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Form and function of the opposition in the European Communities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Gerda Zellentin
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Extract

The experience of the European Communities confirms not only that, as the late Otto Kirchheimer put it, ‘opposition is to be found under one form or another in every political community’; but also that a political community is to be found wherever opposition exists in one form or another. The purpose of this study is to investigate the manner in which opposition forces develop in the European Communities to block or to enhance integration.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , 01 July 1967 , pp. 416 - 435
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1967

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References

1 Schierwater, H., Parlament and Hohe BehÖrde der Montanunion, Heidelberg, 1961.Google Scholar

2 Schierwater, op. cit., p. 21.

3 See more particularly on this point Hermens, F.A., ‘Europäische Wahlen and europäische Einigkeit’ in Festgabe für Alfred Müller‐Armack, Berlin, 1961.Google Scholar

4 See my Budgetpolitik and Integration, Cologne, 1965 on the budgetary process.

5 See below, p. 428.

6 Resolution on the democratization of the European Community, doc. 93, session of 21 October 1964.

7 Haas, E. B., The Uniting of Europe, London, 1958, P. 390.Google Scholar

8 See the proposals on the merger of the executive, the political union, direct elections etc.

9 This attitude was revised in 1956 by the Italian communists.

10 The six governments agreed to exclude the communists prior to the establishment of the ECSC.

11 Moreover it is doubtful whether acute political conflicts and clashing ideologies have a rationalizing effect.' … the historical record seems to offer little support for this view. For intense conflicts create their own irrationalities, particularly when conflict is fortified by ideology. It is a reasonable hypothesis that the greater the discrepancy between the goals of the parties to a conflict, the more that problem‐solving and persuasion are likely to give way to bargaining and coercion.' Political Oppositions in Western Democracies, ed. R. A. Dahl, New Haven and London, 1966, P. 392.

12 In the 19th century the concept of a Greater Germany under Austrian leader‐ship had to be discredited before the Little Germany solution under Prussia could be realized. During the negotiations of the EEC Treaty, the project of a European Free Trade Zone (as an alternative to the Customs Union) was coupled with the Community, and by this method temporarily divested of its oppositional content. No common alternative plan was developed by the communists in the six countries, though the Soviet Union tried to counter the ‘Spaak Report’ in the framework of the Economic Commission for Europe by working out a project for the Economic Cooperation of (All‐)Europe.

13 This is based on the results of a number of votes by roll call. Their statistical value, because of the relatively short time that the European Communities have existed, is not particularly large; however, the use of a larger quantity of statistical data raises the problem of the very different issues voted upon, with the result that the emergence of consistent behaviour patterns would not be easier to detect.

14 See Strobel‐Report, doc. 110, 10 October 1966, European Parliamentary Proceedings.

15 Prior to any analysis of oppositional behaviour, it is necessary to consider the advisory nature of the European Parliament and the fact that its representatives are not bound to vote the same way in their national assemblies as they do in the European Parliament. This can lead them to profess an insincere readiness to unite, which they have no intention of advocating at home. This appears to afflict the European opposition as well, since otherwise there would not have been an explicit appeal during the International Congress of European Socialists (Sorge um Europa, 25–6 February 1964) to make the votes of national representatives in the European Parliament binding on their voting behaviour in their national parliaments.

16 Kirchheimer, O., Politik and Verfassung, Frankfurt, 1964, p. 129.Google Scholar

17 During a roll call which they initiated in May 1955 against the High Authority and the other parties a propos the consultations concerning investment policy in the ECSC.

18 During the debates on the 5th Annual Report of the High Authority in June of that year.

19 Only owing to the appeal by Pinay was the mild working of the High Authority accepted by the Common Assembly. See Kraft, ‘Le groupe socialiste au Parlement Europeen’ (Thesis, University of Strasbourg, 1963), pp. 200 if.

20 de Block, A. (socialist) ‘We must resign ourselves that, lacking power, we shall determine the direction.’ (European Parliamentary Proceedings, 21 06 1961 , p. 80.) See also Strobel‐Report, doc. 110, op. cit.Google Scholar

21 See the votes on the 4th and 5th General Reports of the High Authority, and the declaration of the socialists against the High Authority in 1963.

22 See Janssen‐Report, doc. 113, 1962, European Parliamentary Proceedings.

23 See Kreyssig's speech, 23 November 1961, European Parliamentary Proceedings.

24 Jennings, I., Parliament, Cambridge, 1957, p. 103.Google Scholar

25 See Rapport sur les travaux 20 juin‐lo aoùt 1950, quoted in Kapteyn, P. J. G., L’Assemblée commune de la CECA, Leyden, 1962, p. 191.Google Scholar

26 This procedure was altered in a later draft of the treaty, allowing individual members to raise questions.

27 The tabling of supplementary questions, intended to increase the reliability of answers by means of the element of surprise was, however, restricted to questions on the relationship between the European Parliament and the commission. The council asserted that its structure did not allow it to submit the answers of an individual minister as representative of the entire council without a prior vote.

28 Earlier, representatives wishing to discuss a particular problem could only introduce a motion which had been previously debated and approved by a committee. The goal was to reduce the burden of the Committees and working groups, and to introduce parliamentary debates not based on a report.

29 See e.g. 27 November 1963 and 21 October 1964, 30 June 1966, European Parliamentary proceedings.

30 See the linking of the Agrarian Fund with financial autonomy and budget control.

31 See written question No. 28, Amtsblatt, European Communities, 1961, pp. 10–11.

32 In the German Zollverein unification was initially supported by the liberals against the opposition of the conservatives, concerned with sovereignty (partly with protectionism), though the political efforts of the latter brought about its cornpletion.

33 See Dahl, op. cit., p. 399.

34 See the debates on the seat of the European Parliament in September 1964.

35 See Haas, op. cit., p. 409.