Essays on the political economy of European integration

Recently, a rising interest in political and economic integration/disintegration issues has been developed in the political economy field. This growing strand of literature partly draws on traditional issues of fiscal federalism and optimum public good provision and focuses on a trade-off between the benefits of centralization, arising from economies of scale or externalities, and the costs of harmonizing policies as a consequence of the increased heterogeneity of individual preferences in an international union or in a country composed of at least two regions. This thesis stems from this strand of literature and aims to shed some light on two highly relevant aspects of the political economy of European integration. The first concerns the role of public opinion in the integration process; more precisely, how economic benefits and costs of integration shape citizens' support for European Union (EU) membership. The second is the allocation of policy competences among different levels of government: European, national and regional. Chapter 1 introduces the topics developed in this thesis by reviewing the main recent theoretical developments in the political economy analysis of integration processes. It is structured as follows. First, it briefly surveys a few relevant articles on economic theories of integration and disintegration processes (Alesina and Spolaore 1997, Bolton and Roland 1997, Alesina et al. 2000, Casella and Feinstein 2002) and discusses their relevance for the study of the impact of economic benefits and costs on public opinion attitude towards the EU. Subsequently, it explores the links existing between such political economy literature and theories of fiscal federalism, especially with regard to normative considerations concerning the optimal allocation of competences in a union. Chapter 2 firstly proposes a model of citizens’ support for membership of international unions, with explicit reference to the EU; subsequently it tests the model on a panel of EU countries. What are the factors that influence public opinion support for the European Union (EU)? In international relations theory, the idea that citizens' support for the EU depends on material benefits deriving from integration, i.e. whether European integration makes individuals economically better off (utilitarian support), has been common since the 1970s, but has never been the subject of a formal treatment (Hix 2005). A small number of studies in the 1990s have investigated econometrically the link between national economic performance and mass support for European integration (Eichenberg and Dalton 1993; Anderson and Kalthenthaler 1996), but only making informal assumptions. The main aim of Chapter 2 is thus to propose and test our model with a view to providing a more complete and theoretically grounded picture of public support for the EU. Following theories of utilitarian support, we assume that citizens are in favour of membership if they receive economic benefits from it. To develop this idea, we propose a simple political economic model drawing on the recent economic literature on integration and disintegration processes. The basic element is the existence of a trade-off between the benefits of centralisation and the costs of harmonising policies in presence of heterogeneous preferences among countries. The approach we follow is that of the recent literature on the political economy of international unions and the unification or break-up of nations (Bolton and Roland 1997, Alesina and Wacziarg 1999, Alesina et al. 2001, 2005a, to mention only the relevant). The general perspective is that unification provides returns to scale in the provision of public goods, but reduces each member state’s ability to determine its most favoured bundle of public goods. In the simple model presented in Chapter 2, support for membership of the union is increasing in the union’s average income and in the loss of efficiency stemming from being outside the union, and decreasing in a country’s average income, while increasing heterogeneity of preferences among countries points to a reduced scope of the union. Afterwards we empirically test the model with data on the EU; more precisely, we perform an econometric analysis employing a panel of member countries over time. The second part of Chapter 2 thus tries to answer the following question: does public opinion support for the EU really depend on economic factors? The findings