Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales in the European Community/ Union,

ABSTRACT

Despite its supranational characteristics, the EU remains to no small extent an intergovernmental entity. By default, therefore, its key players are the governments of its member states. Consequently the EU has posed something of a challenge for its regions and stateless nations. Until recently, to no small degree, they were relegated to mere bystanders as the European ‘experiment’ progressed. Indeed, for the EC’s ﬁrst three decades, formally, they were for the most part excluded from a direct involvement in EC policy formulation. More particularly, as the EC acquired more and more competence it encroached increasingly on those areas of policy which, hitherto, fell within the exclusive competence of the regions, or which they shared with their central governments. The net result was that, over time, authority to make decisions in a swathe of policy ﬁelds resided increasingly in Brussels. However, in the aftermath of the SEA, it became increasingly untenable for governments, in federal polities especially, to monopolise the conduct of European aﬀairs. It was less feasible for them to defend the premise that relations with the EC in a classic sense could be regarded as ‘foreign policy’ and thus should remain purely within the ambit of the central government. Rather, domestic policy had been ‘Europeanized’. In eﬀect the dividing line between domestic and European policy matters had become ‘blurred’ as a result of European integration (Jeﬀery 1997a). Accordingly, territorial administrations in the regions and stateless nations began to undergo ‘Europeanization’. Europeanization is a multifaceted term, and there is no consensus on its

exact meaning. Olsen suggested that there was a number of possible interpretations, including ‘the emergence of European level institutions’ and the ‘domestic impact of European-level institutions’. Essentially, these two forms of Europeanization were inter-connected. Institutionally, the extent to which Europeanization evolved at the European tier of government had a resonance domestically (J.P. Olsen c2002). Thus it could be supposed that Europeanization has been an incremental process at the territorial level.1 Primarily, this can be attributed to the manner by which the EU has evolved as a result of successive treaties starting with the EEC (1957), followed by the SEA (1986), the Treaty on European Union (1992), the Treaty of Amsterdam (1997), the Treaty of Nice (2001) and (if it is ratiﬁed) the Treaty of Lisbon (2007). As the

EC and its policies began to aﬀect the regions directly, the latter had little option but to respond. In addition, the reform of the structural funds in 1988 helped to fuel regional mobilization. Not only was EC regional aid more substantive than hitherto, from this point on, in theory at least, the regions were supposed to be ‘partners’ with regard to the implementation of the funds (Marks 1993). Yet territorial Europeanization was not merely concerned with acquiring EC aid, it was more pro-active. For example, it involved collaboration and networking, an underlying aim of which was to inﬂuence EU policy making. It therefore included the direct lobbying of the EU’s institutions and attempts to inﬂuence the EC’s wider agenda (John 1997: 133). In sum, sub-state actors re-structured their organizations over time and they reorientated their strategies, as bit by bit the EC began to aﬀect their activities (see for example, Keating and Jones 1985; Jones and Keating 1995; Jeﬀery 1997b). Whilst few, if any, regions could ignore European integration, some were

better able to mobilize than others by virtue of the political authority which they had at their disposal. This appeared especially to be the case in federal polities, where authority was ‘shared’ between the state and sub-state tiers of government. Transcending that was the ideal that both tiers of government aimed to work well together by dint of their commitment to ‘federal loyalty’. Consequently, the German Länder attained greater inﬂuence over European aﬀairs during the latter part of the 1980s and continued into the 1990s (Gerstenlauer 1985, 1995, Jeﬀery 1997b). Initially they adopted a twin-track approach in their bid to secure more inﬂuence over the EC during the late 1980s. They played a leading role in the mobilization of the ‘third level’ (i.e. the territorial tier of government in the EC), and they also endeavoured to secure certain rights over the formulation of European policy in Germany (Börzel 2002, Jeﬀery 1997b). Third level mobilization did yield some tangible results at Maastricht, thanks to pressure from the Länder and the Belgian Sub-national Entities (SNE). Under the Treaty on European Union, where their state’s constitutions so allowed, ministers from sub-state administrations could vote in the Council (initially as representatives of their state). The formation of the Committee of the Regions (CoR) formally incorporated the regions into the EU’s policy processes in those areas which fell within its competence. Last, the principle of subsidiarity promised much. It was in part intended that where possible, as a matter of principle, decisions would be taken at the closest level to the citizen (see Chapter 4 for further material on subsidiarity). By the early 1990s, the Länder had also secured a number of mechanisms

