Introduction

This chapter addresses the following questions: What is a “national interest”? In what sense do national interests pose a challenge to EU values? How can EU institutions effectively prevent, or overcome, internal divisions and political deadlocks with a view to achieving the common good? I argue that adopting ambitious EU policies for the common good requires not only endorsing common values and principles but also coming to a pragmatic agreement regarding what resources are to be employed and what interests are to be sacrificed to advance them. I claim that two complementary strategies should be pursued: (i) promoting the convergence of the national interests of the 27 member states by means of better representing the standpoint of the common good in the domestic public spheres and (ii) overcoming conflicts of interests through more effective supranational institutions. First, building on Robert Putnam’s two-level game theory, I argue that EU actors should play a more active role in the processes of national interest formation at the domestic level. I claim that an effective avenue to achieve this goal would be rethinking the role of the Representations of the European Commission in the EU capitals. Instead of being limited to a ceremonial role, these institutions could actively participate in the public debate, bringing issues that concern the common good of the whole EU to the attention of national authorities and citizens. Second, I claim that EU institutions should be reformed to allow for a more consistent supranational debate on the common good. I argue that, in the context of the decision-making procedures of the Council of the European Union (the Council), the unanimity rule is normatively undesirable and should be abolished. I further claim that the reform of the Brussels institutional apparatus should have two main aims: (i) increasing the means at the disposal of EU supranational institutions to realise the common good; and (ii) making EU institutions more representative of the EU demos as a whole, as opposed to separate national demoi. I argue that abusive uses of majoritarian decision-making could be prevented by a few already existing features of the EU legal order, such as the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the principles of proportionality and subsidiarity.

I begin by discussing the concept of national interest and explaining why national interests pose a challenge to the pursuit of the common good. I then introduce two complementary strategies to advance the common good in the EU. To understand the logic behind the first strategy, I examine the processes through which national interests are formed, and I investigate the structure of international negotiations in the context of EU membership. Subsequently, I put forward a proposal for a new role of the Representations of the Commission in the member states. I then turn to the second strategy to advance the common good in the EU. I begin by comparing two modes of public reasoning in the EU as a function of the decision-making method at stake, namely, qualified majority and unanimity. Then, I introduce a few proposals for institutional reform to overcome pervasive political deadlocks and refocus EU debates on what ought to be done from the standpoint of the common good. I conclude by discussing a few safeguard mechanisms that protect member states from impermissible sacrifices for the common good.

Beyond national interests

In the previous chapter, I argued that EU values face a variety of challenges linked to the emergence of non-state actors, such as big data operators, rating agencies and multinational companies, which pursue agendas that often jeopardise the common good. The behaviour of these agents, I claimed, has put liberal democracy, the European standards of social welfare and environmental protection at risk, both by directly undermining the conditions that make them possible and by disempowering national governments from maintaining these conditions. I claimed that the most effective and desirable way for EU member states to address these challenges is not to isolate themselves, as many nationalist platforms have suggested, but to articulate their efforts to reform the international environment in which they are embedded. Given its unique position in the global order, I argued that the EU should establish several bodies with the critical mass to address certain consequences of globalisation, including an independent credit rating agency, a transnational tax authority and an agency to enforce fair international trade standards. I further argued that the EU should put in place more effective safeguards against internal breaches of EU values, including a robust monitoring system that could lead to the suspension of the voting rights of systemically non-compliant member states and an ejection mechanism to be used as a last resort.

Yet, a powerful objection to this agenda is that it may remain a mere statement of good intentions, given that values and interests do not always overlap.¹ Indeed, recent years have shown that, even if member states have endorsed common values, they may have divergent views regarding the appropriate strategies, resources, and timings to realise them. Consider, for instance, the failure to agree on regulations to contain tax competition in the EU, which would have helped ensure the sustainability of the European Model.²

Why is it difficult to put EU values into practice? A preliminary answer is that realising EU values may require sacrifices that jeopardise the interests of some states. In the words of former Chancellor Angela Merkel, “speaking in one voice is often difficult given our different interests”.³ Note that for the regulation on tax competition to be adopted, the winners of this practice would have to weigh its negative impacts on the whole EU against their own national gains. As we shall see, this may be particularly difficult to achieve given the political system of the EU. Since the leaders of EU member states are accountable to domestic electorates only, it may be politically unfeasible for them to endorse common policies with wide-ranging support abroad but little support in their constituencies. This circumstance leads the EU to recurrent political deadlocks. Therefore, the following questions are in order: How can the common good be realised in an EU where national interests are so diverse? How can the conflicting positions of some member states be more effectively bridged?⁴

The national interest defined

Before addressing these questions, I should clarify what I mean by “national interest”. The constructivist school of international relations has rightly emphasised that national interests are not independent of our social constructions of reality. A constellation of values, norms and ideas shape the identities of states, as well as their understandings of their national interests.⁵ In turn, national interests translate into particular sets of policy preferences. For example, after the traumatic inflationary experience of the interwar period (1918–1939), achieving price stability has become a recognisable national interest for Germany. In terms of policy implications, this goal has shaped Germany’s positions regarding a few critical files in EU politics, including the design of the Eurozone, the conditionality underpinning the EU bailouts during the 2008–2012 crisis and the mandate of the ECB.⁶ Similarly, in an influential collection of essays, Peter Katzenstein and his collaborators showed how different cultures of national security in the United States, the Soviet Union, and China have shaped the way national interests are defined in areas as varied as nuclear weapons and humanitarian intervention.⁷ Hence, are there national interests in any straightforward sense, or is the national interest “what states make of it”?⁸

