Download 011010 - EESC European Economic and Social Committee

Comité économique et social européen
Le Secrétaire général
The growing conceptualisation, institutionalisation and concretisation of civil
society's role in global governance1
European Democracy Observatory
26-11-2010
Martin Westlake, Secretary General, European Economic and Social Committee
The past two decades have been marked by five distinct but interlinked and
converging trends that are gradually, collectively, cumulatively creating a whole new
aspect of governance that will not replace or supplant traditional forms of government
but will increasingly complement them. This new aspect is, by its very nature,
heterogeneous and does not allow for easy categorisation or empirical study.
Nevertheless, civil society – and particularly organised civil society – is increasingly
exerting new forms of influence and representation and, as it does so, so its role is
being consolidated and institutionalised.
Conceptual developments within the European Union
In the late 1990s, the growing perceived gap between the European Union and its
citizens led the European Commission to embark on a reflection process about how
the gap could be narrowed. This reflection process resulted in a White Paper on
European Governance (25 July 2001) which remains to this day an entirely pertinent
analysis. Its leitmotif was better involvement of the European citizen and of
stakeholders more generally – in other words, those whom the European Union
purports to serve, and it set out a series of recommendations and action points that
would, collectively it was hoped, render the European Union more accessible and
more understandable and result in better governance. Not surprisingly, the
recommendations included inter alia a greater involvement of civil society
organisations and a more pro-active role for the European Economic and Social
Committee.
The 15 December 2001 Laeken declaration on the future of the European
Union identified the same worrying gap between the Union and the citizen. In the
ensuing Convention on the Future of Europe, much further thought was given to the
challenge of involving the citizen. In this particular context, the reflection process
coalesced around the broad concept of 'participatory democracy'. The proposed final
text of a sort of constitutional settlement that emerged from the Convention went
through many reincarnations before emerging in 2009 as the so-called Lisbon Treaty.
Yet the substance of the initial provisions on the 'democratic life of the Union'
remained. In particular, under Title II of the Treaty on European Union ('provisions
1
An earlier version of this paper was first delivered at a 1 October 2010 (Brussels) joint seminar
organised by the European Union Institute of Security Studies, the United Nations University Institute
on Comparative Regional Integration Studies and the European Commission (DG Research) on the
theme of 'Civil society's role in global governance'.
on democratic principles'), a series of articles set out a vision of a sort of 'composite
democracy'.
Article 10 declares that 'the functioning of the Union shall be founded on
representative democracy' and goes on to stress the roles of the European Parliament
and the national parliaments (stressed further in Article 12)2; thus, the prime condition
of representative democracy, at both European Union and member state level, is
stressed. But this primacy is flanked by two other sorts of democracy. Article 11(4)
provides for the now well-noted innovation of the 'citizens' initiative', whereby 'not
less than one million citizens who are nationals of a significant number of Member
States may take the initiative of inviting the European Commission … to submit any
appropriate proposal'. This could be described as direct democracy. Lastly, Article
11(1) provides that the 'institutions shall, by appropriate means, give citizens and
representative associations the opportunity to make known and publicly exchange
their views in all areas of Union action' and Article 11(2) provides that 'the
institutions shall maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue with
representative associations and civil society.' This could be described as participatory
democracy (even if the term 'participatory democracy' itself fell by the wayside in one
of the Treaty's many re-draftings).
Thus, the draftsmen and women of the Lisbon Treaty seemed to have
concluded that, whilst representative democracy was a vitally necessary condition, it
could not alone be sufficient for the democratic life of a Union as complex as it has
become today, with its many political cultures and levels of governance. With the
Lisbon Treaty only recently having come into force, the challenge now is to flesh
these provisions out and to make them work, from the new powers of the European
Parliament and national parliaments, through to the implementing legislation for the
citizens' initiative. But the underlying trend is clear; fairly vague ideas about
involving the citizen have given way to an increasingly well-formed conceptualisation
about the different roles civil society and organised civil society should play in the
European Union's still emerging and still evolving polity.
Institutionalisation within the European Union
In parallel with this trend there has been a growth in the number of European Union
member states but also in the number of economic and social councils or similar
institutions. The European Union's Economic and Social Council was closely
modelled on the French national economic and social council3. Such a council had
already existed in the French Fourth Republic and the model was consolidated in the
Fifth Republic as an integral part of an overall constitutional tradition in which
parliament (the national assembly) was flanked by other representative assemblies
composed of aggregators of one sort or another. Thus, the members of the French
Economic and Social Council represent the fabric of economic and social life. This
tradition was carried over to the European Union level, with the creation of the
European Economic and Social Committee in the 1957 Treaty of Rome (the
Committee is thus as venerable as the Parliament, Council, Commission and Court).
