European governance: Common concerns vs. the challenge of diversity

The text is a comment on the White Paper on European Governance presented by the European Commission (COM[2001] 428, 25.7.2001). It begins by confronting the Commission's emphases with the governance problems that it fails to address, including the unresolved difficulties of economic-policy coordination among EMU member states, the adjustments of governance practices required by Eastern enlargement and, above all, the challenges implied by the fundamental shift of the European agenda - from the problems of achieving economic integration to the problems of coping with the consequences of economic integration. The primary proposals of the White Paper - reducing the involvement of the Council and the European Parliament in details of legislation and strengthening the role of the Commission at the expense of member states - would exceed the legitimacy of European institutions and they would also reduce the problem-solving capacity of European governance. European policy must be consensual if it is to be effective and legitimate. Hence it cannot short-circuit the efforts to achieve agreement among member states, even though it is increasingly confronted with problems for which uniform, Europe-wide solutions are not acceptable. Regrettably, the White Paper does not seem to be sufficiently interested in two modes of governance - closer cooperation and open coordination - that seem to have the potential for improving both the effectiveness and legitimacy of European policy in the face of continuing diversity.