are broadly consistent with our theoretical expectations: the conditions of the national economy, differences in income among member states and heterogeneity of preferences shape citizens’ attitude towards their country’s membership of the EU. Consequently, this analysis offers some interesting policy implications for the present debate about ratification of the European Constitution and, more generally, about how the EU could act in order to gain more support from the European public. Citizens in many member states are called to express their opinion in national referenda, which may well end up in rejection of the Constitution, as recently happened in France and the Netherlands, triggering a European-wide political crisis. These events show that nowadays understanding public attitude towards the EU is not only of academic interest, but has a strong relevance for policy-making too. Chapter 3 empirically investigates the link between European integration and regional autonomy in Italy. Over the last few decades, the double tendency towards supranationalism and regional autonomy, which has characterised some European States, has taken a very interesting form in this country, because Italy, besides being one of the founding members of the EU, also implemented a process of decentralisation during the 1970s, further strengthened by a constitutional reform in 2001. Moreover, the issue of the allocation of competences among the EU, the Member States and the regions is now especially topical. The process leading to the drafting of European Constitution (even if then it has not come into force) has attracted much attention from a constitutional political economy perspective both on a normative and positive point of view (Breuss and Eller 2004, Mueller 2005). The Italian parliament has recently passed a new thorough constitutional reform, still to be approved by citizens in a referendum, which includes, among other things, the so called “devolution”, i.e. granting the regions exclusive competence in public health care, education and local police. Following and extending the methodology proposed in a recent influential article by Alesina et al. (2005b), which only concentrated on the EU activity (treaties, legislation, and European Court of Justice’s rulings), we develop a set of quantitative indicators measuring the intensity of the legislative activity of the Italian State, the EU and the Italian regions from 1973 to 2005 in a large number of policy categories. By doing so, we seek to answer the following broad questions. Are European and regional legislations substitutes for state laws? To what extent are the competences attributed by the European treaties or the Italian Constitution actually exerted in the various policy areas? Is their exertion consistent with the normative recommendations from the economic literature about their optimum allocation among different levels of government? The main results show that, first, there seems to be a certain substitutability between EU and national legislations (even if not a very strong one), but not between regional and national ones. Second, the EU concentrates its legislative activity mainly in international trade and agriculture, whilst social policy is where the regions and the State (which is also the main actor in foreign policy) are more active. Third, at least two levels of government (in some cases all of them) are significantly involved in the legislative activity in many sectors, even where the rationale for that is, at best, very questionable, indicating that they actually share a larger number of policy tasks than that suggested by the economic theory. It appears therefore that an excessive number of competences are actually shared among different levels of government. From an economic perspective, it may well be recommended that some competences be shared, but only when the balance between scale or spillover effects and heterogeneity of preferences suggests so. When, on the contrary, too many levels of government are involved in a certain policy area, the distinction between their different responsibilities easily becomes unnecessarily blurred. This may not only leads to a slower and inefficient policy-making process, but also risks to make it too complicate to understand for citizens, who, on the contrary, should be able to know who is really responsible for a certain policy when they vote in national,local or European elections or in referenda on national or European constitutional issues.