within the German polity which ensured that they enjoyed, collectively, greater inﬂuence over those EU matters which fell within their competence, as well as a potential veto over further transfers of competence to Brussels. The same applied to Belgium’s SNEs (Kerremans and Beyers 1997). The situation was less clear-cut for Spain’s Autonomous Communities, however, with the Basques, in particular, appearing to lose a degree of autonomy as a result of

European integration (Bourne 2000, 2002). Consequently, it could be supposed that a region’s constitutional status could have a distinct bearing on its potential inﬂuence vis-à-vis the EU, both internally in relation to its central government’s formulation of EU policy, and externally with regard to the EU itself (Bourne 2003). Given the relative success of the Länder and the Belgian SNEs, it could therefore be inferred that regions in federal polities were best equipped to reap the beneﬁts of Europeanization, thereby calling into question the inﬂuence of territories in more centralized states, such as the UK. As far as the UK is concerned, it is a union state, comprising a number of

distinct territories, where formally sovereignty resides with the Westminster parliament. In theory, this is where supreme political authority is situated. This arrangement does not lend itself to a federal system of government, whereby sovereignty is ‘shared’ between the diﬀerent tiers of government, because that would subvert the Westminster model (Keating and Jones 1995) and so threaten the current constitution in its entirety. However, sovereignty itself is something of a chimera, thanks in part to European integration. It could be claimed that by virtue of their membership of the EU, the member states are no longer wholly sovereign, whilst the EU itself is not yet sovereign either. Thus the term ‘post-sovereign’ could be a more apt description of the current situation for the EU and its member states (MacCormick 1999, Keating 2001). Even so, a primary concern of successive UK governments since the UK’s accession to the EC in 1973 has been, where possible, to defend the country’s (perceived) ‘sovereignty’. Prior to constitutional change in 1999, the UK’s situation was complicated

further by the system of government in the UK, or more precisely by the distribution of authority between the ‘centre’ and the ‘periphery’. So far as Northern Ireland, Scotland andWales were concerned, each had its own territorial branches of government, albeit that its autonomy diﬀered. In the decades following the establishment of a Scottish Oﬃce in 1885, Scotland enjoyed what can be termed ‘administrative devolution’, whereby it possessed a degree of autonomy in relation to the implementation of domestic policies that were purely Scottish (Mitchell: 2003). Under the Government of Ireland Act (1920), the North of Ireland secured a form of executive devolution, which lasted until the imposition of ‘direct rule’ by Westminster in 1972 as a result of ‘the Troubles’. Wales did not secure its own territorial branch of government until 1965 and to begin with at least the Welsh Oﬃce had a much smaller remit than its counterpart in Scotland. That began to change in 1975 when it secured ‘signiﬁcant economic powers’. During the Thatcher and Major governments it was assigned a tranche of additional responsibilities including agriculture, health, and education (B.J. Jones 1997: 61). Despite the initial absence of Welsh self-government, there was the view

that the periphery enjoyed a fair degree of autonomy from the centre – especially between 1926 and 1961. According to Bulpitt, there existed within the UK a ‘dual polity’. In eﬀect the centre had its own polity which concentrated on matters of ‘high politics’, such as defence and foreign policy, whilst the

periphery also had a distinctive polity, which focused on domestic or ‘low politics’. According to this perspective, the periphery tended to be governed by acquiescent Conservative elites. Bulpitt’s thesis partially rested on the premise that the eﬃcacy of this arrangement was dependent on the existence of an amenable external environment (e.g. empire, victory in war and the Commonwealth). Conversely, therefore, a hostile environment could undermine the dual polity. Hence, membership of the EC posed its own threat to the dual polity, not least because potentially it could undermine elite consensus (Bulpitt 1983). Bulpitt believed that from the 1960s onwards, the dual polity was increas-