This question becomes even more relevant when certain private interests are labelled as national interests. For instance, in 2016, when President François Hollande travelled to India to close a deal on the sale of 36 combat aircraft worth €5 billion, many wondered whose interests he was actually serving.⁹ Was the French president advancing the national interest of France or the interests of the French arms industry? One may argue that these two are interrelated since the contract at stake would increase national exports and create jobs. However, the extent to which the interests of small groups should be equated with the national interest remains a matter of controversy.¹⁰ At the same time, the interests of large groups of citizens may fail to be taken into account in the definition of national interest. Consider Iceland’s unilateral decision to increase its mackerel fishing quotas, backing away from previous international commitments.¹¹ In so doing, “Icelandic authorities have been accused of putting the valuable mackerel stock at risk in order to solve their financial problems in the short term”.¹² Since future generations will need to pay the price of today’s unsustainable fishing practices, it is not clear whether this policy serves the national interest. These examples suggest that claims of national interest are not scientific statements; rather, they are used as rhetorical devices in the political arena.¹³

Therefore, by saying in this chapter that member state X has a national interest Y or Z, I do not assume that it is objectively in the best interest of X to pursue goal Y or Z. Rather, I mean that the authorities of member state X have expressed interest in pursuing goals Y or Z. At the EU level, the expression of national interests takes place notably in the form of national positions presented to the Council of the European Union, which constitutes a tangible operational definition of national interest. This definition does not substitute for the fact that claims of national interest should be subject to normative scrutiny, for instance, via testing against criteria of public interest.¹⁴ As we shall see, the definition presented above is consistent with the constructivist insight that any understanding of national interest is formed through complex social interactions and is therefore amenable to change. Indeed, national interests are not rigidly linked to material forces; ideational aspects also play a role in their formation. Accordingly, they should not simply be equated with sources of hard power, such as the size of a country, its population, and its resources.¹⁵ Since national interests, as expressed by the authorities of states, remain the main currency of international negotiation, they deserve careful treatment.

National interests and the common good: a difficult relation

Despite sharing a set of common values, member states often struggle against each other to advance their national interests and to obtain advantages for their citizens or certain groups. How, then, can an agenda for the common good be implemented? One could deconstruct this puzzle by arguing that, in the context of EU membership, national interests are, to a great extent, convergent. For instance, all member states seem to have a common interest in a functioning internal market, which in turn requires a wide range of common policies regarding state aid control, consumer protection and the removal of trade barriers. This overlap led Heiko Maas, Germany’s foreign minister between 2018 and 2021, to state: “There is a name for our national interest in Germany – Europe”.¹⁶ However, in areas such as social policy, environmental protection and external relations, the interests expressed by member states repeatedly clash. Consider, for instance, the cacophony of interests regarding the enlargement of the EU in the Balkans. It should be added that even when the interests of the member states overlap, a common interest is not necessarily equivalent to the common good.¹⁷

The diversity of national interests in the EU suggests that if member states intend to achieve the common good, they will need to negotiate with each other. However, this raises the normative question of whether the common good should be negotiated at all.¹⁸ What if the outcome of interstate negotiation is simply a minimum common denominator of the different positions or a second-best solution, as the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021–2027 has been described?¹⁹ Does this mean that the purpose of achieving the common good has been entirely compromised? Alternatively, the pursuit of the common good can be thought of as a continuum, where the actions to achieve this end may vary in degree of ambition. For example, reducing greenhouse emissions by 10% is clearly worse than cutting them by 20%. Yet, the former policy can still be said to serve the common good, at least if the baseline scenario is that no reductions would be secured.²⁰ Note that, in this example, it is not the common good in itself (i.e., addressing climate change) that is being negotiated but the political actions to realise it. Even if negotiation is regarded as a legitimate instrument for the common good, it may be insufficient when the intensity of national interests is very high, and a compromise is beyond reach. Consider, for instance, the field of taxation, where many EU regulatory efforts have failed.

A question that follows is whether any measures could be adopted to address the most difficult conflicts of national interests in the EU or to prevent them from emerging in the first place. According to the neorealist school of international relations, the structure of the international system determines how states act.²¹ In this account, competition for power and scarce resources limits the scope of international cooperation because “a state cannot be sure that today’s friend will not be tomorrow’s enemy”.²² While the EU has rightly been presented as a case against realist assumptions, the recurrent tensions among member states should not be understated. One reason is that the different geopolitical realities and socioeconomic profiles of member states cannot easily be changed.²³ For instance, while Greece and Italy have been overwhelmed by an influx of undocumented migrants, Ireland and Denmark can hardly be reached by asylum seekers due to their geography. Similarly, the southern EU economies are financially distressed, but the northern ones are generally wealthy. Another reason is that the distribution of power among member states is clearly asymmetrical, which means that the ability of a “giant” such as Germany to advance its interests is much greater than that of other member states.²⁴ Does this leave EU institutions hopeless in the face of the “tragedy of great power politics”?²⁵