The Council of Ministers of the European Union After the Lisbon Treaty

The Treaty of Lisbon has brought remarkable changes and innovations to the European Union. As far as the Council of Ministers of the European Union (“the Council” hereinafter) is concerned, there are two significant innovations: double qualified majority voting and new rotating Presidency scheme, which are considered to make the working of the Council more efficiently, stably and consistently. With the modification relating to other key institutions, the Commission and the European Parliament, and with certain procedures being re-codified, the power of the Council varies accordingly, where the inter-institutional balance counts for more research. As the Council is one of the co-legislatures of the Union, the legislative function of it would be probably influenced, positively or negatively, by the internal innovations and the inter-institutional re-balance. Has the legislative function of the Council been reinforced or not? How could the Council better reach its functional goal designed by the Treaties’ drafter? How to evaluate the Council’s evolution after Lisbon Treaty in the light of European integration? This thesis is attempting to find the answers by analyzing two main internal innovations and inter-institutional re-balance thereinafter.

L'anno che non fu? L'anno dell'Europa e la crisi nelle relazioni transatlantiche, 1973/74

The 1970s are in the limelight of a growing historiographic attention, partly due to the recent opening of new archival resources. 1973, in particular, has a special interest in the historian’s eyes, as many are the events that happened that year: to name but a few, the Chilean coup, the October War, the ensuing oil crisis, the Vietnamese peace treaty. So it is may be not entirely surprising that not much attention has been paid to the Year of Europe, a nebulous American initiative destined to sum up to nothing practical - as Kissinger himself put it, it was destined to be the Year that never Was.1 It is my opinion, however, that its failure should not conceal its historical interest. Even though transatlantic relations have sometimes been seen as an uninterrupted history of crisis,2 in 1973 they reached what could then be considered as their unprecedented nadir. I believe that a thorough analysis of the events that during that year found the US increasingly at odds with the countries of Western Europe is worth carrying out not only to cast a new light on the dynamics of transatlantic relations but also to deepen our comprehension of the internal dynamics of the actors involved, mainly the Nixon administration and a unifying Europe. The Nixon administration had not carefully planned what the initiative actually should have amounted to, and its official announcement appears to have been one of Kissinger’s coups de theatre. Yet the Year of Europe responded to the vital priority of revitalising the relations with Western Europe, crucial ally, for too long neglected. But 1973 did not end with the solemn renewal of the Atlantic Declaration that Kissinger had sought. On the contrary, it saw, for the first time, the countries of the newly enlarged EC engaged in a real, if short-lived, solidarity on foreign policy, which highlighted the Nixon administration’s contradictions regarding European integration. Those, in addition to the numerous tensions that already strained transatlantic relations, gave birth to a downward spiral of incomprehensions and misperceptions, which the unexpected deflagration of the October war seriously worsened. However, even though the tensions did not disappear, the European front soon started to disintegrate, mainly under the strains imposed by the oil crisis. Significant changes in the leadership of the main European countries helped to get the tones back to normal. During the course of 1974-5, the substantial failure of the Euro-Arab dialogue, the Gymlich compromise, frequent and serene bilateral meetings bear witness that the worst was over.

La circolazione dei servizi in una economia sociale di mercato

Questa ricerca intende esaminare l'impatto della circolazione transfrontaliera dei servizi sul bilanciamento tra regole di mercato e politiche sociali. L'analisi di questa tensione costituisce il punto di partenza per una riflessione più ampia che si propone di comprendere come la conciliazione tra solidarietà e competitività e, più generalmente, tra esigenze di protezione sociale degli Stati membri e tradizionali competenze comunitarie nell'ambito del mercato comune, possa operare nel settore dei servizi. Un mercato comune dei servizi in costante espansione in senso transfrontaliero ha indubbiamente effetti non trascurabili sul piano sociale ed in particolare sul diritto del lavoro consolidatosi nelle tradizioni costituzionali degli Stati membri. La necessità di conciliare solidarietà e competitività alla base del concetto di economia sociale ed il rinnovato accento sulla dimensione sociale dell'Unione accolto nel Trattato di Lisbona dovrebbero promuovere una convivenza armoniosa tra un'integrazione europea di carattere principalmente economico ed i residui spazi di intervento statale a tutela dei mercati nazionali del lavoro. Prima di analizzare cause ed effetti di tale potenziale conflitto nell'ambito del mercato europeo dei servizi risulta necessario fornire un panorama del quadro normativo applicabile agli operatori economici che intendano fornire a titolo temporaneo una prestazione in uno Stato membro diverso da quello di stabilimento. Nell'ambito di tale disamina, dedicata alle fonti conflittuali del diritto europeo applicabili ai prestatori di servizi, individueremo le condizioni che devono rispettare gli operatori per esercitare un'attività in uno Stato membro diverso da quello di origine (Parte I). Potremo quindi illustrare come l'esercizio delle libertà comunitarie di circolazione da parte delle imprese europee abbia fatto emergere le contraddizioni ed i limiti del funzionamento del mercato comune rispetto alla fruizione dei diritti sociali da parte dei lavoratori locali e distaccati (Parte II).

Transatlantic Brokers. A global history of Jean Monnet’s network 1914-1943

Jean Monnet, possibly the most important actor during the first post-war decades of European integration, is constantly described in the literature as part of a network that included several influential individuals in Europe and in the United States who, at different moments, held key positions. An important aspect in this regard is that some of Monnet’s transatlantic friends promoted European integration and contributed to a cross-fertilization process across the Atlantic. Considering that most of the authors either list a number of people as being part of this network, or focus on particular individuals’ relationship with Monnet, it is fair to ask to what extent his network helped him in pursuing his goals, if Monnet was simply accepted, and why, in already existing networks, if we can consider his as a transatlantic working group and if we can retrace in this story elements of continuity and long durée that can contribute to the historiography of early European Integration. Considering new trends and interpretations that highlight the role played by networks, examination of Monnet’s techniques and his reliance on his transatlantic connections reveal important findings about his relationship with policymakers, shading also a light on important features of XX century diplomatic and transatlantic history. This dissertation’s attempt, therefore, is to define these as elements of continuity throughout the formative years of one of founding fathers of the Integration process.

