Going beyond Paradiplomacy?
An Exploration based on the Establishment of
Regional Foreign and EU Policy Powers in
Belgium.
Peter Bursens
Jana Deforche
Department of Political Science
Universiteit Antwerpen
Sint Jacobstraat 2
B2000 Antwerpen
Department of Political Science
Universiteit Antwerpen
Sint Jacobstraat 2
B2000 Antwerpen
peter.bursens@ua.ac.be
jana.deforche@ua.ac.be
Paper to be presented at the UACES Conference
‘Exchanging Ideas on Europe 2008 Rethinking the European Union’
Edinburgh, 1-3 September
(first draft, not for citation)
1
Introduction: motivation, research question and outline
Attempts to understand and explain regional competences in foreign relations have been
predominantly carried out under the heading of ‘paradiplomacy’ (see, among others, Duchacek 1990,
Soldatos 1990, Michelmann 1990, Keating 1999, Hocking 1993, Aldecoa 1999, Paquin and Lachapelle
2005, Lecours 2002). So far, this paradiplomacy research has been very constructive in
conceptualising the external activities of regions and in making descriptive inventories of
paradiplomatic activities and instruments. In this paper, however, we argue that the paradiplomacy
framework doesn’t deliver satisfactory results regarding the explanation of regional foreign activities.
The question tackled in this paper is therefore whether insights from (historic) institutionalist theory
can serve as a useful complement to the paradiplomacy framework. Our aim is to contribute to the
future research agenda of paradiplomacy, and more in particular to the future development of an
explanatory framework, built upon the combination of paradiplomacy and institutionalism, that can
account for the variation in (the development of) foreign policy powers of regions.
We extrapolate our suggestions from the Belgian case. Most authors studying the competence
division in foreign relations in federal states agree that the Belgian case is rather unique: no other
federal system has assigned such far-reaching foreign policy powers to regions (see Craenen 1999,
Marks, Hooghe and Schakel 2008c, Blatter et al. 2008, Criekemans 2006, Paquin 2003). In this paper
we will present an institutionalist account of the development of regional foreign policy powers of the
Belgian subnational entities. We will focus on EU policy-making because it is particularly with regard to
Belgium’s European policy-making that the Belgian Regions and Communities’ full foreign policy
powers come into practice. Based on this narrative, we present some suggestions on how to combine
paradiplomacy and institutionalism in a future research agenda.
First, we present a short state of affairs of foreign policy and EU policy powers in Belgium.
Next, we turn to an overview of the paradiplomacy literature and more precisely of the way in which
this literature conceptualizes, describes and tries to explain the (evolution of) regional foreign
activities. We will then try to go beyond this literature and propose that the paradiplomacy framework
should be combined with a solid theoretical framework in order to explain why regions acquire foreign
policy powers and why particular regional external activities are developed in particular circumstances.
Next follows a narrative of the Belgian evolution of foreign policy-making combining paradiplomacy
and (historic) institutionalism. From this, we make a start for future research. We argue that actor
based historic institutionalism is able to give the paradiplomacy framework the necessary tools to
formulate hypotheses and explain variation in foreign competences division in federal states.
2
Foreign policy and EU policy powers in Belgium: current state of affairs
Article 1 of the 1993 Constitution states, “Belgium is a federal State composed of Communities
and Regions.” According to Articles 2 and 3, these entities are the French Community (Communauté
française de Belgique); the Flemish Community (Vlaamse Gemeenschap); the German Community
(Deutschsprachige Gemeinschaft); the Walloon Region (Région wallonne); the Flemish Region
(Vlaams Gewest); and the Capital Region of Brussels (Région de Bruxelles-Capitale or Brussels
Hoofdstedelijk Gewest). Thus, Belgium has a double federal structure comprised of two types of
constituent units. Regions, created for economic reasons because of demands by Wallonia, were
granted competences tied directly to territorial space. These include transport, road works,
employment policy, industrial policy (economic development), environmental policy, spatial and
structural planning, agriculture, housing policy, and trade. Communities, demanded by Flanders for
linguistic and cultural reasons, are responsible for education, personalized services, preventive health
care, culture, media, and use of language (“les matières personnalisables”). The divergent Walloon
and Flemish concerns were reconciled through this compromise of establishing the two types of
constituent units.
Today, these two types each manage their own sphere of competences and coexist on the
same territory. In addition, Communities do not have a fixed territorial base, meaning that Community
authorities have jurisdiction in more than one region. An obvious example is the organisation and
financing of Dutch-speaking activities and initiatives in the Capital Region of Brussels. In the Flemish
part of the country, Community and Region were fused in 1988. According to Article 137 of the 1993
Constitution, the Flemish region’s competences are exercised by the council (later called parliament)
and the government of the Flemish Community. See Deschouwer (2005) and Dumont (2006) for a
comprehensive overview of the Belgian federal system.