ingly under threat. First, the Conservative elites in the periphery were losing electoral support. Second, in the face of the UK’s economic decline, the centre intervened directly in the periphery as part of its attempts at economic modernization, which called into question the worth of the local elites. In addition, the dual polity was weakened further by the deteriorating security situation in Northern Ireland and the growing support for nationalist parties in Scotland and in Wales in the years immediately pre-dating the UK’s accession to the EC in 1973. Thus, just as the UK was set to join the EC, it was faced not just with a loss of political authority to Brussels but also pressure from the periphery for greater autonomy. Cumulatively, these various forces threatened to strain a system of government which, though superﬁcially pragmatic and informal, was also inherently hierarchical. Ultimately, as far as EC aﬀairs were concerned, the peripheral administrations were subordinate2

to the centre, where nominally (in the aftermath of accession) supreme political authority continued to reside at Westminster. From the perspective of the Welsh and Scottish administrations especially,

accession to the EC was something of a step into the unknown. Potentially, they stood to lose autonomy, as decision-making looked set to become both physically and politically even more remote. Instead of decisions being taken in London, all that would occur in the aftermath of accession was that, where the EC’s treaties so allowed, policies would be determined in Brussels. Hence, it could be claimed that their political dependency3 would be exacerbated further by European integration. Hitherto, they had enjoyed direct access to decision-makers in London. For instance, each territory had its own Secretary of State, who was a member of the UK cabinet, thereby ensuring that their interests could be promoted and defended at the highest levels of government. But now their access to decision-making would be indirect, in those areas of policy which fell within Brussels’ ambit. As far as intergovernmental channels were concerned, their interests would be represented by UK ministers from the ‘lead departments’4 in the Council of Ministers (since re-named the Council of the EU). Thus, right from the moment the UK joined the EC, this threatened the relative autonomy Scotland and Wales enjoyed (Northern Ireland possessing little, if any, substantive autonomy following ‘direct rule’). However, the UK’s accession coincided with growing demands for con-

stitutional change. This was most pronounced in Northern Ireland where

secessionists had been engaged in armed conﬂict, the aim of which was the reuniﬁcation of Ireland. Whilst the situation in Northern Ireland was somewhat exceptional, compared to that of Scotland or Wales, as far as the latter were concerned there had been mounting pressure for greater autonomy during the late 1960s as the nationalist parties looked set to make headway at the polls. That contributed to the establishment of a Royal Commission on the Constitution in 1969, the aim of which was to assess whether there was a favourable climate for legislative devolution.5 Clearly this stood to be aﬀected by the UK’s membership of the EC and the issue led to deep divisions within the Commission when it published its ﬁnal report in 1973. Whilst the report maintained that the case for devolution would not be weakened as a result of the EC, two of its members, Crowther Hunt and Peacock, published a Memorandum of Dissent.6 The latter believed that devolution would be a recipe for confusion, as there would be ambiguity over the divisions of competence and there was no formal access point for regional governments in the EC, at that moment in time. They therefore argued that there was little scope for legislative devolution as a result. Despite the concerns of the ‘dissenters’, the UK Government published a

White Paper in 1975 proposing legislative devolution for Scotland and Wales.7 The Government viewed devolution as a priority after the Scottish National Party (SNP) made signiﬁcant gains at Westminster during 1974. However, the issue of how the (proposed) devolved administrations could best be represented in Brussels still had to be resolved. The paper therefore explained that European aﬀairs rested with the UK government and that the representation of territorial interests would be based primarily on ‘pragmatic arrangements’.8 As it happened, legislative devolution came to nought on this occasion, following referendums in Scotland and Wales in 1979. Even so, it had been apparent for some time that the EC would have far reaching consequences for the UK’s territories, regardless of the constitutional architecture within the UK. One such example was Scotland where well before the UK’s accession to