As the European Union has enlarged, so acceding member states have looked to the
Union's overall structures for guidance about their own constitutional arrangements.
2
The Treaty ascribes both direct and indirect roles to the national parliaments. Article 10 describes
their indirect role of holding the members of the European Council and the Council to account. Article
12 lists the various ways in which they 'contribute actively to the good functioning of the Union'.
3
Now Economic, Social and Environmental Council.
In several of the newest member states (for example, Poland) such bodies
already existed before the accession process began. But in others there was a clear
linkage between accession and the creation of economic and social councils or similar
bodies modelled on the European Union's Economic and Social Committee; Greece,
Bulgaria, Hungary and Malta, for example. Indeed, in recent accession processes the
European Economic and Social Committee has taken upon itself a proselytising role,
stressing the importance of a healthy civil society, of good social and civic dialogue,
and also of the usefulness, where appropriate, of a representative body to
institutionalise such dialogue. Currently, twenty-two of the European Union's current
twenty-seven member states have an economic and social council or similar
institution and, whilst there is a great deal of heterogeneity in their composition and
role4, these councils themselves feel that they belong to a loose family faced with
similar challenges.
This mutual recognition and fellow feeling has led to a second level of
institutionalisation. All of the European Union's national economic and social
councils, together with the European Economic and Social Committee, cooperate
together in a structured fashion. This network organisation, which got under way in
1997, now foresees annual assemblies of the Councils' Presidents and Secretaries
General, the organisation of thematic conferences and of surveys of national practices,
benchmarking and the sharing of best practices and, occasionally, the adoption of
declarations on themes of common interest. Moreover, the European Commission and,
though less frequently, the European Council5 have come to see the network as a way
of facilitating dialogue with organised civil society. The growth in the number of
national economic and social councils and in the degree of cooperation has gone hand
in hand with the first trend identified, towards a conceptualisation of the role of civil
society representatives and hence also of institutions representing civil society.
Growing emphasis on civil society aspects in bilateral and multilateral agreements
A third clear trend over the past two decades – which has transformed the role of the
EESC and European civil society - has been an ever greater emphasis on the civil
society aspects in the European Union's bilateral and multilateral agreements with
third countries and the growing recognition of the need for people-to-people contacts
and civil society involvement in those relations to complement traditional governance
mechanisms and the traditional role of the political authorities. In large part, this trend
has been a response to worldwide developments.
Over the past decade or so civil society activities outside formal structures
have developed considerably, effectively representing a new dimension of civil
society implication in global governance. Though now perhaps a cliché, this point was
vividly illustrated by the role of civil society in the run-up to, and during, the 1999
WTO ministerial conference in Seattle (which resulted inter alia in increased civil
society participation at WTO conferences ever since). Starting in Porto Allegre in
2001, the World Social Forum is another example of major grassroots civil society
4
Some, notably, are essentially bi- or tripartite in composition and are chiefly active in ensuring what
is loosely termed ‘social dialogue’.
5
Twice now the European Council has given the EESC and the network of ESCs 'mandates'; once in
the context of sustainable development and once in the context of the Lisbon Strategy. Most recently,
European Commission President José Manuel Barroso wrote to the Committee and the national ESCs
inviting them to play a support and flanking role with regard to the successful realisation of the
Europe2020 Strategy.
involvement in global governance, outside the framework of 'traditional',
institutionalised mechanisms. To take a more recent example, civil society
organisations were very much in evidence at the December 2009 climate change
summit in Copenhagen in 2009.
The emergence of the internet, facilitating contact between civil society
organisations and the diffusion of ideas and information, has undoubtedly been a key
factor in boosting the role and activities of organised civil society outside of
traditional governance mechanisms. Indeed, international institutions are still evolving
the means and the mechanisms to work with this new dimension of civil society
involvement in global governance.
The European Union has responded to these developments by incorporating a
civil society chapter in most of its international agreements, including its trade
agreements, for example with CARIFORUM6 or South Korea. In this context, the
European Economic and Social Committee has gradually been granted what amounts
to a generalised mandate to establish structured and sustained cooperation with civil
society organisations in most of the countries or regions with which the European
Union enjoys relations. The Committee has subsequently sought to develop flexible
forms of cooperation depending on the specific framework involved.
