The Importance of Being Nice: An Institutionalist Analysis of French Preferences on the Future of Europe
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The Importance of Being Nice: An Institutionalist Analysis of French Preferences on the Future of Europe Nicolas Jabko1 Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales, Sciences Po, 56 rue Jacob, 75006 Paris, France. E-mail: [email protected]
This article offers an institutionalist explanation of French preferences on the future of Europe from the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 through to the Constitutional Treaty of 2004. It argues that the single most important determinant of French preferences was the unfolding institutional logic of the constitution-drafting exercise itself. More specifically, the French government’s preferences reflected its acceptance of the European Union’s new method of debate at the Convention, the contingency of a revived alliance with Germany in that debate, and the legacy of a half century of European integration. The resulting institutional logic of French preference formation prevailed over ambitions of national power, considerations of decision-making efficiency, and political leaders’ visions of Europe. Domestic politics played a relatively unimportant role because the French constitution frees the president from the necessity of domestic coalition-building. A central lesson of this analysis is that state preferences cannot be understood in isolation from the international and domestic institutional environment in which they are formed. Comparative European Politics (2004) 2, 282–301. doi:10.1057/palgrave.cep.6110036 Keywords: France; Convention; Constitutional Treaty; preference formation; institutionalism; institution-building
Introduction In the eyes of France’s neighbors and especially small EU member governments, the demeanor of French political leaders often smacks of Gallic arrogance. When in December 2003 President Jacques Chirac judged it impossible to secure a ‘good’ constitutional treaty, he did not hesitate to walk away from the bargaining table. Barely a year after he delivered a rebuke to ‘badly brought up’ candidate member states for siding with the United States over Iraq, this was widely interpreted as another bullish move. The abrasive style of French political leaders should not, however, distract us from a more important development. Since the early 1990s and especially between the Nice Treaty of December 2000 and the end of the Convention in July 2003, France’s stance on the future of the European Union has undergone substantial change. Most notably, the French government gave
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up its longstanding demand for voting-power parity with Germany in the Council of Ministers. No less important, though less visible, France accepted the abolition of the EU’s ‘pillar’ structure, (which had been invented by France), the expansion of majority voting, and the growing powers of the European Parliament, even on sensitive issues such as agriculture. The puzzle, then, is why France was so willing to throw away a treaty that it had drafted, even before the ink was dry. Of course, the outcome of the Nice negotiations was deeply uns
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