De Gaulle and Europe: Historical Revision and Social Science Theory. Program for the Study of Germany and Europe Working Paper Series 8.5

The thousands of books and articles on Charles de Gaulle's policy toward European integration, whether written by historians, social scientists, or commentators, universally accord primary explanatory importance to the General's distinctive geopolitical ideology. In explaining his motivations, only secondary significance, if any at all, is attached to commercial considerations. This paper seeks to reverse this historiographical consensus by examining the four major decisions toward European integration during de Gaulle's presidency: the decisions to remain in the Common Market in 1958, to propose the Foucher Plan in the early 1960s, to veto British accession to the EC, and to provoke the "empty chair" crisis in 1965-1966, resulting in the "Luxembourg Compromise." In each case, the overwhelming bulk of the primary evidence-speeches, memoirs, or government documents-suggests that de Gaulle's primary motivation was economic, not geopolitical or ideological. Like his predecessors and successors, de Gaulle sought to promote French industry and agriculture by establishing protected markets for their export products. This empirical finding has three broader implications: (1) For those interesred in the European Union, it suggests that regional integration has been driven primarily by economic, not geopolitical considerations--even in the "least likely" case. (2) For those interested in the role of ideas in foreign policy, it suggests that strong interest groups in a democracy limit the impact of a leader's geopolitical ideology--even where the executive has very broad institutional autonomy. De Gaulle was a democratic statesman first and an ideological visionary second. (3) For those who employ qualitative case-study methods, it suggests that even a broad, representative sample of secondary sources does not create a firm basis for causal inference. For political scientists, as for historians, there is in many cases no reliable alternative to primary-source research.

The European Union’s Rule of Law Promotion in its Neighbourhood: A Structural Foreign Policy Analysis. EU Diplomacy Paper 04/2013

The promotion of the rule of law has become an important dimension of the European Union’s relations towards its neighbourhood. The rule of law is, however, a complex and multifaceted notion and the EU’s rule of law promotion policy has often been criticised for being either inefficient or self-interested. This collection of short papers offers an analysis of various case studies using the analytical framework of structural foreign policy (SFP) developed by Stephan Keukeleire. It aims to promote an original analytical perspective on the EU’s foreign policy but also to critically test and further develop the SFP analytical framework. The contributions of this collection consist of the shortened version of students’ Master’s theses written at the College of Europe during the academic year 2011-2012 in the framework of the course “The EU as a Foreign Policy Actor” taught by Stephan Keukeleire, Chairholder of the TOTAL Chair of EU Foreign Policy in the Department of EU International Relations and Diplomacy Studies.

The single market and competitiveness - the challenges for the Juncker team. CHALLENGE EUROPE Issue 22 - Challenges and new beginnings: Priorities for the EU's new leadership, September 2014

The announcement of the new European Commission is encouraging for single market supporters, especially in terms of how internal co-ordination and cross functional working will be organised. It is particularly significant that the responsibility for the single market in both goods and services is to be combined under one Commissioner portfolio. There is much to be gained from a combined focus, especially on enforcing the existing rules. A unified Consumer focus is also much welcomed. The European Parliament's Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO), which I had the privilege to Chair over the last five years, was extremely critical of the fragmented approach to consumer policy and legislation adopted by the outgoing Commission. A strong consumer focus underpins a dynamic and well-functioning market place and encourages more competition.

The New European Commission Presidency and the Advent of European Democracy. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series Vol. 14 No. 17, August 2014

On June 15, 2014, Jean-Claude Juncker, the lead candidate of the European People’s Party, was elected President of the European Commission, with the support of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, and some of the European Socialists and Greens. Amid unprecedented Euroscepticism, the media and many pundits predicted a record-low voter turnout and record-high results for Europhobic parties. The aforementioned parties then decided that the political outcome of these 2014 European elections would also be unprecedented. For the first time in EU history, the European political parties agreed to nominate candidates to chair the institution, which they justified by putting forward Article 17 of the Lisbon Treaty. The European Parliament has often characteristically used political discourse - the logos, to influence the EU’s institutional framework, even though it entails grappling with Member States. It took the form of reports and resolutions, like the official use of the phrase “European Parliament” in 1962, direct universal suffrage elections in 1975 and a European Union in 1984. Nominating contenders to chair the European Commission is no exception. It requires a specific political discourse whose origins can be traced back to the early years of the European Parliament, when it was still the “Common Assembly”. This political discourse is one of the elements thanks to which the European Parliament acquired visibility and new prerogatives, in pursuit of its legitimacy. However, the executive branch in all member states is not intent on yielding such prerogatives to the European Parliament. As a matter of fact, the European Parliament has often ended up strengthening the heads of state and governments, since MEPs are forced to resort to self-discipline. The symbolic significance of its logos and, consequently, its own politicisation as a source of legitimacy, is thus undermined. For instance, in 2014, Jean-Claude Juncker’s election actually strengthened German Chancellor Angela Merkel. First she questioned the fact that the candidate whose party holds the parliamentary majority after the election should be appointed President of the Commission. Then she seemed strongly intent on democratising the Union, when she confronted David Cameron, who openly opposed Juncker, believed to be too federalist and old-fashioned a candidate. By doing so, she eventually reduced the symbolic dimension of the European Parliament’s initiative, and Juncker’s election. She also unquestionably embodied EU leadership. This paper aims at analysing Juncker’s election to the Presidency of the European Commission, as well as other questions it raises. In the first part, I lay out some thoughts about the sociohistorical context of voting in European elections in order to make the readers understand why the European Parliament should be bolder. Secondly, I try to explain how the European Parliament has used the logos as a weapon to grapple with member states for more power, as was the case during the 2014 European elections. Last but not least, I seek to show how Angela Merkel got hold of that weapon and took advantage of it, thus proving that despite MEPs’ best efforts, Juncker’s task will be all the more complicated as he was not the consensual candidate of all the governments.