Thus, the EESC has established round tables with Chinese, Indian and
Brazilian civil society representatives. Plenary round table meetings are held once a
year with ongoing thematic discussions of key topics in between meetings. Close ties
in various forms also exist with civil society in most other regions and countries of the
world, including in the Africa-Caribbean-Pacific region (ACP), Latin America (for
example, with Mercosur) and the European Union's eastern neighbours. Under the
terms of the Association Agreements signed between the European Union and
candidate countries for EU membership, the Committee regularly holds meetings with
civil society from the candidate countries in the form of joint consultative committees.
The Committee also enjoys close ties with civil society organisations from the
Mediterranean region in the framework of Euromed, latterly the Union for the
Mediterranean (UfM – see below), and the EESC has been instrumental in helping
civil society in Jordan, Israel, Palestine, and Morocco to set up Economic and Social
Councils or similar institutions which now regularly participate in the UfM’s summits.
If the Committee’s relations are multi-faceted and constantly evolving, the
common thread is a determination to help civil society organisations in the partner
countries to gain a foothold and gradually strengthen their voices vis-à-vis
governmental structures, and in due course to establish structured exchanges between
civil societies and civil society organisations outside the framework of conventional
diplomatic ties. This means that the EESC today plays a much broader, more
multifunctional role than in the past, a role which extends beyond the representation
of its members' immediate sector-based socio-economic interests. Although not
Treaty-based, this role, constantly being enlarged and enhanced at the insistence of
the European Commission and the EU Member States, is clearly considered of benefit
both to the European Union and to the Union’s partner countries. The benefits for the
European Union are the increased stability of participatory democracy and improved
governance in the partner countries, as well as the knowledge the Union gains,
through the EESC's work, of socio-economic realities in the partner countries,
knowledge which can then be fed back into the Union’s decision-making. The
6
A (Caribbean) subgroup of the ACP states that serves as a basis for economic dialogue with the
European Union. The countries involved are the fifteen Caribbean Community countries plus the
Dominican Republic.
benefits for the partner countries are better governance and the stability that brings,
together with closer ties with all aspects of the European Union, including civil
society and organised civil society.
It is not by coincidence that the 2001 White Paper on European Governance,
described in the first section above, made specific reference to the European Union's
contribution to global governance. Indeed one of its specific action points is to
'improve dialogue with governmental and non-governmental actors of third countries
when developing policy proposals with an international dimension’ (my emphasis)7.
This improvement should, the White Paper recommended, consist of two aspects. A
first is to improve access to the EU's decision-making and policy-making processes to
stakeholders from outside the Union. Just as significantly, however, the Commission
also foresaw European governance as a model, as a best example, that could serve as
inspiration to other countries and regional blocs.
Conceptual developments and institutionalisation in countries and regions throughout
the world
A simple internet search using key words such as 'civil society' and 'global' reveals a
vast and burgeoning literature on the role of civil society in global governance. Where
there is intellectual smoke, there tends to be substantive fire! Indeed, beyond the
extensive debates about concepts, theories and terminology are equally extensive
debates about the role of organised civil society in particular thematic contexts.8
Running through all of these discussions is the common recognition that:
‘… the presence of civil society organisations in international affairs has
become increasingly relevant. They have played a role in agenda setting,
international law-making and governance, transnational diplomacy… and the
implementation and monitoring of a number of crucial global issues, ranging
from trade to development and poverty reduction, from democratic
governance to human rights, from peace to the environment, and from security
to the information society.’9
This increasing role in a sort of ‘non-governmental governance’ in turn has
increasingly raised prescriptive issues such as representativeness, legitimacy,
accountability and transparency. And, for organised civil society itself, its growing
role and influence raises such fundamental issues as the maintenance of authenticity
and the avoidance of the risk of being ‘co-opted’ into the conventional mechanisms
that, by its very nature, it should be seeking to circumnavigate. These three
complementary, but also overlapping and contradictory aspects – respectively, the
view from conventional governance mechanisms, the view from proselytisers for new
forms of governance, and the views from traditional forms of civil society
organisation – do much to explain the burgeoning conceptual literature. What all seek
7
Page 27.
The Conference at which this paper was first delivered provided excellent examples of both those sets
of debates, with panels variously on civil society and global governance and legitimacy and
accountability, but also on climate change, security politics and human rights.
9
Raffaele Marchetti, ‘The Role of Civil Society in Global Governance – Report on the joint seminar
organised by the EUISS, the European Commission/DG Research and UNU-CRIS, Brussels, 1 October
2010.’
