Spanish Coordination In The European Union

Abstract

Spain’s successful negotiation of the habitats directive can be explained by the political salience of this particular issue (the priority attached to the strategy whereby the EU had to be convinced of the need to link environmental protection to the provision of special funds) and by the nature of the domestic political system, characterized by its powerful and autonomous executive and by the noncooperative system of interest intermediation. Above all, the triumph of the Spanish strategy is due to the ability of successive heads of government to tightly control leading EU issues by not allowing a highly departmentalized state administration and the regional governments to be too closely involved in community negotiations. The absence of formal mechanisms that would allow contending interest groups to partake in the decision process, thereby reducing time-consuming procedures and administrative costs, must also be taken into account. As a result, Europeanization has scarcely made any progress in Spain.