the EC, its political and economic elite was divided over the pros and cons of EC membership. In 1961 the leadership of the SNP wrote to Harold Macmillan, demanding the ‘re-convention’ of the English and Scottish parliaments on the basis that Westminster lacked the authority to cede sovereignty to the EC. In 1967 the Scottish Trades Union Congress was strongly opposed to membership on the grounds that it would weaken trade with the Commonwealth. However, the Scottish branch of the Confederation of British Industry was broadly in favour. By this time, civil servants in Edinburgh viewed the impending accession with a combination of trepidation and excitement. On the one hand they were concerned that it might result in extra work. On the other they wondered if the Scottish Oﬃce would take the lead in relation to those areas of policy which aﬀected Scotland most, otherwise they risked being related to little more than ‘an English appendage’. By 1971, however, it was apparent that this was not to be, but senior ﬁgures were intent

at the very least on ensuring that key individuals were seconded to Brussels, so that they could ‘work away on the inside’ (Wright 2005). In the aftermath of accession it soon became clear that EC membership

was less popular in Scotland and Northern Ireland than in Wales or England. As far as Northern Ireland was concerned, the Protestant majority’s doubts stemmed from the perception that membership eroded UK sovereignty, and in so doing, it posed, potentially, a threat to the Union. Equally, sections of the Catholic community regarded membership more positively for much the same reasons (Keating and Jones 1995: 94-95). With regard to Scotland, there was the concern that the EC was too remote and that the terms of entry did not suit the country. Thus in the run-up to the 1975 referendum on membership of the EC, some in the SNP called for a ‘no vote’ on the basis that Scotland should secede from the rest of the UK and re-apply for membership on its own terms. In addition elements within the Scottish Labour Party were opposed on the grounds that the EC was concerned primarily with promoting the interests of big business (Wright 2005). Plaid Cymru, Wales’ nationalist party, shared similar misgivings to those of the SNP. But Welsh support for the EC during the early years of UK membership diﬀered markedly from that of Scotland and Northern Ireland. Whilst 66.5 per cent voted in favour in Wales during the 1975 referendum, the ﬁgures for Scotland and Northern Ireland, were 58.4 per cent and 52.1 per cent respectively. That compared with 68.7 per cent for England and an average of 67.2 per cent for the UK as a whole.9 Yet even though it was early days, as far as the UK’s membership of the EC was concerned, it was already apparent that the latter was having an impact at the territorial level. The Scottish Oﬃce, for example, could not avoid becoming entangled in

European aﬀairs. It took a close interest in EC funding and the CAP.10 It had also been concerned with the evolving CFP, the legitimacy of which was open to question. That was because the original six member states had established a policy on ﬁsheries just prior to the UK’s accession with the result that the UK Government was presented with a fait accompli, whilst Heath and his government did not view ﬁsheries as a ‘red line’ issue. The CFP was especially contentious north of the Border because the bulk of UK catches was landed in Scotland and the industry was a signiﬁcant employer in the north and east of the country. Consequently, during the ﬁrst ten years of membership, the Scottish Oﬃce sought, with some success, to defend the interests of Scottish ﬁshermen as the CFP developed more fully. The eventual agreement on quotas in 1983, the preservation of the six-to twelve-mile coastal bands (around the UK) and the creation of a Shetland Box could each be regarded as positive outcomes (Wright: 1996). However, as time went by, the CFP became increasingly unpopular both in Scotland and in parts of England (e.g. the South West). During the 1980s, the Europeanization of the Scottish Oﬃce gathered pace,

with the SEA being of particular signiﬁcance. As more and more decisions were taken in Brussels, responsibility for European matters was gradually

decentralized from London to Edinburgh. This did not relate so much to strategic matters, which remained the preserve of the lead departments in Whitehall. Rather it was concerned with more technical areas of policy such as water purity or conservation. This was because the departments in London were becoming overloaded. So, it made sense for the Scottish Oﬃce to take on additional European work. In addition, it was apparent that the Scottish Oﬃce needed to inﬂuence the EC more directly, as it could not wholly rely on the lead departments to promote Scottish interests (Wright 1995). Thus, towards the end of the decade the Scottish Oﬃce increasingly opened up informal channels with the European Commission, albeit that it was intent on ensuring that its activities would not conﬂict with the UK line on any given policy. The Welsh Oﬃce also underwent a degree of Europeanization. In parti-

