Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
South European democracies created deep distributive trade-offs, both between
and within countries. Similarly, the wave of democratization that followed the
collapse of the Soviet Union triggered the most recent enlargement to the East.
Following the end of the Cold War tensions, and troubled by the political insta-
bility in Russia, the former European Free Trade Association (EFTA) states
bordering the Union applied for membership. Naturally, the core members of
the EU were worried about the income gap between the current and potential
members of the union, and thus pushed for discriminatory membership and
temporary restrictions to the mobility of workers (Schneider
2007
). But they
decided to pursue the enlargement anyway to expand their area of economic
influence and ensure that the belt of countries separating them from the new
Russia was economically and politically stable.
4
At this point, it is critical to distinguish again between the
factors that trigger
the process from the factors that
drive how the process subsequently evolves
.
There is clearly an exogenous element in the fact that external circumstances
altered the pre-conditions for the Union's enlargement. Before the collapse of
the Berlin Wall, none of these countries could choose their political regime,
and therefore the process ultimately leading to enlargement could not start
in the first place. But EU members linked their negotiation strategies during
enlargement itself to their relative position within the existing fiscal structure of
the Union. By implication, the risk of large population movements within the
Union is also part of the same endogenous process. Concerns about mobility
were central to the enlargement process and, as shown in
Chapter 4
, played an
important role in the design of redistribution within the EU. Contrary to the
cases of Germany, Canada, and the United States there is no external event,
such as the Depression or Reunification, over which members of the Union
have no effective veto. In consequence, the case for truly exogenous changes in
economic geography proves much harder to make.
The same ambiguity about the sources of contentions over fiscal structures
applies to the case of Spain (Le on-Alfonso
2007
). The democratic regime inher-
ited a fully centralized system of public insurance provision, and a fully cen-
tralized tax system. At the same time, the Constitution of 1978 set in motion a
highly asymmetric process of decentralization. By virtue of historical precedent,
two regions, the Basque Country and Navarra, enjoyed full fiscal autonomy
and control over a wide range of policies from the outset. A second group
(Galicia, Catalonia, and Andalusia), allegedly those regions with some histori-
cal pedigree derived from a tradition of nationalist political mobilization, could
use a fast track to establish their regional institutions and assume control over
an increasing array of policies. Finally, the rest of the seventeen regions would
follow the “normal” track. Over time, all three groups gained control over
policies such as education, health, or infrastructure development. Virtually,
every public policy involving service provision (including health, education,
4
On the politics of enlargement, see also Schimmelfennig (
2001
); and Pl umper, Schneider and
Troeger (
2005
).