The gradual development of resilient mechanisms to address political conflict in the EU seems to suggest otherwise. A case in point is the delegation of competences to the European Commission. By constituting an arbitrator for their disputes, member states significantly reduced the likelihood of political deadlocks in the EU. Yet why did member states accept putting themselves in a position where their interests could be thwarted? A possible explanation is that delegating competences to a supranational body ultimately served their national interests. Indeed, it has been argued that the incentives to cooperate in contexts of repeated interaction are very high.²⁶ For example, the functioning of the internal market clearly requires the effective enforcement of a set of common rules. An alternative explanation is that governments are sometimes ready to sacrifice certain interests for the sake of their values. In fact, the delegation of competencies to the Commission extended to areas where “the transfer was not really required by the functional needs of the single European market”.²⁷ Thus, national public authorities may have agreed to delegate competences because they regard European integration as a normatively desirable project.²⁸ More generally, altruistic behaviour seems to be present in international relations in formats as diverse as the intake of refugees and humanitarian assistance.²⁹

Irrespective of self-interested or altruistic motives on the member states’ side, the scale of cooperative behaviour in the EU suggests that the existence of strong national interests is not necessarily incompatible with the pursuit of the common good. What conclusions can we draw regarding possible strategies to advance the common good in the EU? On the one hand, if states always consider their national interest first, it should be possible to advance a given EU policy by strengthening the perception that endorsing such policy would be in the best interest of the member states. On the other hand, if member states are willing to forgo some of their interests because they are committed to EU values, there is a reason to believe that the combination of a more robust supranational debate and sharper decision-making procedures could lead to broader compromises. These hypotheses point towards two complementary lines of enquiry: (i) How can the common good of the EU be taken into account in the process of national interest formation? (ii) How can conflicts over competing interests among member states be more effectively solved? I will discuss these questions in turn.

Two strategies to pursue the common good

This chapter introduces two complementary strategies to advance ambitious policies for the common good in the EU. The first strategy consists of giving a stronger voice to EU representatives in the national public spheres, allowing them to participate in the process of national interest formation. The goal is to bring the perspective of the common good of the EU to the public debate before national positions are crystallised. This strategy is grounded on two key insights. First, if understandings of national interest are, indeed, socially constructed, then social agents can actively participate in their construction, potentially influencing their ultimate configuration. This possibility applies particularly to democratic regimes where public authorities are expected to be responsive, taking into account a wide variety of legitimate interests. A second insight is that, in a multilevel polity, democratic representation should be a two-way street. In other words, if national interests ought to be represented at the supranational level, then supranational interests also deserve to be represented at the national level. As I shall claim, the reason is that, in the context of EU membership, the choices made by a single member state have the potential to affect the democratic life and the welfare of the EU as a whole. Accordingly, these impacts should be subject to public debate in the national capitals and not only in Brussels.

The second strategy aims at addressing pervasive conflicts over competing interests among member states in an effective manner. Even if the goals of the Union are better incorporated within national debates, one should expect that a few fundamental disagreements will remain. At this point, a distinction should be made between cases where the national positions are very diverse or polarised, such as in matters related to social justice, and those cases in which there is broad support for taking a given action, but one state or a small group of states blocks the reform, as with the CAP.³⁰ The first type of case is more difficult to solve and will be dealt with in greater depth in Chapter 4. However, the second type of case should not be neglected. Indeed, the list of critical EU proposals that have been blocked by a small minority of states is by no means short.³¹ Note that many of the policy areas where such deadlocks occur are those where the majority rule does not apply in the Council. I shall claim that this state of affairs is normatively undesirable. While the political autonomy of member states should be respected, their responsibilities as members of an interdependent union should not be forgotten. As I shall claim, the right to veto should not be regarded as absolute; it needs to be balanced against the duty not to paralyse the EU. As I shall argue, the implication is that the burden of justification in the EU should lie with those member states that intend to block large consensus.

What are the similarities and differences of these strategies? Both strategies aim to create conditions to advance the common good by rethinking the role of national interests in EU policymaking. However, two main differences between the strategies are worth stressing. To begin with, the goals of the strategies differ. While the first strategy intends to prevent or minimise conflicts of national interests, the second strategy aims to solve conflicts that cannot be prevented. Whereas the second strategy explores pathways through which EU institutions could address difficult political deadlocks, the first strategy acknowledges that it may be difficult to build consensus when the member states’ positions are already too far apart. Thus, the first strategy seeks to bridge different points of view in the EU before national authorities have crystallised their positions. Another important difference between the two strategies is linked to the level of government at stake. While the first strategy aims to bring EU politics to European capitals and expand the public debate about EU issues at the member-state level, the second strategy focuses on the Brussels-based institutional apparatus, investigating ways to improve EU decision-making. In the following sections, I will discuss these strategies in depth.

