Europeanization affect on Member States' Policies. The Case of the UK and the Working Time Directive

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Europeanization affect on Member States' Policies. The Case of the UK and the Working Time Directive

Introduction

According to Radaelli Europeanisation consists of processes of a) construction, b) diffusion and c) institutionalisation of formal and informal rules, procedures, policy paradigms, styles, 'ways of doing things' and shared beliefs and norms which are first defined and consolidated in the EU policy process and then incorporated in the logic of domestic (national and subnational) discourse, political structures and public policies.

The argument, however, implicitly indicates two specific criteria that definitions of Europeanization should meet. First, each conceptualization should help researchers ask new questions; the concept of Europeanization would indeed be redundant if it only directed our attention to and raised questions about phenomena captured by other concepts. Second, each conceptualization should help researchers ask questions that are researchable; the concept of Europeanization might remain interesting if it only raised questions the answers to which cannot be tested empirically, but it would not be useful (Vakkuri, 2004, 66).

At this point it would be instructive to consider the definitions of Europeanization that feature most prominently in the literature in the light of these two criteria. In a comprehensive review, Olsen identified five different uses of Europeanization: changes in external boundaries; developing institutions at the European level; central penetration of national systems of governance; exporting forms of political organization; and a political unification project. He explained that he suspected that Europeanization as a political unification project would turn out to be the most interesting because it includes the other four meanings (Olsen, 2002, pp. 923-4, 943). This assessment, however, contradicts his understanding of Europeanization as an 'attention-directing device'. Olsen's preferred conceptualization encompasses European politics virtually in its entirety and thus fails to direct our attention to a specific set of phenomena. Furthermore, Olsen argued that this political unification project proceeds through 'the mutual adaptation of co-evolving institutions'. It is certainly important to point out that neither the EU nor the domestic level is static; processes of change can be observed at both levels. Olsen, however, explicitly discusses 'simultaneous processes of change' both at the national and EU levels (Bach, 2004, 66).

Institutions and Processes

The European Union has many characteristics similar to those of national democracies—but always with significant differences. For example, its basic institutions conform to the classic tripartite division of functions: the Council of Ministers is the supreme locus of executive decision making; the European Parliament performs legislative duties; and the European Court ...