintain sovereignty of the state. But regardless on her efforts in 1990 pound was put in ERM.

When in 1992 EMU experienced crisis, UK was successful in taking pound out of ERM. Also, when EMU was working on single currency UK had an “opt out” option, that helped to maintain its sovereignty and to not stop integration of other states in Europe . Here we see that UK left out of the movement towards European federation. It was remained apart from common movement and for this reason it is more eurosceptical than those states that implemented common currency.

Concerning political reluctance towards European integration, United Kingdom from the very beginning was opposing it. Mainly because it would narrow UK's power from the world to continent (Corner, Mark 2007). After the end of the WWII, UK was internationally recognized as an elite power and had strong allies like the USA and USSR. Joining European economic zone would mean for Britain giving up some power to European Institutions, that would weaken UK on international arena. However, it had to shift own preferences and join to EC due to reasons explained above. EC with six members was welcoming British power and market in their community warmly, whereas British was not thinking of itself as a complete part of this organization. Mainly because UK's power and sovereignty would be shared with other member states. When UK has an option to avoid EC rules, it does so.



British Euroscepticism can be explained by diversity of ethnical, cultural and regional units inside the Kingdom. It consists of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Each of them besides England have own administration, due to devolution in the UK. This means that states have certain powers over their territories but are working under one common authority. Each of states have more or less power depending on the policy or legislation (gov.uk). For this reason it is onerous for United Kingdom to be a fully responsive power to all European Union policies, because there is diversity within the state itself. It is troublesome for Kingdom with states inside of it to have one common response to international policies, especially to EU. This is because EU demands more sovereignty to be shared than other intergovernmental organizations. British conservative party is strongly against the movement of UK in the same direction as eurocentrists would wish.

European Union being a unit with common currency and one political response to international affairs, and it also has common standards to its member nation’s policy making bodies. This is so called "harmonization" of national standards. This means that each member of EU should have same minimum point for certain policies in all nation states. These standards are divided into two: "product standards" and "process standards". The first one consists of standards like environmental or consumer protect standards. So, the policy dictates directly the standard and it cannot be interpreted differently than it was written in policy. Whereas the second, "process standard" gives more opportunities and freedom for the nation state legislation and executive bodies. Basically they have an option to interpret rules themselves in the way they feel more comfortable for their states (Hix and Goetz, 2007). In this work the focus will be narrowed to the EU member state United Kingdom and its the responsiveness to the legislations and standards by EU will be investigated.

Historical institutionalism explains that events which took place in the past have influence over current affairs (Pollack, Mark 2007). Similar case the UK faces about European integration. From the descriptions of history provided above in the work it is clear that UK has always been against sharing its sovereignty, but the decisions that were done in the past about joining UK to EC are bringing results now, to current governors. So, EU has certain standards to each of their member states and UK has to respond them. But how it responds depends on the kind of policy. This part of work will explore how UK responds to different European standards taking into account historical perspective.

Bibliography

1. Corner, Mark 2007. THE EU AND THE ROOTS OF BRITISH EUROSCEPTICISM. Contemporary Review. Winter2007, Vol. 289 Issue 1687, p466-469. 4p http://ezproxy.library.nu.edu.kz:2068/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=43d87318-f8ef-4da6-b0b2-3b818127ccf1%40sessionmgr112&vid=2&hid=20

2. Devolution of powers to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Explaining the background to devolution and how the legislatures and administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland work. Published 18 February 2013https://www.gov.uk/devolution-of-powers-to-scotland-wales-and-northern-ireland#devolved-administrations

3. Pollack, Mark A. 2007. The new institutionalisms and European integration. No. p0031. University of Bath, Department of European Studies and Modern Languages

4. Simon Hix & Klaus H. Goetz (2000) Introduction: European integration and national political systems, West European Politics, 23:4, 1-26, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01402380008425398

5. Yesilada, Birol A and David M. Wood. 2010. Emerging European Union by Yesilada and Wood. (5th edition). p. 23-53. New York: Pearson [Y&W]


6. Williams P. Who's Making UK Foreign Policy?International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-) , Vol. 80, No. 5 (Oct., 2004), pp. 911-929 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Royal Institute of International Affairs Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3569478
http://ezproxy.library.nu.edu.kz:2172/stable/3569478?seq=8



--
Sincerely
Akerke Amangeldina
International relations student
in school of humanities and social sciences

Nazarbayev University (Wisconsin-Madison partnership)

Address: 53 Kabanbay batyr ave., Astana, 010000, Republic of Kazakhstan

Tel: 87027769926

Email: [email protected]