cular, its Economic Regional Policy and European Aﬀairs Divisions became key players (B.J. Jones 1997: 66). As far as the former was concerned, that was unsurprising given the prominence of EC structural funds. In addition, at the instigation of Peter Walker, its former Secretary of State, it established relations with four other regions in the EC.11 Links such as these were signiﬁcant, because they aﬃrmed that the Welsh Oﬃce was not wholly dependent on the conduits provided by departments in London when it wished to engage in the European political arena as a player in its own right. However, as was the case with the Scottish Oﬃce, in essence much of this was inherently informal. Whilst a number of Northern Ireland departments was involved in EC

aﬀairs (e.g. the departments of agriculture and education), the Department of Finance and Personnel had the ‘central co-ordinating role, in so far as it existed’. That was primarily by virtue of its involvement in the implementation of EC structural funds in the province (McGowan and Murphy 2000:11). However, that meant that most of its eﬀort was devoted to the management of the funding schemes per se.12 Arguably, therefore, Europeanization in Northern Ireland was relatively limited prior to 1999. Moreover, what Europeanization there had been, was to no small degree driven by its civil service. More particularly, there was an absence of political leadership. Given the circumstances, deﬁciencies such as these were understandable. UKministers would have been more concerned about resolving the conﬂict than defending the province’s European interests. Despite the deﬁciencies which they faced, the territorial oﬃces of government were by no means alone in developing links with the EC, however. Local authorities also took an interest in European matters.13 Although

their European activities dated back to the 1970s, when Strathclyde Regional Council succeeded in securing EC funding, the SEA was something of a turning point. From that moment on, local councils were faced with a plethora of European regulations. The SEA also presaged the reform of the structural funds in 1988, a result of which was that local authorities participated in the funding partnerships which bid for and, if they were successful, implemented EC aid programmes. Consequently, a number of Scottish

councils established specialist EC units in order to co-ordinate their EC work, and some employed consultants or seconded staﬀ in Brussels. For their part, the eight Welsh county councils established the Assembly of Welsh Counties, part of whose remit was to promote Wales’ interests in the EC (Keating and Jones 1995). However, the capacity of the Welsh local authorities to forge links with other regional bodies in the EC was potentially circumscribed by legal and economic factors. Nonetheless, the Assembly of Welsh Counties did eventually develop relations with pan-European networks such as the Conference of Maritime Regions and the Assembly of European Regions (B.J. Jones 1997:67). Although the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) acted as the umbrella body for Scottish local government, individual councils, or more especially the former Regional Councils, tended to deal with the EC on a bilateral basis. That came to a halt, when they were abolished in 1996. For a short while thereafter, COSLA took a more leading role but that was somewhat curtailed when it lacked suﬃcient ﬁnance and its EC specialists left. Governmental bodieswere by nomeans the sole actors from the UK’s territories

to take a close interest in European aﬀairs. The same applied increasingly to territorial pressure groups. Some, such as the ﬁshermen and the farmers, had been involved in lobbying Brussels right from the moment the UK joined the EC. The same applied to the Scotch Whisky Association. Others became involved in lobbying Brussels after it became apparent that they could no longer ignore the EC. One such example was Scottish Financial Enterprise (SFE). This organization had been established in part because of the ‘big bang’14 and also because of the inception of a single market in the EC. As far as the latter was concerned, the underlying concern was that regional ﬁnancial centres such as the one in Edinburgh could ﬁnd themselves marginalized. Consequently, SFE helped to establish the Association of European Regional Financial Centres, thereby enabling its members to mount a joint lobby in the EC. The situation for Wales diﬀered inasmuch as until 1964 a distinctive Welsh lobby was less evident. That changed with the creation of the Welsh Oﬃce and the manifestation of a Welsh interest became more evident during the years of Thatcher’s government (Keating and Jones 1995: 103). Over time Welsh pressure groups did lobby Brussels direct in part because they did not perceive that they would get much sympathy from Thatcher.15 In sum, from a territorial perspective, activities such as these indicated that authority across a swathe of policy areas no longer necessarily resided in London. Rather, increasingly it was situated in Brussels – something which was to attract the attention of nationalist parties in Wales and also in Scotland. Despite their initial scepticism, the SNP and Plaid Cymru became rather