La identidad nacional de los Estados miembros en el Derecho de la Unión Europea

La identidad nacional es una categoría jurídica central del Derecho de la Unión que puede ser particularmente apta a los fines de articular un mejor encaje entre los ordenamientos jurídicos nacionales y el sistema jurídico europeo. Se enmarca en un debate clásico de la construcción europea relativo a cómo conciliar una integración cada vez más acentuada con el debido respeto a la diversidad estatal. Se caracteriza por tratarse de una figura jurídica sumamente controvertida, existiendo una rica y abierta discusión en relación a su sentido y a su alcance. Con la entrada en vigor del Tratado de Lisboa en el año 2009, la nueva redacción de la cláusula de identidad nacional ha suscitado un interés renovado tanto por parte de la doctrina como de la jurisprudencia nacional y europea gracias a su mayor elaboración y a la ampliación de las potestades de la jurisdicción supranacional. La presente tesis doctoral ofrece un análisis integral de esta norma desde una aproximación dialéctica, que comprende tanto la visión acuñada por el Tribunal de Justicia como la percepción que de la misma mantienen los Tribunales Constitucionales nacionales, en tanto que guardianes supremos del ordenamiento constitucionales interno. Cada uno de los cuales sostiene una visión no exactamente coincidente sobre la norma suprema y la autoridad judicial última en el complejo sistema constitucional común europeo. Se lleva a cabo un estudio desde una perspectiva histórica y actual, sustantiva y procesal, descriptiva y valorativa, así como una parte propositiva por medio de la cual se propone un modelo para la resolución de este tipo de conflictos en sede judicial.

Il valore precettivo dei diritti sociali fondamentali previsti dal titolo IV della Carta

Il dibattito giuridico, politico ed economico in tema di protezione dei diritti sociali nel contesto del processo di integrazione europea risale alle origini stesse di tale processo. A circa dieci anni dall’attribuzione alla Carta dei diritti fondamentali dell’UE dello stesso valore giuridico dei Trattati, sembra possibile tracciare un primo bilancio in termini di aspettative inverate ed aspettative non soddisfatte quanto alla giustiziabilità dei diritti sociali fondamentali contenuti nel Titolo IV direttamente o indirettamente al rapporto di impiego (articoli da 27 a 34). A questo fine, la tesi ha adottato una struttura tripartita capace di coniugare una metodologia di analisi pratica, in relazione alla giurisprudenza della Corte di giustizia UE post Lisbona (Capitolo III), con un’analisi dal carattere maggiormente teorico-ricostruttivo (Capitoli I e II). La ricerca cerca di dimostrare come tanto i più interessanti sviluppi quanto i limiti registratisi nella giurisprudenza della CGUE (rispettivamente, l’efficacia diretta, anche orizzontale, di alcuni di essi negli ordinamenti nazionali, e la determinazione del loro ambito di applicazione e delle modalità di interazione con il diritto secondario e primario) possano essere meglio compresi tenendo in debito conto il percorso ed il significato di ciascuno di tali diritti nel contesto del processo di integrazione europea. In breve, si sostiene che la “costituzionalizzazione” dei diritti sociali in esame abbia certamente un “valore aggiunto” che, tuttavia, riflette la natura sui generis e le finalità dell’Unione, il sistema di riparto di competenze tra Stati membri e Unione, ed il significato ultimo del sistema UE di tutela dei diritti fondamentali. Ciò non toglie che questi caratteri, con il tempo, possano infine mutare.

L'intervento pubblico europeo per il territorio tra globalizzazione e crisi dello Stato. Strumenti teorici per la riduzione delle disuguaglianze.

