Abstract
This chapter looks beyond the central institutional actors involved in EU law-making, in order to identify some of the other EU actors who are involved in the day-to-day operation of EU policies in practice: EU standardisation bodies, EU agencies and European social partners. It then looks beyond the EU, in order to present some of the ways in which the EU functions as a level of decision-making in a global system of multi-level governance, and interacts with international organisations.
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Notes
- 1.
For details go to http://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/european-standards/index_en.htm
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
The box draws the photo and some text from the article by Peter Doughty, ‘Flammability testing of toys to EN 71-2’, posted online by SATRA Technology Centre, consulted 5 February 2015. https://www.satra.co.uk/spotlight/article_view.php?id=407. Reproduced with permission.
- 5.
The CEN committee business plan stresses that the work of the committees is not merged under the Vienna agreement, although there is close cooperation.
- 6.
For the legal history, see Judgment of the General Court of 26 September 2013, Case T-164/10.
- 7.
Photo: Jakob Huber/Campact. Source: EUObserver.
- 8.
Article 117 of the original EEC Treaty. The wording now talks of the ‘internal’ market and the ‘Treaties’.
- 9.
This means that the welfare system is characterised by an objective of income maintenance through social insurance that is linked to employment through contributions, as compared to ‘Beveridgean’ systems which focus on poverty prevention through tax-financed and means-tested assistance. For a useful recent summary, see Hemerijck et al. (2013).
- 10.
Now Article 151 TFEU.
- 11.
The provisions were introduced without change into the Treaty proper as new Articles 138 and 139 at Amsterdam in 1997, following the election of the Labour Government in the UK.
- 12.
The then Secretary-General later explained: ‘In the end what prevailed was the pragmatic conclusion that the new IGC [i.e. the Intergovernmental Conference which led to the Maastricht Treaty] would almost certainly extend the scope of qualified majority voting in social affairs, that the Commission had already demonstrated with its 1989 Action Programme that it had an insatiable appetite for legislation of questionable quality, and that the Council would now be in a position to pass it. If employers were unhappy about this, they had only one remedy; to secure the option to step in and negotiate as reasonable a deal as they could with ETUC.’ (Tyskiewicz 1999: 44–45).
- 13.
European Commission, Industrial Relations in Europe 2014, SWD (2015) 57, 3 March 2015.
- 14.
In a famously distortionary article in the UK’s Daily Mail on 11 April 2012, this became ‘EU to ban hairdressers from wearing high-heeled shoes or jewellery’; ‘social dialogue’ was said to be ‘code for gossipy chats’.
- 15.
The opposing governments were reportedly the United Kingdom, Poland, The Netherlands, Germany, Finland, Estonia, Romania, Sweden, Croatia and Slovenia. See the annex to http://www.industriall-europe.eu/SocDial/Chem/2014/20140206_HD_SDC_ModelStatementEN.PDF
- 16.
The term ‘European law’ is often used loosely to refer to EU law as well as other kinds of binding agreement signed between European countries. Some of these take the form of European Conventions which are signed in the framework of the Council of Europe. This is a separate pan-European organisation with 47 Member States in 2014. European Conventions are legally binding on those states which have ratified them, and may be used by individuals to challenge actions by governments concerned. These Conventions may concern general norms and values: the best known is the European Convention on Human Rights. The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (to give the ECHR its full name) is not the same as the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms of the EU, and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg should not be confused with the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg. There has long been pressure to make the relationship between these two systems clearer. The Lisbon Treaty states that the EU itself should become party to the ECHR. Negotiations began in 2013 but no agreement had been reached by the end of 2014. The Council-of-Europe kind of ‘European Convention’ should not be confused with the European-Union kind of ‘European Convention’, which is an assembly composed of representatives of the national Parliaments , of the Heads of State or Government of the Member States, of the European Parliament and of the Commission, which may be convened by the President of the European Council to consider amendments to the treaties.
- 17.
As the UNECE explains in the introduction, ‘ADR is an Agreement between States, and there is no overall enforcing authority. In practice, highway checks are carried out by Contracting Parties, and non-compliance may then result in legal action by national authorities against offenders in accordance with their domestic legislation. ADR itself does not prescribe any penalties.’ 48 countries were party to the ADR in 2012, including Morocco.
- 18.
Directive 2008/68/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 September 2008 on the inland transport of dangerous goods. OJ L 260 of 30 September 2008. Recital 5.
- 19.
Commission Staff Working Document, ‘Progress Report on the 2013 Activities of the World Forum for Harmonisation of Vehicle Regulations (UNECE WP.29)’, SWD(2014) 178 final, 28 May 2014.
- 20.
Regulation (EC) No 661/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 concerning type-approval requirements for the general safety of motor vehicles, their trailers and systems, components and separate technical units intended therefore. OJ L 200 of 31 July 2009.
- 21.
By way of example of how Europe as a whole has been represented as a regional level within specialised agencies, within the CAC there are committees on general subjects (such as food labelling) and on commodities (such as sugars), as well as six regional coordinating committees. This includes the FAO/WHO Regional Co-ordinating Committee for Europe (CCEURO). In 2014 this was chaired by the Economics Ministry of the Netherlands, which is the ‘Codex coordinator for the European region’. These regional committees have been mandated to address specific regional dimensions, including the development of regional standards for food products moving exclusively or almost exclusively in intra-regional trade. Over the past 50 years, this has involved the elaboration of European Regional Standards (although only one was listed by 2014, on Fresh Fungus ‘Chanterelle’).
- 22.
This is allowed under the WTO’s Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement (SPS) so long as the more stringent norms are based on scientific risk assessment; consistently applied; and not more trade restrictive than necessary.
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Best, E. (2016). Making the Internal Market Work: The EU and Other Actors. In: Understanding EU Decision-Making. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22374-2_6
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