Abstract
This second empirical chapter deals with adaptation as a crisis outcome category. Adaptation implies the addition of new rules and arrangements to the old order to cope with existing tensions. The logic of the EU system, however, remains the same. The two cases showing adaptation in their outcomes are the empty chair crisis (1965–1966) and the budgetary rebate crisis (1979–1984). Both crises were endogenous in that they were caused by a single member-state government. The level of member-state interdependence was high, while France–Germany contributed significantly to crisis resolution. The chapter also shows that the solutions found to the two crises came at a high price, at least in the longer term: both the Luxembourg compromise and the Fontainebleau conclusions are ambiguous documents that covered member states’ disagreements only temporally but were exploited at later points in time.
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Notes
- 1.
Belgium’s Foreign Minister, Paul-Henri Spaak, as cited in Ludlow (2006: 82).
- 2.
The EEC was established in 1957 with the Treaty of Rome and entered into force on 1 January 1958. It was, next to the ECSC (established in 1952) and EURATOM (also established in 1958) the third European Community at that time, although by far the most important one since it encompassed various policy fields and was to create a European common market. The EEC is thus essentially considered the predecessor of today’s European Union.
- 3.
Financement de la politique agricole commune. Ressources propres de la Communauté. Renforcement des pouvoirs du Parlement européen. Propositions de la Commission au Conseil. COM(65) 150 final, 31 March 1965. http://aei-dev.library.pitt.edu/5082/.
- 4.
Twelfth press conference held by General de Gaulle as President of the Fifth Republic in Paris at the Elysée Palace on September 9, 1965. Speeches & Press Conferences No. 228, 9 September 1965. http://aei.pitt.edu/5356/.
- 5.
Address delivered by M. Maurice Couve de Murville, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, on the occasion of the budgetary debates in the National Assembly on Wednesday, October 20, 1965. Speeches & Press Conferences No. 234, 20 October 1965. http://aei-dev.library.pitt.edu/5354/.
- 6.
It is interesting to note that contemporary observers tended to judge the possibility, and the potential consequences, of France’s withdrawal as much more realistic and severe than analyses conducted from a greater distance of time. For an example of the former, see Camps (1966: 1–7, 121).
- 7.
Declaration by the Council. Meeting of the Council of Ministers, Brussels, 25–26 October 1965. 1163/65 (AG 344), 26 October 1965. http://aei.pitt.edu/5232/.
- 8.
For instance, the Decalogue foresaw that the Commission would consult member states more extensively before adopting a legislative proposal and would respect the Council’s prerogatives in representing the Community towards third countries. For the entire Decalogue, see: The ten proposals submitted by France on 17 January 1966 and the timetable proposed by France on 18 January 1966 at the meetings of the Foreign Ministers of the Six in Luxembourg. French Affairs No. 187, 19 January 1966. http://aei.pitt.edu/5357/.
- 9.
COREPER, from the French Comité des Représentants Permanents, is the Committee of Permanent Representatives in the EU, composed of the head and deputy head of mission of each member state in Brussels.
- 10.
Bulletin of the European Economic Community No. 3, 1966: 8–9. http://aei.pitt.edu/54209/.
- 11.
The Luxembourg Compromise is a very short document of four paragraphs only. As a note attached to the Council protocol, it is not legally binding. Its political significance, however, rests on both its ambiguity, which leaves room for interpretation and discretion, and on the fact that it is a written statement, backed by all member states, about what the problems are and what they imply (Bajon 2012: 323; van Middelaar 2008). The Compromise is documented in: Bulletin of the European Economic Community No. 3, 1966: 9. http://aei.pitt.edu/54209/.
- 12.
This term, with the implications attached to it by this book’s theoretical model, was explicitly mentioned by the Commission President. Speaking to the European Parliament, Hallstein argued that the EEC’s institutions “function either as prescribed in the Treaty or they do not function at all, and the community stagnates. There is no third way.” (as cited in Götz 1998: 161; my emphasis) For the national governments, however, there appeared to be the need for a third way: member states opted for a political interpretation of the application of the treaty provisions because neither stagnation nor the strict application of the treaty rules were a satisfying option for them.
- 13.
Britain’s Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, at the Dublin European Council in November 1979, as cited in Gowland (2017: 219).
- 14.
The text is reprinted in Bulletin of the European Communities, No. 11, 1981: 87–91. http://aei.pitt.edu/65375/.
- 15.
Bulletin of the European Communities, No. 6, 1983: 24–29. http://aei.pitt.edu/65280/.
- 16.
Bulletin of the European Communities, No. 5, 1984: 133–138. http://aei.pitt.edu/65290/.
- 17.
In contrast to what Ludlow (2020: 66–67) suggests, this threat of a two-speed Europe was well noticed and led the British government to make concessions. As Wall (2019: 258–288) notes in his “Official History of Britain and the European Community”: so long as the dispute over its budgetary contributions continued, there was an increasing risk that other member states might take concrete steps in integration and that the UK would be left behind when the Community moved on.
- 18.
Bulletin of the European Communities, No. 3, 1984: 7–10. http://aei.pitt.edu/65288/.
- 19.
European Council Meeting at Fontainebleau: Conclusions of the Presidency, 26 June 1984. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/20673/1984_june_-_fontainebleau__eng_.pdf.
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Schramm, L. (2024). Adaptation. In: Crises of European Integration. Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54748-5_5
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