Il presente elaborato indaga l’evoluzione del rapporto tra ordinamento giuridico e territorio, alla luce dei processi di globalizzazione e integrazione europea. Nel secondo dopoguerra, infatti, si è assistito ad un’evoluzione dello Stato moderno in quello che è stato definito come lo Stato keynesiano, nel quale convivevano una forte presenza pubblica nell’economia interna e un basso livello di internazionalizzazione del commercio mondiale. La crisi di tale modello è la crisi dello Stato territoriale, che viene attraversato da nuovi flussi economici che premiano città e regioni, facendo perdere di importanza alla dimensione nazionale. Ciò è avvolorato dal processo di integrazione europea che dagli anni ’80 in poi trova nuovo vigore e comincia a limitare l’intervento pubblico nell’economia agendo sia sul piano degli aiuti di Stato, che sui bilanci nazionali. Tali dinamiche producono la crisi dell’unità dello Stato sotto un aspetto giuridico-territoriale, per via del crescente ruolo tanto delle istituzioni europee, da una parte, e di città e Regioni, dall’altra, le quali diventano nuove dimensioni normative che sfidano la sovranità statale. Allo stesso tempo, si indebolisce anche l’unità sociale, con divari territoriali crescenti, sia a livello inter- che intra- regionali. In questo contesto, si approfondirà come l’intervento pubblico europeo sia sul piano della coesione, che su quello relativo agli aiuti di Stato non solo tenda ad una riduzione dei divari, ma anche ad una riconfigurazione del territorio europeo. Infatti, grazie ai suoi strumenti, città e regioni hanno la possibilità di superare i propri confini amministrativi al fine di creare nuove forme di cooperazione territoriale. In questo scenario, si proporrà una riflessione sulla possibilità di un rinnovato principio di sussidiarietà, che tenga conto della struttura reticolare dell’attuale contesto territoriale europeo, così come degli attuali rapporti tra la dimensione del mercato e quella sociale, al fine di meglio descrivere un ordinamento europeo in senso materiale.

La paradoja de Maastricht. Los distintos modelos económicos y políticos para el futuro integrador de la UE

La crisis existencial del proyecto de integración europea constituye el principal reto al que debe enfrentarse la Comunidad en su futuro más inmediato puesto que se alza como toda una amenaza para la continuidad del sistema establecido desde el Tratado fundacional de Roma (1957). Las tres crisis acontecidas durante los primeros años del siglo XXI, véase la gran crisis económica del año 2008, la pandemia global de la Covid-19 y la actual intervención de la Federación Rusa en Ucrania, están poniendo constantemente a prueba la firmeza de los cimientos y valores sobre los cuales se ha construido la Comunidad durante todos estos años. Esta tesis doctoral pretende ser una contribución académica al debate abierto en las sociedades comunitarias acerca de por donde debe de transitar la evolución del proyecto de integración europea en los próximos años. Para conseguir alcanzar este objetivo, la investigación se retrotrae hasta los orígenes del proceso de integración y avanza en la línea temporal hasta nuestros días, analizando con ello las posibles causas que pudieran encontrarse detrás de la crisis existencial actual. A su vez, , la investigación estudia con detenimiento los múltiples efectos que está generando la problemática existencial en los Estados miembros en los últimos años, tales como el aumento del apoyo social a favor de actores considerados populistas o el fenómeno de la creciente desafección ciudadana. Esta investigación analiza los distintos escenarios propuestos por la Comisión Europea en su Libro Blanco sobre el futuro de Europa para determinar cuál podría ser el mejor escenario que concordara con la nueva realidad económica y sociopolítica que actualmente impera en los Estados miembro. Lo que se persigue es formular una propuesta que pueda dar por terminada la crisis existencial de la Comunidad abriendo con ello una nueva etapa en la historia de la integración europea.

Rethinking Thatcher and Europe. An alternative reading

The goal of this doctoral dissertation is to establish the raison d’être of the policy options that Margaret Thatcher adopted on European integration in the years of her premiership. She was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990, years of major developments in European integration. The thesis wishes to clarify the expectations Thatcher had over the European Community and the decisions she took as British Prime Minister about the integration process through archival research and by placing Thatcher’s European options within the broader context of the 1980s. I aim to show that she balanced ideology and pragmatism when reacting to the positions of the other European leaders, often very different from hers, and to the proposal and decisions of the main institutions of the Community. This research is original to the point it deconstructs the mainstream narrative of Thatcher as Eurosceptical and reconstructs a more comprehensive and nuanced outlook of her as British Prime Minister, pragmatic in her adapting to circumstances but not incoherent in her overall attitude.