De Gaulle and Europe: Historical Revision and Social Science Theory. CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, No. 08.5, 1998

The thousands of books and articles on Charles de Gaulle's policy toward European integration, whether written by historians, political scientists, or commentators, universally accord primary explanatory importance to the General's distinctive geopolitical ideology. In explaining his motivations, only secondary significance, if any at all, is attached to commercial considerations. This paper seeks to reverse this historiographical consensus by the four major decisions toward European integration taken under de Gaulle's Presidency: the decisions to remain in the Common Market in 1958, to propose the Fouchet Plan in the early 1960s, to veto British accession to the EC, and to provoke the "empty chair" crisis in 1965-1966, resulting in Luxembourg Compromise. In each case, the overwhelming bulk of the primary evidence speeches, memoirs, or government documents suggests that de Gaulle's primary motivation was economic, not geopolitical or ideological. Like his predecessors and successors, de Gaulle sought to promote French industry and agriculture by establishing protected markets for their export products. This empirical finding has three broader implications: (1) For those interested in the European Union, it suggests that regional integration has been driven primarily by economic, not geopolitical considerations even in the least likely case. (2) For those interested in the role of ideas in foreign policy, it suggests that strong interest groups in a democracy limit the impact of a leaders geopolitical ideology even where the executive has very broad institutional autonomy. De Gaulle was a democratic statesman first and an ideological visionary second. (3) For those who employ qualitative case-study methods, it suggests that even a broad, representative sample of secondary sources does not create a firm basis for causal inference. For political scientists, as for historians, there is in many cases no reliable alternative to primary source research.

European Bank Resolution: Making it work! Interim report of the CEPS Task Force on Implementing Financial Sector Resolution. CEPS Task Force Report, January 2016

From the start of 2016, new rules for bank resolution are in place – as spelled out in the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (BRRD) – across the EU, and a new authority (the Single Resolution Board, or SRB) is fully operational for resolving all banks in the eurozone. The implementation issues of the new regime are enormous. Banks need to develop recovery plans, and authorities need to create resolution plans as well as set the minimum required amount of own funds and eligible liabilities (MREL) for each bank. But given the diversity in bank structures and instruments at EU and global level, this will be a formidable challenge, above all with respect to internationally active banks. In order to explore ways in which the authorities and banks can meet this challenge, CEPS formed a Task Force composed of senior experts on banking sector reform and chaired by Thomas Huertas, Partner and Chair, EY Global Regulatory Network. This report contains its policy recommendations.

Challenges for the European Union in times of crisis: reactions

Since the beginning of its existence in the form of communities, this entity faced a lot of challenges that could had been stopped the European dream without the fast, prompt and appropriate reaction of the decision makers. There were a lot of difficult times in its history of more than 60 years but the ambition and need of going forward on the way of integration prevailed and today we can talk about European Union as one of the most important global players, having one of the most complex and fascinating political systems. The tenacity and the willing to succeed off the decision makers made this possible. Moments like “The Empty Chair Crisis“, changes with regards to the decision- making process, convenient for ones but inconvenient for the others, lack of consensus with regards to the new accessions, the big changes that Europe went through in the late 80s etc. showed that the decision makers can have an appropriate response whatever the problem would be and that we must stay together and go on dreaming to a united nation in the form of a federation. Nowadays we are facing maybe the most difficult moment in European Union history. Many of the member states were and still are on the edge. A lot of immediate and prompt actions were taken since the start of financial crisis, either political or economic, drove by the need of going on. We are too much into the integration process, too much dependent one of each other so that we cannot stop and simply go back only to the concept of national state.