In summing up the European Commission’s work in the 1970s, we have seen that a significant portion of it was to coalesce around the question of rights, in general, and of social rights of citizenship, in particular. Firstly, the established citizenship rights for member-state citizens needed to be safeguarded, developed through the addition of rights of economic democracy, and adapted to a transforming economic environment by way of more powers and responsibilities vested at the supranational level. Secondly, albeit not formulated in these exact terms, the free movement–induced transnational citizenship for intra-Community migrants needed to be fully developed and on a par with rights of national citizenship, so as to simultaneously stimulate factor mobility and avoid migrants’ degradation to second-class citizens, a prospect that was seen as putting a break on people’s readiness to migrate. Third, and finally, the Commission had also begun to broach the issue of extra-Community migration and the problems facing TCNs; and, in addition to this, it had begun to lift the lid on the issue of “illegal immigration.” In this context most of the attention was directed at TCNs’ lack of many of the rights associated with national citizenships, on the one hand, and their exclusion from the (transnational) rights of free movement, on the other. To cite an indignant Commission yet again:
In fact, after more than a decade of benefit from migrant labour, the Community finds itself with a large unassimilated group of foreign workers, who share almost all the obligations of the society in which they live and work but, more often than not, have a less than equal share in its benefits and rights. This situation is in the long term intolerable—degrading for the migrant and dangerous for the Community. (CEC 1976 [1974]: 12)
Conclusion: Slouching Toward “Euro-pessimism”
Despite the work invested in the many initiatives by the Commission and other actors in the 1970s, the concrete outcomes would be meagre indeed; and this was true of supranational efforts in both the fields of social and migration policy (Dinan 1999: 421; Hoskyns 1996: 82–3). The European Parliament continued to push for the ideas behind the concept of a “Citizens’ Europe,” but here too the tangible results were very few, which was partly due to a reluctance on part of the Council (CEC 1993b: 5; Hoskyns 1996: 83). Over and above that, practically nothing was done to expand the supranational mandate and authorities within the policy areas at hand. Rather, member states remained in control and the Council of Ministers made sure to water down the various Community programs on social and migration policy so that they mostly would come to function as mere consultative assessments, instead of gaining binding status (see Geddes 2000a, 2000b: 157–8). Expanded supranational powers demanded that all member governments agreed to such a transfer of authority, and as the development in the 1970s was to make clear governments would prove far from inclined to set about to negotiate such a consensus (Hoskyns 1996: 80–1). With the exception of the social and migration policy belonging to free movement, these policy areas would thus remain within member state purview.
If adding to this that the member states also thwarted Community efforts to expand the supranational mandate within economic policy, we can sense why the development from the mid-1970s and onward often is described as a period marked by “Euro-pessimism,” “Eurosclerosis,” and Community stagnation (Dinan 1999: 57–80). The picture gets accentuated by the fact that the supranational level was denied any instruments able to mitigate the consequences of the economic downturn and crisis whose full effects would not become visible until the latter part of the 1970s (Williams 1994: 5). In retrospect, therefore, the Paris European Council in 1972 represented a set of delusive hopes for those forces advocating more of supranational influence over measures to remedy weak economic growth, high unemployment, social problems, and obstacles facing extra-Community migrants. Among the many proposals and initiatives tabled by the Commission and other like-minded actors in the 1970s, it was those in favor of enhanced gender equality that, by far, would fair best (Hoskyns 1996: 78; see also Mazey 1988). As for extra-Community migration and the situation for TCNs, these issues would basically be dormant on the supranational agenda until the launching of the Single Market was to resurrect them in the latter part of the 1980s. The same was to apply to the question of “European citizenship.”
Yet, what had been demonstrated with some force in the 1970s was that many Community policy makers, members of the European Parliament, but also member state actors had become convinced that if the integration project was to progress it could not afford to sidestep the question of a Community citizenship. They were, in other words, convinced that for the project to be able to enthuse the general public, which was seen as a requirement for further integration, it had to find a new and strong mobilizing appeal that went beyond the one concerned solely with the alleged benefits of economic and market integration. By the mid-1980s, a dual consensus was therefore starting to foment. On the one hand, it was increasingly accepted that the range of national responses to the over a decade-long transformations in European capitalism were no longer adequate, and that a “relaunch of the EU integration process” was the only response to ensure the strength and competitiveness in an increasingly integrated world economy (see Grahl and Teague 1992). On the other hand, it was recognized that the successful deepening and widening of the European project could not proceed without the concomitant fostering of a sense of belonging within the nascent supranational political community. As we reach the time period for the launch of the Single Market this, what we may call, legitimacy argument for “European citizenship” was to reverberate yet again; and it has done so ever since.
Notes
1. For a similar account, see for example Sassen (1999: 152–3).
2. While Britain and Ireland did not enact transition rules for the EU’s new members in 2004 (although they did introduce restrictions on social welfare entitlements for the new EU citizens, something Sweden did not), they did impose such rules for Bulgaria and Romania in 2007.
3. The other priority area, besides internal labor migration, for Community social policy during this time period was made up by gender equality (see further e.g. Hoskyns 1994; Mazey 1988; Meehan 1993).
4. For an exhaustive account of postwar migration to countries in Western Europe, its driving forces and consequences, see Castles and Kosack (1985) and Castles and Miller (2003). For a specific account of the different types of guest worker systems employed by Western European countries, see Castles and Miller (2003: Ch. 4).
5. Indirectly TCNs were provided with some limited possibilities to enjoy the right of free movement, as in cases where a TCN was married to a member state citizen who made use of the right of free movement.
6. See for example Tindemans (1976); and CEC (1984).
7. Commissioned by the Community’s heads of state and government at the Paris summit in 1974, the Tindemans Report was drawn up by Belgium’s prime minister Leo Tindemans.
8. Similar statements reflecting such a reform-minded agenda are found in the “Council Resolution of 21 January 1974 concerning a social action programme” (Council EC 1974).
CHAPTER 3
Social Citizenship, Migration, and the Neoliberal Relaunch of European Integration (1980–1995)
Introduction
With the aim of breaking the deadlock of “Euro-pessimism” and resuscitating European integration, the late 1970s and early 1980s would witness a newly awakened activity at the Community level. Already in 1979 a new monetary and exchange rate cooperation, the European Monetary System, was established (by some seen as reviving the dream of a common currency for the Community), and two years later a discussion got underway concerning a felt need for reform of the Community’s institutions and decision-making procedures. In 1984 the European Parliament followed up on this and adopted the Draft Treaty Establishing the European Union, which called for institutional reforms and the need for a new treaty. Later on that same year the Fontainebleau European Council appointed an Adhoc Committee