Being Small in a Big Union: Structural Disadvantages, Counterbalancing Strategies, and the Varying Success of Small States in European Policy Making

Panke , Diana (2009) Being Small in a Big Union: Structural Disadvantages, Counterbalancing Strategies, and the Varying Success of Small States in European Policy Making. In: UNSPECIFIED.

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Abstract

Compared to big states, small states face resource-related disadvantages in European negotiations. They have fewer votes, less economic power, fewer administrative resources and less staff and experts in policy fields. This leads to disadvantages in negotiations. Yet small states can concentrate their limited resources on issues of great importance and can punch above their weight. This is especially effective through argumentative instead of bargaining-based strategies and requires that arguments resonate well with the views of the Council, the Presidency, the Commission or the Parliament. The Vodka-case illustrates how small states applied a broad variety of policy-shaping strategies and achieved a compromise outcome very close to their wishes and far away from the Commission’s policy proposal, although the UK-led oppositional coalition had more bargaining leverage than the Vodkapurists.

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