more amenable to the EC, as time went by. Plaid Cymru’s enthusiasm stemmed from the EC’s assistance for small farms and minority languages in rural Welsh-speaking areas in the west of the country (Keating and Jones, 1995: 97). The SNP’s change of tack can be attributed, in part, to Jim Sillars. Originally

a member of the Scottish Labour Party, he had once been opposed to EC membership. He eventually quit Labour to form his own splinter party, after which he joined the SNP. By the mid-1980s he warmed to the idea of Scotland seceding from the UK and becoming a member state in the EC in its own right (see, for example, Sillars 1986). Within the SNP he was by no means a lone ﬁgure with regard to this, however, and the SNP’s key objective became ‘independence in Europe’ as the 1980s drew to a close. All in all, therefore, the adequacy of territorial representation in the EC became ever more politicized during the late 1980s and on into the 1990s. The net eﬀect was that, increasingly, the onus rested with the UK government to demonstrate that territorial interests were safe in its hands, during a period when the impact of the EC was becoming ever more extensive. That was especially so for Scotland. In the run-up to the Maastricht Treaty, the Scottish Oﬃce undertook a

review of its EC work. Such a review was by no means restricted to the Scottish Oﬃce, however, as other departments in the government did much the same (Smith 2003). However, the ﬁndings of the review were notable by virtue of the extent to which the EU had impacted on its activities. The review noted that some 1,200 oﬃcials (amounting to 20 per cent of its staﬀ) were engaged in EC-related work and that few of its departments were unaffected. The ensuing recommendations called for EC training to be up-graded, more staﬀ secondments to the EC’s institutions and a further enhancement of informal links with the EC (Scottish Oﬃce 1991a, 1991b). As far as the latter was concerned, it was suggested that oﬃcials should remain in Brussels for an extra day or so when they visited so that they could network with European oﬃcials. However, by this time each of the three territories was set to have its own bureau in Brussels. The establishment of Scotland Europa, the Northern Ireland Centre in

Europe (NICE) and the Wales European Centre in Brussels was indicative of the need for a more permanent presence in the EC’s capital. Even so, their conception was potentially contentious. The attendant risk was that they might be misconstrued as quasi-embassies. That particularly applied to Scotland Europa, as both the Scottish Trades Union Congress and local authorities viewed it with concern as a vehicle to promote a distinctively Scottish agenda in the EC (Mazey and Mitchell 1993: 115). In time however, neither the Scottish Oﬃce nor UKRep objected. As far as UKRep was concerned, it would ‘siphon oﬀ’ some of its workload and the Scottish Oﬃce had no objection as ﬁrst and foremost, Scotland Europa’s role focused primarily on economic rather than overtly political matters. The latter therefore took a close interest in EC aid, and it provided its clients with regular brieﬁngs on EC policies. Despite the concern that they must not have a political remit, however, it was hoped that these bureaux would enhance their territory’s inﬂuence within the EC. That particularly applied to NICE. As one of its founder members later observed, the rationale behind its inception was that it would help oﬀset the weakness of the province’s representation in the EC. On

the one hand he believed that ‘it played a very important role’.16 Yet it was also evident that NICE faced a number of hurdles, including a lack of resources and a somewhat strained relationship with the direct rule administration. He claimed that not only did ministers fail to appreciate the ‘need to act quickly and to build on the work of NICE’, but also the direct rule administration had a ‘cumbersome and old fashioned approach to policy making and doing business’.17 For its part, whilst the Wales European Centre could be viewed as something of a ‘success’ because it ‘raised Wales’ proﬁle in Brussels’, it too was burdened by increased costs and strains with the Welsh Oﬃce over its role (B.J. Jones 1997: 68). Hence, although each of these bureaux endeavoured to cultivate informal links with the EC’s institutions and with other regional bureaux, their capacity to inﬂuence the EC’s policy agenda appeared to be somewhat limited during the 1990s. That rather stood in contrast with their German counterparts, which enjoyed better resources and which were more pro-active (Jeﬀery 1997c). Although it is tempting to believe that there was something of a Westmin-

