Baldur Þórhallsson - The Role of Small States in the European Union

BALDUR THORHALLSSON

University of Iceland

First published 2000 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016 by Routledge

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Copyright 2000 Baldur Thorhallsson

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Thorhallsson, Baldur

The role of small states in the European Union

I.European Union 2. States, Small 3. European Union countries

- Politics and government

I. Title

327.101

Library of Congress Control Number: 00-133521

ISBN 9780754614234 (hbk)

This book is based on my Ph.D. thesis which I completed during my studies at the Department of Government in the University of Essex in 1999. The idea of analysing the small states in the European Union (EU) developed as the EFTA states headed for membership of the EU and it became increasingly clear that the new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe also sought to join it. All the new potential members of the EU, except for Poland, can be regarded as being small states. What consequences this situation will have on the development of the EU remains to be seen. What this analysis seeks to do is to explain the behaviour of the small states in the decision-making processes of the EU in two policy areas: the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the Regional Policy. The work of Peter J. Katzenstein will be applied to smaller states of the EU. The research analyses whether smaller states have a different range of interests in the EU and if their EU policy-making differs from the larger states. It also examines whether the small size and characteristics of the administrations of smaller states influence their behaviour in the EU. If this is the case, we can expect that their negotiation tactics and approaches to the Commission will differ from the larger states. Also, this being the fact, the entrance of the small Southern, Central and Eastern European states may severely impact on the development of the EU. This may have more influence than any proposed institutional changes or the increasing number of people, speaking different languages, around the negotiation tables in Brussels. Also, as a native of Iceland, it makes one wonder about the potential influence a small state can exercise within the EU framework. Does a small state have the administrative capacity to defend its interests within the decision-making process of the EU? Also, in the EU debate in the Nordic states, there has been a lack of literature and information about how small states work within the EU institutions. It is anticipated for that the research will fill this gap and benefit the present and potential small states of the EU. My wish is, also, that it will benefit students who seek to analyse further the complexity of the decision-making procedures of the EU and the continuing battle of member states to exercise their influence within it.

The personal encouragement from Professor Emil Kirchner has enabled me to finish this book. I sincerely want to thank him for his excellent supervision of my Ph.D. thesis. He has been very supportive and come up with critical suggestions. I also want to thank Professor Albert Weale and Dr. Hugh Ward, members of my supervisory board, for their help, crucial analytical comments and personal support. I am very grateful for Professor Stephen Padgets supervision of my project during its initial stages. I express my gratitude to my 45 interviewees in Brussels, without whom this research would not have been possible. Many people at Essex University have given me help and support during my research. I am particularly grateful for the enormous help which I received from members of the administrative staff in the Department of Government and the lecturers who have commented on parts of the book and enabled me to proceed with the in-depth-interviews in Brussels. My thanks go as well to the staff at the University Day Nursery who took care of my daughter for two years and my cousin Hrund Thrndardttir who stayed with my family for one year. I also want to thank all the people in the Faculty of Social Science at the University of Iceland, especially Dr. lafur . Hararson, Professor Gunnar Helgi Kristinsson and Professor Hannes Hlmsteinn Gissurarson, who have encouraged me during this research. Their personal encouragement and support guaranteed that I never lost sight of my aim: to finish the project. I want to thank Jo Kingsford and Edward de Chazal for reading over parts of the text and correcting it. Furthermore, I owe more to two persons than I can express here, Felix Bergsson and rela Eyds Gumundsdttir. Their support made it possible for me to carry on and finish this book. The generous financial support from the Marie Curie fellowship of the European Commission, the British Council and NATO were of enormous help, so were the loans from the Icelandic students loan fund. The academic environment at the Essex University is extraordinary and produced the basis for this book. I dedicate this book to my husband Felix Bergsson.

Baldur Thorhallsson