Tom Delreux

How agents weaken their principals’ incentives to control: the case of EU negotiators and EU member states in multilateral negotiations

Abstract This article examines why and how agents weaken the incentives to control of their principals when the EU negotiates international agreements. Based on analyses of various EU decision‐making processes on international trade and environmental agreements, this article argues that the EU negotiator‐as‐agent has a number of tools to affect the cost–benefit analysis on the basis of which the member states‐as‐principals decide on the activation of their control mechanisms. In order to avoid that the member states reject the international agreement reached by the EU negotiator (the Commission and/or the Presidency), the latter needs to reduce the range of behavioural options of the former. Three strategic paths are available to the agent to weaken its principals’ control incentives: (a) calibrating the member states’ involvement in the international negotiations, (b) being the first mover in determining its own instructions, and (c) exploiting the inconclusiveness among the member states.

The EU as a negotiator in multilateral chemicals negotiations: multiple principals, different agents

This article focuses on the way the EU operates in negotiations leading to an international agreement, which touches upon competences shared between the EC and the member states. More specifically, the article addresses the EU decision-making process and the EU negotiation arrangement with regard to multilateral chemicals conventions. A principal–agent model is used to frame theoretically the relation between the member states and the EU negotiator. This model is adapted to mixed agreements and supplemented with ‘private information for the principals’, ‘cost of no agreement’ and the ‘compellingness of the external environment’. Its application to the EU decision-making process regarding the Rotterdam PIC Convention and the Stockholm POPs Convention shows that the EU managed to speak with a single voice, that the EU negotiation arrangement was organized in rather an ad hoc way and that the member states mainly used the ad locum control mechanisms to limit the discretion of the EU negotiator.

EU actorness, cohesiveness and effectiveness in environmental affairs

ABSTRACT This contribution analyses the actorness, cohesiveness and effectiveness of the European Union (EU) in international environmental negotiations and examines the impact of the external context on the relationship between cohesiveness and effectiveness. Based on comparative data of nine international negotiations resulting in a multilateral environmental agreement, the paper shows that the EUs cohesiveness is higher in global negotiations than in regional ones. It argues that the relationship between cohesiveness and effectiveness is not straightforward, but is affected by the relative bargaining power and the relative position of the EU. When the EUs relative bargaining power is high, cohesiveness can be counterproductive for effectiveness, but a lack of cohesiveness is not a necessary condition for effectiveness. Furthermore, not having the most reformist position increases the likelihood of effectiveness for the EU; yet effectiveness can also be achieved with the most reformist position if the EU succeeds in making that position externally feasible.

Taking the lead: informal division of labour in the EU's external environmental policy-making

The article examines the informal division of labour in the European Unions (EUs) external environmental policy-making. It focuses on informal arrangements in the EU co-ordination and representation processes with regard to the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) and international climate negotiations. Whereas the rotating Presidency is formally in charge of leading the internal EU co-ordination and representing the EU externally, we see that in practice an informal system is used, in which member states and Commission officials informally ‘take the lead’. Based upon new-institutionalist insights, this article argues that four functional reasons explain the informality in the EUs external environmental policy-making: burden sharing; expertise pooling; involving member states; and guaranteeing continuity. Moreover, once the informal arrangement is in place, actors in the EU keep using it because they act path-dependently and because it is considered the most appropriate way to act in many international environmental negotiations.

The EU negotiates multilateral environmental agreements: explaining the agent’s discretion

Starting from principal–agent theory, this article analyses the conditions under which an EU negotiator enjoys a particular degree of discretion vis-à-vis the member states during international environmental negotiations. A qualitative comparative analysis of eight EU decision-making processes with regard to international negotiations leading to a multilateral environmental agreement indicates that the compellingness of the international negotiations explains the occurrence of discretion. However, the international compellingness does not provide explanatory power to understand the particular degree of discretion. To understand when an EU negotiator enjoys a high degree of discretion, variables such as preference distributions, information asymmetries and institutional density need to be taken into account.

