Abstract
Which governments of European Union (EU) member states were most effective in the intergovernmental negotiations on the establishment of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU)? Did Germany, France or the UK come out as losing or winning parties compared to their original priorities? Such questions are certainly relevant, not least currently—in a time in which EMU faces challenges and its original setup may be adapted (notably by strengthening its fiscal underpinnings). A small data set on government preferences regarding the EMU provides more insights into such questions. On the basis of negotiation analytic tools, utilizing information on preferences and preference intensities, this chapter shows that the German government obtained outcomes on EMU that were fairly close to its initial priorities. France also faired well. By comparison, a number of smaller EU states were not as successful and had to concede on quite a number of points.
An earlier version of this chapter has been published under the title “Negotiating European Economic and Monetary Union” in Homo Oeconomicus 25 (2008).
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Notes
- 1.
E.g., see Martin (1994, p. 88).
- 2.
For a detailed account of the negotiations on EMU, see Dyson and Featherstone (1999).
- 3.
Nonetheless, it seems that in Germany, for example, few domestic interest groups actually favored EMU (e.g., Verdun 2002).
- 4.
Also see Hosli (2000).
- 5.
Unfortunately, the exact timing of the expert interviews cannot easily be discerned from either Van den Bos (1994) or Kugler and Williams (1994). However, it appears that, regarding EMU, data on the preferred 'kind of banking arrangement' were collected just before the June–July 1989 European Community (EC) summit meeting in Madrid, and those on the remaining 'contending issues' (i.e. all other categories) just before the December 1991 meeting in Maastricht.
- 6.
However, a transformation of the original ‘salience’ data, aiming to make them fully invariant to the respective measurement scale, appears to possibly increase the predictive accuracy of simpler models of decision-making compared to more sophisticated models presented in the edited volume (see Achen 1999).
- 7.
In the original analysis conducted in the 1994 volume, the scale for the intensity of preferences ranges from 0 to 100, with 50 indicating a 'neutral' position of an actor towards an issue. This method could be somewhat problematic within selected models, however, as the scores may then not fully reflect what they were designed to measure: for example, does 'of vital importance’ (raw salience score 100) imply only twice as much impact in calculations as 'neither important nor unimportant' (raw salience score 50)? Accordingly, the top of the measurement scale may need to be 'stretched' relative to the lower sections. Hence, Achen suggests the relationship between measured salience ŝij on issue j and theoretical salience sij should have the form sij = ŝ αij , and, on the basis of a statistical exploration, estimates α to be 3.100 (Achen 1999, p. 11).
- 8.
The following sentences closely follow comments made by a reviewer of this manuscript. I would like to thank this reviewer for insightful comments and suggestions made, including the observations described here.
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
Somewhat surprisingly, according to the data collection, countries such as the UK and Greece, for example, held identical preferences regarding procedures for economic harmonization.
- 12.
The following passages are again largely taken from helpful comments by a reviewer of this manuscript.
- 13.
Somewhat striking with respect to the coding, however, is that the UK appears to have been quite neutral on this issue (raw salience score 50), in spite of the fact that it had tabled the proposal for a 'competing currency approach' (a preference located at 100 on this scale).
- 14.
- 15.
Several models in the Bueno de Mesquita 1994 volume include information on actor salience: processes of bargaining, and especially vote-trading, are assumed to be critically determined by actors' preference intensities.
- 16.
I am grateful to a reviewer of this manuscript for raising this issue.
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Acknowledgments
Helpful comments and feedback on earlier versions of this chapter have been provided by Bryan O’Donovan, Erik Jones, Peter Lange, Anna C.H. Little, Jonathan Strand and three anonymous reviewers.
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Hosli, M.O. (2013). The Creation of European Economic and Monetary Union. In: Holler, M., Nurmi, H. (eds) Power, Voting, and Voting Power: 30 Years After. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35929-3_27
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