ster by-pass, in the sense that territorial pressure groups in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland tended to circumvent London when they wished to inﬂuence the EU, the reverse was more apt. To no small extent the UK government acted as a gatekeeper between the territories and Brussels by virtue of the primacy of the Council of the EU. In addition, the government was ultimately responsible for overseeing the implementation of EU policy in the UK. Moreover, the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Oﬃces were all territorial branches of the UK government. The net result was that few interest groups chose to ignore or circumvent the territorial administrations when they sought to inﬂuence EU policy making. That particularly applied to the farming lobby for example, despite the fact that the sector had its own transEuropean umbrella group. During the 1990s the farming community faced a number of challenges, a

good number of which was connected to the EU. That is unsurprising, given that competence for agriculture rested with the EU as a result of the CAP. Two issues which particularly occupied the minds of the farming lobby were the proposals to reform the CAP and the (then) forthcoming accession of states from Central and Eastern Europe. Rather than deal direct with the (former) Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) in London, the National Farmers Union Scotland focused its eﬀorts on the agriculture department at the Scottish Oﬃce. In so doing, it typiﬁed the decentralized approach adopted by agricultural pressure groups in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England (albeit in the latter’s case it did not have its own territorial department as such and it therefore lobbied MAFF direct). The underlying intention was that by mounting joint lobbies of their respective territorial administrations, in relation to a given issue such as the reform of the CAP or the terms of accession, they could bring greater pressure to bear on the government. That, however, rested on the twin assumptions that their territorial departments enjoyed suﬃcient inﬂuence within MAFF, and

that the UK government itself was able to inﬂuence decision-making in Brussels. That, though, was not always the case. The BSE scare was particularly illuminating (see also Chapter 4) because it

demonstrated just how little inﬂuence the UK farming community possessed at times over EU aﬀairs. The crisis came to a head in 1996 following global concern that BSE, which had aﬀected livestock, could be transmitted to humans. The UK government hoped that UK exports of beef products would be maintained but the EU decided that there should be a global ban. Although this eventually did not apply to farmers in Northern Ireland, their colleagues elsewhere in the UK fared less well. Despite the objections of the UK government, eﬀectively there was nothing it could do (apart from mount a challenge in the ECJ and disrupt EU business) and the ban remained in force, much to the dismay of the farming community. The BSE crisis was particularly salient as far as the promotion of territorial interests was concerned. First, it was indicative of the extent to which ‘authority’ now resided in Brussels. It served to aﬃrm that the EU could impose its will on parts of the UK, regardless of whether the UK government agreed or not. Second, it served to highlight the UK’s relative lack of allies within the EU at that moment in time. That is understandable, given the increasingly, eurosceptic attitude adopted by the Thatcher and Major governments (see Chapter 4). The BSE crisis, however, was by no means the only issue that called into question the extent to which territorial actors in the UK could inﬂuence European matters. Whilst the UK ﬁshing sector secured a reasonable outcome with regard to

the CFP in 1983 (see p. 133), by the end of the decade and on into the 1990s the industry was in crisis as ﬁsh stocks began to decline markedly. The root cause was technology creep whereby the ﬁshermen were more successful due to new aids such as sonar. In eﬀect their potential to catch ﬁsh increased three to four per cent year-on-year. Faced with the slump in ﬁsh stocks, one option would have been to decommission a proportion of the ﬂeet. In return the EC would have made aid available for modernization under its Multi-Annual Guidance Programme. But the then-Conservative government decided to abandon decommissioning temporarily in 1989, with the result that the Scottish ﬂeet, for example, did not markedly decline in terms of the number of ﬁshing vessels and stocks came under even more pressure during the 1990s (Wright 1996, 2000c). The situation was apparently exacerbated further, according to The Royal Society of Edinburgh, when scientists recommended over-generous catch limits for North Sea cod during the 1990s.18 That said, if an eﬀective decommissioning scheme had been in situ at the start of the decade then the crisis might not have evolved in the way that it did. The implementation of the structural funds also served to expose the extent

to which the UK’s territories could be aﬀected adversely by decisions taken in London. In theory, EC aid was supposed to be additional to UK regional expenditure. In the event, the decision was taken by successive UK governments that this was not to be, as EC structural funds were to be used to oﬀset