Essays on European economic and monetary integration

This thesis focuses on two aspects of European economic integration: exchange rate stabilization between non-euro Countries and the Euro Area, and real and nominal convergence of Central and Eastern European Countries. Each Chapter covers these aspects from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. Chapter 1 investigates whether the introduction of the euro was accompanied by a shift in the de facto exchange rate policy of European countries outside the euro area, using methods recently developed by the literature to detect "Fear of Floating" episodes. I find that European Inflation Targeters have tried to stabilize the euro exchange rate, after its introduction; fixed exchange rate arrangements, instead, apart from official policy changes, remained stable. Finally, the euro seems to have gained a relevant role as a reference currency even outside Europe. Chapter 2 proposes an approach to estimate Central Bank preferences starting from the Central Bank's optimization problem within a small open economy, using Sweden as a case study, to find whether stabilization of the exchange rate played a role in the Monetary Policy rule of the Riksbank. The results show that it did not influence interest rate setting; exchange rate stabilization probably occurred as a result of increased economic integration and business cycle convergence. Chapter 3 studies the interactions between wages in the public sector, the traded private sector and the closed sector in ten EU Transition Countries. The theoretical literature on wage spillovers suggests that the traded sector should be the leader in wage setting, with non-traded sectors wages adjusting. We show that large heterogeneity across countries is present, and sheltered and public sector wages are often leaders in wage determination. This result is relevant from a policy perspective since wage spillovers, leading to costs growing faster than productivity, may affect the international cost competitiveness of the traded sector.

Reasonableness in European and Chinese Contract Law. A Comparative Law Study

Contemporary private law, in teh last few decades, TEMPhas been increasingly characterized by teh spread of general clauses and standards and by teh growing role of interpreters in teh framework of teh sources of law. dis process TEMPhas also consistently effected those systems dat are not typically centered on judge-made law. In particular in contract law general clauses and standards has assumed a leading role and has become protagonists of processes of integration and harmonization of teh law. Wifin dis context, teh reasonableness clause TEMPhas come to teh attention of scholars, emerging as a new element of connection between different legal systems -first of all between common law and civil law – and even between different legal traditions. dis research aims at reconstructing teh patterns of emersion and evolution of teh TEMPprincipal of reasonableness in contract law both wifin European Union Law and in teh Chinese legal system, in order to identify evolutionary trends, processes of emersion and circulation of legal models and teh scope of operation of teh TEMPprincipal in teh two contexts. In view of teh increasingly intense economic relations between Europe and China, wifin teh framework of teh new project called Belt and Road Initiative, a comparative survey of dis type can foster mutual understanding and make communications more TEMPeffective, at teh level of legal culture and commercial relations, and to support teh processes of supranational harmonization of contract law rules.

European Union (EU) general farm animal directive applicability in Africa and bovine welfare assessment in Italy

The was conducted with objectives focusing on the EU farm animal directive and applicability in Africa focusing in Ethiopia, the welfare assessment and the effect of different bovine respiratory disease (BRD) treatment protocols in beef cattle fattening unit and the calves navel healing and fitness for transport. Different methodology was applied: relevant literates, international organization, regional organization, countries legislations, standards were assessed and reviewed, for assessing beef welfare and biosecurity a modified version of the Italian protocol for assessing beef cattle was adopted which is part of the ClassyFarm monitoring scheme, 264 Limousine bulls with an average age of 11 months at the entrance to fattening unit were considered. Mycoplasma bovis was tested using RT-PCR at arrival and with culture at after 15 days of arrival to the fattening unit. For studying the navel healing and effect on transport the navels of 299 dairy calves (55 males, 244 females) aged 0–90 days were examined. As a conclusion, the European Union (EU) farm directive, could not be completely implement in African countries like Ethiopia, but it could serve as a good starting point, so as after successful identification of the farm animal welfare critical points may help as a starting point with modification to the local situation in the ground. In beef welfare assessment, integration of different assessment parameters could be of useful, when assessing beef welfare, and further continues detail physiological parameters of welfare assessment for integration with other assessment protocols should be studied, our finding indicate that also BRD was a major welfare and health concern in the studied population and evidence the difficulties of antimicrobial treatment of M. bovis associated BRD. In transporting calves with a completely healed navel should be considered best practice because it ensures that calves that are too young are not transported.