Policy Coordination: Legitimate and Effective?

Abstract

The policy coordination mechanisms in the EU form a complex, multi-level and segmented system. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, the general customs union is combined with a partial monetary union: the monetary union has its own requirements in terms of coordination and it runs in parallel with a customs union of countries which have kept their own currencies and possess more or less autonomy in their exchange rate policy. Secondly, the whole process of construction of the Union has continuously produced specific arrangements in different domains, be they trade, investment, finance, labour mobility, social affairs, defence. Coordination is therefore highly segmented by domain and by subgroups of countries, and this raises the problem of the consistency of policy overall. Moreover this complexity does not avoid major coordination failures which call into question the legitimacy of the whole system when its segmentation obstructs democratic control of the overall process.