European Union Studies Working Group

Department of Political and Social Sciences
European University Institute

V^th Session – February 14, 2012, 13:30h - 15h, Emeroteca, Badia Fiesolana

Who sets the EU on the agenda? Insights from EU coverage in British, French and German newspapers (1990-2012)

by Isabelle Guinaudeau (Max Weber Fellow, SPS)

Abstract: A growing literature deals with the intrusion of new, EU-related issues on domestic political agendas and with its consequences on the patterns of political competition. The widespread observation of an increasing politicization of European politics, most notably in the form of the “new cleavage” and the “end of the permissive consensus” hypotheses, implies a growing salience of Europe in the public debate since the early 1990s. This assumption has not been tested empirically and seems counterintuitive in the light of the more general agenda-setting studies, which observe punctuated patterns of issue attention instead of any linear trend.

This article explores the timing of the agenda-setting of Europe, its mechanisms and the actors involved on the basis of the analysis of the coverage of EU politics in Die Süddeutsche Zeitung, Le Monde and The Guardian. Quantitative analyses of EU salience confirm that attention to Europe is highly punctuated, but European politics have nonetheless become a structural component of the media agenda in France and in Germany. A qualitative study of the articles published during peaks of attention show that press coverage is far from reflecting mechanically all important events of European integration. European issues impose themselves on domestic agendas only under specific, party system exogenous and endogenous conditions. European debates are mostly initiated by partisan actors themselves, most of them dissidents of mainstream parties.

The judicial limitations on Member States' retained powers

by Lena Boucon (Researcher, LAW)

Abstract: The terms “judicial limitations on Member States’ retained powers” refer to a neglected, or even overlooked, phenomenon that takes place in free movement principle cases – or, more precisely, in negative integration cases. This singular phenomenon consists of constitutional limitations that the European Court of Justice has gradually put on retained powers of Member States. These restrictions take the form of jurisdictional conflicts between EU law and retained powers of Member States.

Accordingly, one of the main issues that I will address during our next session relates to the question of how these jurisdictional conflicts are resolved in the European legal order. To this end, I will develop two main points. First, I will “deconstruct” the Court’s approach. This will allow me to show that a fundamental distinction is to be made among negative integration cases. On the one hand, those that concern shared powers between the EU and its Member States – and that have, up to now, almost exclusively drawn the attention of EU specialists. And, on the other hand, those that involve retained powers of Member States in which the Court develops an original approach. Second, I will attempt to “reconstruct” the Court’s approach. This will require identifying the implications of the Court of Justice case law for Member States’ retained powers. This will also allow me to show that from the Court’s approach stem fundamental implications for the general theory of EU constitutional law.

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