Strategy one: closing the gap between national interests

The formation of national interests

I have claimed that national interests are socially constructed. Yet how exactly are they formed? To understand the dynamics of national interest formation, consider a government’s decision on whether to intervene militarily in another state. How does a particular view on this matter end up being regarded as the national interest? Take, for example, the United States’ decision to intervene in Vietnam. When President Lyndon Johnson faced a choice on whether to escalate American operations in this country, a few alternative courses of action were available. The putative national interest to intervene in Vietnam was not defined a priori in any government manual; it was formed through complex exchanges among stakeholders, including politicians, military staff, academics, journalists, businesspeople, and the like. Each of these groups’ goals and preferences may have played a role in the process. For instance, Yuen Foong Khong shows that the use of historical analogies by senior US officials, notably regarding the failure to intervene preventively in Germany before World War II, helped frame the Vietnam debate.³² This recounting suggests that social interactions brought about the perception that it would be in the American interest to intervene in Vietnam.³³ Yet, how did the option of intervening overcome competing interpretations of the national interest of the United States?

As has been argued, ideational background plays a key role in the process of “constructing national interests”.³⁴ Consider, for instance, the following dimensions: (i) the ideological landscape, (ii) policy orthodoxies and (iii) media coverage. First, ideology provides a framework within which national goals are defined and against which different scenarios are tested. Returning to our previous example, we can see how the Vietnam intervention was deeply rooted in the ideological context of the Cold War. In fact, “[h]‌ad it not been for the Cold War, the US, China and the Soviet Union would not have intervened in what would likely have remained a localised anticolonial struggle in French Indochina”.³⁵ Second, the most popular policy doctrines at a given moment of time influence calculations of the national interest. In our example, domino theory created the perception among top American decision-makers that failing to act in Vietnam would mean the communist block would gain the upper hand over the United States.³⁶ Third, the content of the messages conveyed by the media influences public opinion, thus shaping the range of possibilities available to public authorities. Indeed, it has been argued that the endorsement by the media of official government views helped support the case that an American engagement in Vietnam would serve the national interest.³⁷ Therefore, “ideas are often important determinants of government policy”.³⁸

Another key variable that explains why a particular understanding of national interest prevails over alternative ones is the configuration of public representation in a given polity.³⁹ Indeed, goals and preferences that are “made present” in the public sphere have a much better chance of influencing national positions than those without a voice.⁴⁰ For example, trade unions have typically been effective in shaping national positions regarding the protection of wages of national workers. Yet, how do these groups achieve such impact? On the one hand, well-represented groups may directly shape the process of national interest formation by relying on economic or political leverage. For instance, a trade union’s public engagement in favour of policy X may be backed by the threat of calling for a strike if this policy is not adopted.

On the other hand, a few groups may indirectly achieve policy impact by influencing public opinion. Consider the case of the environmental movement. By voicing its concerns forcefully in the public space, the green platform steadily cultivated public support. This support, in turn, changed the electoral calculations of governments and opposition parties, leading many EU member states to incorporate the green agenda in their definitions of the national interest.⁴¹ Therefore, the pattern of public representation may determine which goals and preferences are ultimately equated with the national interest.

This point is of much relevance to our discussion. If public representation plays a role in the process of constructing the national interest, then those ideas, goals and preferences that lack a voice may fail to be taken into account. As we shall see, a voice that expresses the impacts of national policy choices on the whole EU is clearly missing in the domestic public spheres. In the EU political system, influence is exercised by the European Commission “through the front and the back doors” of member states, but there is no agent in a position to directly represent the common good from within.⁴² For instance, when the Irish government proposed a radical tax reform to attract the biggest companies from other member states, very few actors made the case that the dramatic effects of the move on the whole EU should be taken into account.⁴³ Since national governments and oppositions are not accountable to electorates beyond their borders, it would be ill-considered to assume they will always be willing to represent the common good of the EU in domestic public spheres. In many cases, the electoral gains of pursuing “selfish” policies outweigh any complaints coming from Brussels or other European capitals. As we shall see, giving a voice to EU institutions in national public debates could have a transformational impact on these political dynamics. This transformation, in turn, could create political conditions that would enable necessary sacrifices for the common good.

Robert Putnam’s two-level model revisited

Let me now turn to the question of how the national interests of the different member states interact with each other at the EU level. Robert Putnam has influentially conceptualised the politics of international negotiations as two-level games.⁴⁴ According to Putnam, the first level consists of a complex process of social interaction along the lines described in the previous section. Governments define national goals through an exchange of ideas and bargaining of preferences and goals of different groups. In turn, on the second level, governments negotiate on the international stage, where they “seek to maximize their own ability to satisfy domestic pressures, while minimizing the adverse consequences of foreign developments”.⁴⁵ Putnam’s model seeks to analyse the interaction across the two levels and the possible outcomes of the game. He claims that the structure of the two-level game leads to a difficult equilibrium in international negotiations. As Putnam puts it, “[a]‌ny key player at the international table who is dissatisfied with the outcome may upset the game board, and conversely, any leader who fails to satisfy his fellow players at the domestic table risks being evicted from his seat”.⁴⁶ Therefore, the success of the game is critically dependent on clever players who “spot a move on one board that will trigger realignments on other boards, enabling them to achieve otherwise unattainable objectives”.⁴⁷