8
is some sort of theoretical framework, whether normative or empirical, within which
to place a growing phenomenon.
As at the level of the European Union, the growing conceptualisation of the
role of civil society in global governance has similarly been accompanied by a
parallel process of institutionalisation at both country and multilateral level. This is
not, it should be stressed, simply a result of ‘fashion’ but, rather, a perceived means of
enhancing governance. In 1998, for example, the South Korean Tripartite Economic
and Social Development Commission was established as a body of social dialogue. Its
role became crucial, not only in times of growth and prosperity, but also in the
peaceful management of economic downswings. This form of participatory
democracy, complementing South Korea’s traditional form of representative
democracy, has in part ensured that the ugly street scenes so often seen on the streets
of Seoul in the 1990s have become a thing of the past. To take another example, in
2003 Brazil founded, at the instigation of President Lula, its own Council of
Economic and Social Development, an institution modelled very closely, in structure
and role, on the example of the European Economic and Social Committee. Civil
society institutions and/or organs have been created, and continue to be created,
throughout the world and on all of the continents, including notably China, Russia and
South Africa. Most recently, in December 2007, Jordan established an Economic and
Social Council.10
A similar process of institutionalisation has been occurring at regional level.
Most recently, on 10, 11 and 12 November 2010 the annual Euro-Mediterranean
Summit of Economic and Social Councils and Similar Institutions, adopted a statute
for a future civil society assembly and agreed to seek consultative body status within
the Union for the Mediterranean. At the Summit EESC President Staffan Nilsson
expressed the hope that ‘the Assembly will reach its full potential in helping to build a
peaceful future in the Mediterranean region through closer and permanent ties
between civil society on all shores.’ The European Commission’s representative,
Tomas Dupla del Moral, declared the efforts of organised civil society to be crucial to
the UfM because they ‘complemented the initiatives being made at intergovernmental
level and opened up further possibilities for dialogue.’
Global cooperation among similar institutions
Hovering above all of these developments, in a sense, is the International Association
of Economic and Social Councils and Similar Institutions (almost universally known
by its French acronym, AICESIS). Founded in 1999, with just twenty-four member
institutions, it has rapidly grown to over sixty today. Its membership is drawn from
across the globe and most continents. Founded initially as a loose organisation, its
growing size has led to a period of intensive existential reflection as to whether it
should aspire to become an International Organisation with legal status. Currently
hobbled by limited resources (its subscription rates necessarily have to reflect the
parlous economic state of many of its member organisations) and characterised by the
great heterogeneity of its membership, AICESIS has nevertheless developed a bold
development plan and has decided to put the key focus of its work on economic,
social and environmental world governance. Notwithstanding the conflicting
10
The European Economic and Social Committee was very much involved in the process of
establishing both the Brazilian and the Jordanian ESCs.
dynamics within AICESIS11, it is at the least a vehicle for soft diplomacy, the
enhancement of civil dialogue and a forum in which common problems can be
addressed. Whilst many of its member organisations see their roles as being
complementary, flanking forms of representative democracy, others see the role of
organised civil society as a substitute for, or an alternative to, representative
democracy, where the latter is either non-existent or, for whatever reason, failing.
Tellingly, at AICESIS’s last general assembly in the United Nations’ headquarters
building in New York (July 2010), UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon seemed to
have the latter model in mind when he observed; ‘you can speak out. You can
challenge your leaders and politicians. Strengthen your roles and enhance
participatory governance.’12
Conceptualisation, institutionalisation and concretisation
As this paper has sought to show, twin developments – growing conceptualisation and
growing institutionalisation – have resulted in convergence and the creation of
regional and indeed global networks, their proliferation facilitated by the internet.
Something is happening out there and it is not going to go away. However, this new
form – or these new forms – of participatory democracy are inherently difficult to
categorise or to measure. The composite or compound democracy which is steadily
evolving is the opposite of the pure distributional lines of the Montesquieu approach.
Instead of a division of powers, there is a diffusion of powers. There is not the same
generally recognised and agreed definition for civil society or for civil society
organisations as there is for electorates and political parties. However, as the growing
number of institutions and organisations and their evolution bear testimony, these new
polities, this new form of complementary politics, may be 'messy' but it will
nevertheless become increasingly apparent and increasingly important.
11
Deontological problems range from the existence of Councils from non-democratic countries,
through Councils with governmental aspects, to the governmental status that recognition as a true
International Organisation would bring.
12
Author’s notes.