Cooperation and Control in the European Union The Case of the European Union as International Environmental Negotiator

This article examines the internal decision-making process in the European Union when the EU participates in international environmental negotiations. More particularly, the practical functioning of the relation between the member states and the EU negotiator (i.e. the Commission, the Presidency or a lead country), representing the member states externally, is examined. Starting from principal—agent theory and based on empirical research on eight EU decision-making processes with regard to international environmental negotiations, the article argues, first, that control by the member states on the EU negotiator takes place most manifestly during the course of the international negotiations, and, second, that these ad locum control mechanisms perform not only a control function, but also a cooperation function.

The External Institutional Context Matters: The EU in International Negotiations

Exploring the added value of principal-agent theory for studying the external relations of the EU, this chapter provides a threefold contribution to the book. First, it focuses on the influence of international institutions on the EU in a specific area, namely the EU’s external relations. Examining the relation between the EU and four separate international negotiation settings, it analyses how the EU’s external relations in the field of competition, trade, environmental and security policy are influenced by the international institutional setting in which the EU conducts its external relations. Second, since it studies the impact of international institutions on the relation between the actors who negotiate internationally vis-a-vis the member states who are represented by this EU negotiator, the current chapter looks at a specific type of international influence of the EU: procedural influence, or, in other words, influence on the decision-making process and the inter-institutional relations in the EU. Third, it argues that the external context should be taken seriously when explaining the autonomy that the EU’s negotiator in international negotiations (the ‘agent’) enjoys vis-a-vis the member states (the ‘principals’). Many studies of the EU’s external relations and the EU’s performance in international politics look at intra-EU variables like its formal representation, membership status or competences. We argue, however, that the analysis needs to be opened to the external context in which the EU conducts its external relations. That context helps explaining the autonomy that the EU’s negotiator enjoys vis-a-vis the principals.

Informal division of labour in EU foreign policy-making

ABSTRACT On many issues in European Union (EU) foreign policy-making, political steering and operational action are provided by an informal, self-selected group of actors. Although this informal division of labour is an important phenomenon, it has largely escaped the radar of EU foreign policy scholars. This article aims to fill that gap. Applying an inductive approach, it presents empirical observations from the fields of crisis management and external climate policy, illustrating the occurrence of informal division of labour. It subsequently provides an analytical framework to map the key dimensions of its different manifestations: the enabling factors, starting point, subject, institutional embeddedness, exclusiveness and durability of informal division of labour. Four possible effects on EU foreign policy-making are then discussed: an increased internal and external effectiveness; and a strengthened internal and external legitimacy. The article concludes by presenting suggestions for further empirical research on this phenomenon, as well as for theorizing it.

Competing structural powers and challenges for the EU's structural foreign policy

This article contends that, in order to understand global affairs, not only crises and conflicts need to be examined, but also long-term processes which result from the competition between structural powers. These structural powers have the potential to set or influence the organizing principles and the rules of the game in other countries and regions as well as the international system in general. The article focuses on the European Unions potential as a structural power. Examining where the EU has succeeded and where it has failed to behave as a structural power, it argues that the EU is losing the structural power game against competing structural powers in its neighbourhood, specifically Russia in the EUs eastern neighbourhood and the multifarious phenomenon of “Islamism” in the EUs southern neighbourhood.

The relation between the European Commission and the EU member states in the transatlantic Open Skies negotiations: an analysis of their opportunities and constraints

This article examines the internal decision-making process in the European Union with regard to the 2007 EU-US Open Skies Agreement. By exploring the principal-agent relation between the European Commission and the member states, it analyses the constraints and opportunities the Commission faced in avoiding an involuntary defection. Based on interviews and document research, the process-tracing in the article reveals that the main constraints for the Commission were the high degree of political sensitivity in certain member states, the struggle over external aviation competences, and an ambitious mandate. However, during the process, the Commission was able to overcome these constraints by making use of the following opportunities: closely involving the member states in its negotiation task and increasing the cost of no agreement for the member states, not at least by making an appeal to European allies, such as the Court of Justice, the Presidency, and member states with Commission-like preferences.