Putnam’s explanatory model leads us to an empirical conclusion and a normative question regarding EU policymaking. Concerning the former, if international politics can be plausibly conceived as a two-level game, then many attempts to advance the common good at the second level may be doomed to fail. Reaching consensus at the second level may be very difficult given the very different goals and preferences already crystallised in the first level. This challenge applies notably to policies that generate an uneven pattern of costs and benefits across borders. Recall the case of the Irish tax breaks mentioned above. While Ireland would benefit enormously from this policy, all other member states could lose. As Putnam rightly observes, national leaders are accountable to domestic electorates only. Such accountability means that if they prioritise the common good of the whole EU over domestic preferences, national leaders risk losing office.⁴⁸ As Putnam suggests, skillful leaders may build resourceful coalitions and achieve unexpected breakthroughs. Yet, this coalition-building does not happen so easily. For example, it took more than ten years for the EU to approve legislation to contain the Irish tax exemptions. Hence, as a result of the two-level nature of the game, a vacuum of agency may arise in which there is no agent with the political leverage to advance the common good of the EU.⁴⁹ This type of deadlock is recurrent in the EU political system, which suggests that, if the common good is to be pursued consistently, EU actors will need to play a role on the first level.

A question that follows is whether granting EU representatives a stronger voice in national debates is normatively desirable. To begin with, we might argue that allowing EU institutions to intervene in domestic public spheres would ultimately undermine self-government. For those who already regard the EU as a “regulatory state”, extending the Union’s voice to public debates at the national level could undermine the last vestige of sovereignty left to European states.⁵⁰ In addition, intervening in the process of preference formation with the intention to nudge its outcome may be regarded as “anti-democratic and anti-political”.⁵¹ However, as I shall explain, giving voice to the standpoint of the common good of the whole EU is neither less democratic nor less political than representing any other legitimate interest with the purpose of influencing policy outcomes. Indeed, the proposal that I will present in the next section implies that EU representatives would participate in the process of national interest formation alongside a variety of actors. If, instead, one claims that giving voice to the EU would be undemocratic because foreign citizens are not part of the demos, then one should be ready to exclude foreign embassies, foreign companies, and foreign think tanks from any meaningful participation in domestic policymaking. Such an exclusion would seem implausible.

Incidentally, there is a compelling normative justification for why representing EU institutions at the domestic level is not only permissible but morally required. To understand the point, we might find it useful to invert the puzzle: Why should EU member states and their citizens be represented at the supranational level? In a variety of ways, the most plausible answers will refer to the effects of EU decision-making on the member states. Since member states are subject to EU directives, regulations and decisions, the argument would go, they should have a say in the process through which these measures are adopted. Now, the same argument applies to the relations among member states. Indeed, in the context of EU membership, the domestic decisions of a state as small as Luxembourg have the potential to affect all the others. By virtue of the high degree of economic and political integration in the EU, member states are able to impose significant negative externalities on the Union as a whole. For instance, by indebting themselves beyond sustainable levels, member states may put the financial stability of the whole Eurozone at risk.⁵² This possibility suggests that the policies of a member state should, at least to a certain degree, take their impacts on the rest of the Union into account. As I shall claim, this does not call for additional controls from Brussels but instead entails bringing the EU perspective into national debates.

A new role for the Representations of the Commission

I have suggested that it is possible to enhance cooperation on the second level of the game by creating the appropriate political conditions on the first level. How might this be accomplished? A promising avenue to achieve this goal would be rethinking the role of the Representations of the European Commission in the EU capitals. Instead of being limited to a purely ceremonial role, these institutions could actively participate in public debates, bringing issues that concern the common good of the whole EU to the attention of national authorities and citizens. The Representations could be involved, for instance, in high-level meetings, public consultations, interviews in the media, and via social media to create awareness of the impacts of national policies on the other member states. At the same time, the Representations could present rationales for certain EU policy proposals by detailing the conditions prevailing in other member states that justify the adoption of those policies. Of course, the national authorities would be free to endorse or refute the points raised by the Representations, which would be one actor among many in the public debate. However, by giving a voice to EU institutions on the first level of the game, the common good could be made more visible, and greater public support for it could be recruited. Public justification would be available for certain pro-EU sacrifices. Doing so would give national governments more room to manoeuvre in adjusting their choices on the second level.

A question arises as to whether the European Commission and its Representations would be able to perform the difficult task of representing the common good of the EU. Sceptics may raise at least three types of concerns. To begin with, the Commission is not an elected body, which may cast doubt on its ability to represent the common good of European citizens at large. This concern is particularly relevant given that, as has been argued, a few member states have a disproportional capacity to influence the Commission’s views on certain policy matters.⁵³ Second, similar to what we have seen regarding domestic actors, the Commission operates within a given ideational background, which can bring about certain biases. Consider, for instance, the Commission’s reluctance to reform its competition law despite the recurrent charges of “inadequacy” and “obsolescence” presented against the latter.⁵⁴ Third, it may be added that the EU is not a unitary actor. Different EU institutions, including the European Parliament, the European External Action Service, the ECB and the several Directorates-General of the Commission, may have different views on what the common good entails. As a result, it is unclear how the Representations could convey a consolidated EU perspective on concrete policy matters.

