Committing to Change: Economic Governance and the EU Constitution

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0386.2006.00303.x
• Date: 01 January 2006
• Published date: 01 January 2006
• Author: Imelda Maher

Committing to Change: Economic

Governance and the EU Constitution

Imelda Maher*

On a narrow reading, the recent French and Dutch referenda could be seen as a vote

on the Union promised under the constitution as opposed to that which currently exists.

But given its characteristics of length, detail, codificatory function, and foundational

nature (offering a vision of the EU not so different from that which already exists), the

‘no’ votes are damaging for the Union even as now constituted.

The EU treaties have changed repeatedly over a relatively short time-frame, with this

recent crisis suggesting that further change, even if necessary, will be at best problem-

atic and will need to be undertaken with caution. Does this mean a temporary end to

change? Hardly, given that change is a defining feature of the EU borne out by the fact

the stagnation of the late 1960s and early 1970s has its own term coined for it while

even then, as observers of the European Court have so often pointed out, this period

of euro-sclerosis was in fact one in which the European Court of Justice spear-headed

evolutionary legal development.1This suggests that change takes place in different

forms and fora within the EU. Such processes are uncertain both as to outcome, wider

effects, institutional dynamics, and perceived success. Fundamental changes, illustra-

tive of the centrality of institutional variety,have recently occurred in two central policy

fields—competition and EMU (in relation to fiscal governance). These changes were

achieved without any Treaty revision and, in relation to competition policy, without

any sense of crisis. Nonetheless, the recent ‘no’ votes can in part be explained with ref-

erence to both sectors and in turn, economic governance at the micro- and macro-levels

can be seen as fundamental to the success of any future Treaty revisions. Competition

policy is a highly integrated policy field where the Commission enjoys almost unpar-

alleled powers compared to other EU policy domains and to other national and inter-

national competition agencies.2The EU competition model has been adopted more or

less by most Member States and DG Competition is widely regarded as a successful

and effective competition authority. In the last decade competition law has undergone

European Law Journal, Vol.12, No. 1, January 2006, pp. 9–11.

© 2006 The Author

Journal compilation © 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK

and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA

*London School of Economics.

1See e.g. J. H. H. Weiler, ‘The transformation of Europe’, (1991) 100 Yale Law Journal 2408; K. Alter,

‘Judicial Politics in the European Community’(1994) Comparative Political Studies535–560; K. Alter, ‘Who

are the “Masters of the Treaty?”: European Governments and the European Court of Justice’, (1998) 52

International Organization 121.

2L. Laudati, ‘The European Commission as Regulator:The Uncertain Pursuit of the Competitive Market’

in G. Majone (ed.), Regulating Europe (Routledge, 1996) 229–261; S. Wilks and L. McGowan,

‘Competition Policy in the European Union: Creating a Federal Agency?’, in G. Bruce Doern and S.Wilks

(eds), Comparative Competition Policy (Clarendon Press, 1996) 225–268.