the UK’s contributions to the EC’s budget (Rhodes 1974; Keating and Waters 1985; Mitchell 1997, Wright 2005). That was primarily because the UKwas a net contributor to the EC. The net result was that EC monies were not genuinely additional until the Kerr/Millan agreement of 1991 at the earliest. Even then the issue of additionality helped bring down Alun Michael, Wales’ First Minister, as late as February 2000, indicating that problems persisted beyond the constitutional reform of 1999. Consequently, Scotland and Wales received less regional aid than they were entitled to. This was especially signiﬁcant in the aftermath of the funds’ reform in 1988 when the amount of money allocated by the EC to the funding schemes increased markedly. In sum, these deﬁciencies served to exemplify the potential inadequacy of the largely pragmatic inter-governmental mechanisms within the UK. Essentially the pragmatic arrangements, which governed territorial inﬂu-

ence over the formulation of European policy within the UK, were a mix of the formal and the ad hoc. The pre-1999 arrangements have been well documented by Bulmer et al. in British Devolution and European Policy-Making. These were an amalgam of committees in Whitehall, a forum which convened on Fridays, together with a plethora of less formal meetings.19 Although the Cabinet Oﬃce European Secretariat was ‘the key co-ordinating agency (Bulmer et al. 2002: 20), individual departments in London acted as the lead with regard to sectoral policies. When EU legislative proposals were despatched to the lead ministry, it was up to the latter to decide if there was a territorial dimension to a particular proposal. If that were so, then the proposal would be despatched to the relevant territorial departments (e.g. the Welsh Oﬃce). This arrangement was not always satisfactory. For example, there were times when the Scottish Oﬃce was forgotten completely or consulted too late in the day (Wright 2005). However, attempts were made to remedy this in 1995 (Bulmer et al. 2002: 111). Where necessary, the lead department would convene an inter-depart-

mental committee which would be attended by oﬃcials from a variety of government ministries including, if necessary, those from territorial departments. But this was not without its deﬁciencies; some Scottish interest groups maintained that the oﬃcials from the territorial departments were too junior and risked being out-gunned (Wright 2000a, 2000b, 2005). When oﬃcials were unable to inﬂuence the outcome to their satisfaction, and where the issue was suﬃciently important to warrant it, the matter could be referred to their ministers. In the main, however, ministers from the territorial departments rarely attended the Council of the EU, although of the three departments, ministers from the Scottish Oﬃce tended to be more prominent in Brussels (Bulmer et al. 2002: 19). Consequently, ministers at the territorial ministries were in some respects ‘bargain hunters’ within the UK polity, so far as European aﬀairs were concerned. They could act as a fallback if their oﬃcials lacked the necessary inﬂuence in London. If they wished to inﬂuence a colleague in the lead department with regard to a legislative proposal emanating from the EU, they could write to the individual concerned or have a quiet

word ‘behind the speaker’s chair’ in the House of Commons. If necessary, they could refer the matter to their Secretary of State. The territorial Secretaries of State sat on Cabinet committees, one of which dealt with European matters.20 So, they already had an involvement in EC aﬀairs, albeit that this related primarily to matters of high politics such as enlargement or the single currency, rather than technical/routine policy matters, such as a regulation on water purity. In sum the eﬃcacy of these arrangements was dependent ﬁrst, on the extent

to which the relevant territorial minister could promote and defend the issue at hand, within the UK polity. Second, it was also dependent on the willingness of the relevant UK department to accommodate a particular territorial interest when it was formulating its position with regard to EC policy. Third, it was also dependent on the capacity of the department and by default the UK government to promote and defend that interest within the EC. This became more problematic as the 1980s drew to a close and it was further exacerbated during Major’s administration, not least because he led an administration which was deeply divided over the EU. More particularly, there was little evidence of strategic political leadership at the territorial level with regard to Scotland (Wright 2005) and arguably the same applied to Wales, which shared a similar form of territorial administration, albeit with less autonomy than the Scots enjoyed. Moreover, there was no sign that subsidiarity would apply to the territories of the UK in the aftermath of the TEU.21

Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales in the European Community/ Union, 1973–98

ABSTRACT