These objections are important, but they do not defeat my proposal. In Chapter 4, I will claim that, as long as its bureaucratic apparatus functions impartially, the Commission will be in a privileged position to advance the common good. By impartial decision-making, I mean that “official judgements and reports should be based on objective and relevant criteria, without bias or prejudice, and not take sides”.⁵⁵ At the same time, I will argue that the Commission’s choices should be more clearly linked to the will of the European citizens. Among other measures, this could be achieved by launching direct elections for the Commission presidency. Note that these two claims are not incompatible. Indeed, I will argue that an elected political leadership for the Commission and an impartial bureaucratic apparatus can co-exist if the former focuses on establishing political priorities and common rules and the latter deals with implementing and overseeing such priorities and rules. Finally, it should be noted that the need to articulate contrasting views within the EU institutional framework is not new. Indeed, the Commission recurrently negotiates its positions with those of other EU institutions through, for instance, inter-institutional consultations and the so-called “trialogues”.⁵⁶ These practices are, in fact, inescapable, given that the Commission has the power to propose, but not to adopt, new directives.

Upgrading the role of the Representations of the Commission could have significant advantages. To begin with, it could generate a more inclusive and better-informed debate about EU affairs in the member states’ domestic public spheres. Since the 2008–2012 financial crisis, “the politicisation of European affairs at both the EU level and in the domestic politics of member states is inevitable and here to stay”.⁵⁷ Thus, the participation of EU actors in national debates would bring a European perspective to the discussion, broadening the scope of the debate. Furthermore, enhanced Representations could answer for the policy decisions taken in Brussels, which would no longer be perceived as external impositions that cannot be contested. This arrangement would make it harder for national governments to make EU institutions political scapegoats for national problems or policy challenges. At the same time, my proposal would create the political conditions for national governments to make difficult choices for the common good. By voicing the impacts of national policies on other member states, the Commission would make public justification for certain sacrifices readily available in the domestic spheres. Publishing such information could fundamentally change the dynamics of the two-level game, contributing to reducing the tensions among member states.

Strategy two: addressing conflicts of interests effectively

Public reasoning in the European Union

So far, I have discussed how to promote the convergence of national interests, allowing the pursuit of the common good in the EU. However, it is obviously not always possible to prevent conflicts over competing interests from emerging. In some cases, the positions presented by EU leaders in Brussels are visibly far apart and seemingly irreconcilable, due either to a lack of political will to make concessions and search for reasonable compromises or to a genuine disagreement on what the common good entails.⁵⁸ While this and the following sections address the former case, Chapter 4 will deal with the latter.

To understand the problem addressed in this section, recall the case of tax competition. In this example, a small group of member states has blocked the adoption of a minimum corporate tax rate in the Union. These states seek to avoid losing the sizeable benefits gained by attracting the headquarters of companies of other member states to their territories. Strikingly, they have been able to achieve this goal without having to justify themselves. Under the current EU institutional framework, they have been able to exercise a veto over the proposal, disregarding the harmful impacts of tax competition on the member states that cannot afford to enter the fiscal race to the bottom. How could the standards of public reasoning be improved in the EU? How could EU debates be more consistently conducive to the common good?

To address these questions, it is worth asking how the Council typically seeks to reconcile the different interests of the member states.⁵⁹ The answer fundamentally depends on which decision-making method applies to a given policy area. If the decision-making method at stake is qualified majority, the Council’s primary role can be described as negotiating national interests.⁶⁰ How does this work in practice? Once member states have formulated their positions domestically, they seek to advance them on the EU stage. Whenever their goals are unattainable, they search for multilateral compromises with other member states. In so doing, they exchange arguments and make concessions to each other. This exchange creates a norm of compromise and mutual justification. However, when the unanimity rule applies, the Council’s primary role should instead be described as avoiding vetoes. In this case, each member state can rely on its veto right to block policy proposals unilaterally. This leads to a peculiar setting of political bargaining. Indeed, in a scenario where only one or a small group of member states is opposing a given proposal, the unanimity requirement puts the burdens of justification on the large majority that intends to approve it. In fact, vetoing states are not required to provide any justification when exercising their veto; it is the majority that is expected to provide the minority with convincing reasons as to why they should not veto a proposal.

Accordingly, the puzzle faced by the Council presidency, which act as brokers of the diverse interests of member states, changes significantly depending on whether qualified majority or unanimity apply. When qualified majority applies, the key question for the presidency is: “How can we best accommodate the interests of everyone?”. In turn, under the unanimity rule, the question becomes: “How can we avoid a veto by member state X or Y?” As I have suggested, these alternative settings may lead to contrasting policy outcomes. Even when the bargaining process underpinning majoritarian decision-making leads to non-ideal policies, they will likely benefit the EU at large. The reasons are twofold: (i) a high threshold of representing 65% of the EU population has to be met, and (ii) none of the individual member states is in a position strong enough to impose its preferences on others. In contrast, when the unanimity rule applies, member states can act unilaterally on the EU political stage. National positions can be upheld inflexibly, however harmful their impacts on other member states may be. Thus, each member state can block important reforms for the common good on the grounds of their national interests only. Qualified majority does not guarantee that the common good will be achieved, but it sets the EU in this direction more reliably than unanimity.

Therefore, extending qualified majority to all policy areas of EU policymaking could facilitate the pursuit of the common good in the Union. By extinguishing the unanimity rule, the EU would shift the burdens of justification from large majorities of member states to small minorities. In practice, it would then be for the opponents of widely endorsed reforms to explain the merits of their case. To achieve their particular goals, individual states or small groups of nations would need to provide compelling justifications to persuade other member states or put forward balanced compromises. Accordingly, they would no longer be in a position to advance their national interests at any cost nor to shield benefits that they gain unfairly at the expense of other member states. Note that the impact of this proposal would by no means be marginal. Despite applying to a limited number of policy areas, unanimity is required in critical domains, such as taxation and social policy.⁶¹ Moreover, as I shall claim, this proposal would not expose member states to the risk of a “tyranny of the majority”, given the robust set of rights and guarantees of the EU legal order. Therefore, abolishing the unanimity rule would allow the common good not to remain hostage to the national interests of one or a few member states.

Towards a European debate on the common good

As Chapter 1 argued, the common good of a group of states may require sacrifices, understood as courses of action that do not maximise the individual utility of each of them. Indeed, a few key common policies can be very costly, and they may generate unequal payoffs across national borders. For instance, a large-scale EU policy aimed at addressing coastal erosion would have significant benefits for coastal states but minimal benefits for the inland states. Similarly, an EU policy to reduce material deprivation in the Union would mainly benefit the relatively disadvantaged member states. As I have claimed, these policy proposals may recruit limited support in the constituencies of the states that would expect to become net contributors to such schemes. Since the 27 national demoi are represented in the Council as separate units and each leader is accountable to their national electorate only, the required sacrifices for the common good may become politically unfeasible. Abolishing the majority rule will partially address this problem, but it may not be enough given that the Council is designed to negotiate win–win compromises among national leaders. This setup is particularly problematic with regard to much-needed common policies where the distribution of costs and benefits is highly uneven.⁶²

How could the political system of the EU be better equipped to adopt crucial reforms that imply considerable costs for some member states but overall serve the common good of the Union? There are at least two types of possible answers (which are complementary). A first approach consists of increasing the means at the disposal of EU supranational institutions to realise the common good beyond the constraints imposed by national governments. Note that this approach would not necessarily reduce the Council to a secondary role, nor would it automatically lead to a very high degree of centralisation. A minimalist version of this approach would propose an increase in the Union’s own financial resources while mostly maintaining the current distribution of competences across the different levels of government in the EU polity. This increase could be achieved, for instance, by launching an EU corporate tax.⁶³ In this case, the Commission would no longer depend on the goodwill of the Council to obtain funds for new common policies. The necessary funds would be readily available through an autonomous common budget, which would not be contingent on the willingness of member states to increase national transfers. However, the Council would continue to have the last word on how these funds are allocated. With an enlarged common budget ready to be spent, debates on whether particular member states would be willing to pay the costs of certain EU policies would lose their political appeal. This approach is promising because it would give more firepower to EU institutions without jeopardising a meaningful role for national governments.

A second (and complementary) approach consists of making EU institutions more representative of the EU demos as a whole, as opposed to separate national demoi.⁶⁴ This step would be instrumental to reframe the debates at the EU level, leading to a greater focus on what the EU should do from the standpoint of the common good. An example can help illustrate the point. At the peak of the last global financial crisis, the Commission proposed an EU tax on financial transactions. This tax aimed at “making the financial sector pay its fair share”, taking into account its responsibilities for the origin of the crisis and the need to use public funds to rescue several financial institutions.⁶⁵ After years of discussions in the Council, the Commission’s proposal failed to be translated into an EU policy due to a complex puzzle of national interests. However, note that this proposal did recruit widespread public support: 61% of EU citizens were in favour of its adoption, and only 25% were against it.⁶⁶ Had this proposal reflected the will of the whole EU demos, it would have been adopted. The same applies to other areas where it has proved very difficult for the EU to adopt common policies. For example, 88% of EU citizens support tougher rules on tax avoidance and tax havens despite the inability of national governments to agree on this matter.⁶⁷ This example suggests that a stronger link between EU citizens and EU institutions could empower the latter to act for the common good, at least in a few crucial fields.

Yet, how could a stronger link between EU institutions and EU citizens be built? As Chapter 4 will claim, this could be achieved through reforming the EU institutional framework. One of the proposals presented in the next chapter is adopting transnational lists to elect Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), thereby creating a pan-European constituency. This move would lead the political parties of the different member states to articulate common agendas and make each MEP representative of all European citizens unambiguously.⁶⁸ At the same time, as I will argue, directly electing the presidents of the Commission and the European Council would make both institutions accountable to all EU citizens, and it could prompt EU leadership to think more in terms of European goals and solutions rather than in terms of interstate negotiations. As I shall argue, creating a Citizens Assembly where EU citizens could jointly deliberate over what the common good entails beyond narrow definitions of national interest would be an additional step forward. The proposals to be discussed in Chapter 4 would change the configuration of the two-level game, making it possible to address disputes among national governments more effectively.

Critics of my proposals may argue that the EU currently lacks a common demos.⁶⁹ They may point to the sharp social and cultural differences within the EU and the arguably weak civic bonds among EU citizens, claiming that the idea of an EU demos is hard to conceive. Accordingly, so the argument would go, bypassing the will of sovereign national demoi would be both undemocratic and unfeasible.⁷⁰ However, the current model of political representation in the EU polity, which relies heavily on mediation by national governments, leads to outcomes that seem far less democratic than my proposals. Consider the case of the CAP, which for decades consumed the lion’s share of the Union budget. This common policy was purportedly designed to serve the interests of French farmers, who have successfully shaped the positions of the French government.⁷¹ Governing the resources of the Union according to the interests of French farmers can hardly be considered democratic. Therefore, even if no such demos exists, a question arises as to whether “there should be a common demos”.⁷² Would this common demos be feasible? As I will claim in Chapter 5, any demos should be regarded as a dynamic outcome of political choices rather than as a stable social entity that is either present or absent. As we shall see, the feasibility of an EU demos is largely contingent on a set of political and socioeconomic conditions that are shaped by EU institutions and national governments.

The limits of the common good

I have argued that member states, as members of the EU polity, should be ready to accept certain sacrifices for the common good of the whole EU. Yet, how far should they be ready to go? Consider a policy proposal that would improve the average welfare of EU citizens but impose disproportionate costs on limited groups. For example, consider a relaxation of the regulation that restrains the use of the label “Port” to wines produced in the Douro Valley in Portugal. Under this proposal, “Port” wine could be produced in every member state, thus creating new business opportunities and jobs. Furthermore, this policy would reduce the price to be paid by consumers, given the increase of competition in the market of Port wine. However, this measure could have a devastating effect in Portugal, leading to heavy job losses. Is this policy compatible with the common good? What costs can be legitimately imposed on a member state for the sake of the common good of the whole EU? Furthermore, assume that the proposals presented above regarding extending majoritarian decision-making and better representing EU citizens were in place. Would this not leave, say, Portuguese citizens too exposed to the will of the EU majority? What safeguards, if any, would they have against a “tyranny of the majority”?⁷³

To address these questions, we might find it useful to recall the definition of the common good presented in the introductory chapter of this book. I defined common good in the context of EU membership as the conditions and goals that benefit the EU as a whole without imposing impermissible harm on some EU citizens or member states. This definition suggests that the common good is not an ultimate good – that is, it should not be sought at all costs. As I have mentioned, an illustrative example is the carrying out of promising but unethical medical experiments on patients. As I have argued, this type of harm would be impermissible, even if inflicted to achieve the common good. However, in this chapter, I have also claimed that realising the common good of the whole EU may require certain sacrifices by one or more member states or by groups of their citizens. The question is, then, how to set the boundary between permissible and impermissible harm. What kinds of sacrifices should not be imposed on the citizens of a given member state? In Chapter 1, I argued that the concept of fundamental rights draws clear limits to what should be asked from individuals for the sake of the common good and constitutes a useful proxy for impermissible harm. Now, I shall argue that the existing EU institutional framework already offers robust safeguards against a wide range of impermissible policy outcomes.

There are at least three types of safeguards. The first is the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. The Charter sets out a vast array of rights and liberties that all EU policies should not contravene. The latter include, for instance, a right to bodily integrity, non-discrimination, fair and just working conditions, and a high level of consumer protection.⁷⁴ In our previous example, relaxing the rules concerning the labelling of Port wine without replicating this policy to other intellectual property rights in other member states would be a discriminatory measure.

The second safeguard is the well-established EU legal principles of conferral, subsidiarity and proportionality. In particular, the principle of proportionality establishes that “the content and form of Union action shall not exceed what is necessary to achieve the objectives of the Treaties”.⁷⁵ Thus, the proposal mentioned above would most likely violate this principle insofar as extinguishing intellectual property rights does not seem necessary for the construction of a single market. The third safeguard is the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which is responsible for enforcing the Charter and the three legal principles mentioned above. In addition, the CJEU has built extensive case law which protects the rights of EU citizens. These three safeguards set clear limits to the pursuit of the common good in the EU.

Conclusion

In this chapter, I have argued that a more consistent pursuit of the common good in the Union requires rethinking EU politics. I introduced two strategies to this end. The first strategy consists of promoting the convergence of national interests. I claimed that by giving the EU a stronger voice in national debates, where the broader European picture often remains underrepresented, the perspective of the common good of the whole EU might be more smoothly incorporated into national positions, and it might recruit greater public support. In practice, this would mean that the Representations of the Commission in the member states would act as the face of the EU at the national level. In turn, the second strategy entails addressing conflicts of national interests more effectively. I argued that this could be achieved by withdrawing the unanimity rule in the Council, increasing the means at the disposal of EU supranational institutions to realise the common good, and making EU institutions more representative of the EU demos as a whole, as opposed to separate national demoi. Altogether, these proposals could change the dynamics of the two-level game in the EU, creating the political conditions for the common good to be realised.