We now turn to the organisation of foreign policy in the Belgian federation. The
constitutional reform of 1988 introduced the in foro interno in foro externo principle for Community
competences. This principle refers to the right of the constituent Communities to conduct foreign
policy for those competences they have been constitutionally granted domestically, including therfore
policy matters such as language, culture, and education. The 1993 constitutional reform expanded this
principle to the competences of the constituent Regions. In other words, article 167 of the 1993
Constitution created the full alignment between internal and external competences. According to
Article 167, the King (i.e., the federal government) conducts Belgium’s international relations “without
prejudicing the competency of the Communities and the Regions to deal with international
cooperation, including the conclusion of treaties, for the fields that fall within their competences in
conformity with the Constitution or by virtue of the latter.” The same article also stipulates that “the
governments of the Communities and the Regions as defined in Article 121 each conclude, for those
3
areas that concern them, the treaties that fall within the realm of their Council’s (i.e., parliament’s)
competency.” In other words, the federal government lost the privilege of exclusively representing
constituent units abroad with respect to a substantial number of policy fields. There are no longer
federal culture or education ministers, for example. Consequently, unlike most federal governments in
other countries, the Belgian federal government cannot always play the role of gatekeeper between
domestic and international political arenas. In Belgium, the federal government cannot override
competences that belong to the constituent units. On the contrary, Belgian constituent units enjoy
fully legitimate and legal direct access to the international stage. This constitutional provision clearly
goes beyond what can be found in other federal countries. (Craenen 1999)
From a comparative perspective, the Belgian organization of jurisdictions is unique.
Constituent units are sovereign within the limits of their competences. They are under no form of
political tutelage by the federal government in jurisdictions belonging to them alone, including the
international aspects of those jurisdictions. At the same time, however, Article 167 is accompanied by
a series of mechanisms providing for information, cooperation, and substitution in order to ensure the
coherence of Belgium’s overall foreign policy. These accompanying measures are not redundant
because most competences—and therefore also their international elements—are shared by the
constituent units and the federal government. The federal government is exclusively responsible for
defense and security policy, whereas trade policy is partly federal and partly regional. Constituent
units and the federal government also share development policy, although this is slated to become a
regional matter (a plan that is still contested). Furthermore, most EU policies fall under both federal
and regional jurisdiction in the Belgian federation. See (Massard-Piérard and Bursens 2008) for more
details on the organization of the Belgian federation’s foreign policy).
We now discuss the EU related aspects of foreign policy in more detail. The European context
is particularly relevant since European integration involved far-reaching competence transfers to the
European level, including many regional competences. As a result, the strong foreign policy powers of
the Belgian federated entities reveal themselves above all with regard to Belgian European policy
making.
In 1994 Regions, Communities and the central government concluded a Cooperation
Agreement on EU policymaking which outlines (1) the internal arrangement for the coordination of
common positions and (2) the Belgian representation at the EU level. We succinctly summarize the
main issues of this agreement. See (Beyers, Bursens, and Kerremans 2001; Beyers, Delreux, and
Steensels 2004; Bursens and Geeraerts 2006) for more details in the organization of the Belgian
federation’s EU policy.
(1) The most important body in the coordination process is the Directorate European Affairs
(DEA) within the Federal Public Service (Ministry) for Foreign Affairs. This body organizes
coordination meetings with representatives from a wide range of federal and regional
4
executive agencies. It is crucial to note that this federal body needs to reach consensus to
back specific negotiation positions. If no consensus is reached, a similar exercise is made at
the level of the Inter-Ministerial Conference for Foreign Policy (ICFP) and eventually at the
level of the Concertation Committee (CC). In practice, consensus is nearly always reached at
the sectoral level or the DEA-level; only a handful of cases are discussed in inter-ministerial
meetings and almost no cases are discussed at the highest political level of the Concertation
Committee. In addition, the 1994 Cooperation Agreement makes the Federal Public Service
for Foreign Affairs a crucial player, because it is this Ministry that hosts the coordination
meetings. On top of this, meetings are prepared and chaired by federal administrative and
political officials. This makes clear that, despite the in foro interno in foro externo principle,
the role of the federal level remains more than substantial. At the same time, however, its
nature has considerably changed. By incorporating representatives from other government
levels and by granting these the same voting rights, the Directorate European Affairs is no
longer an exclusive federal body: it has become a cooperative inter-federal agency within a
constitutionally defined dual federal logic. The figure below presents a schematic overview of
the Belgian co-ordination procedure.
5
Figure 1: The organization of Belgium’s EU policy (source: (Beyers and Bursens 2006a))
B E L G IU M
E U R O PE A N E U N O N
(federal en regional level)
European
C om m ission
P er manent
R epr esentation
(federal / regional)
F oreign Affairs
(D E A)
W or king groups
P er manent
R epr esentation
(sectorae attachés)
or
n o con sen sus
or
Form ele of infor m ele,
sectorale of algem ene
coör dinatie op de
verschillende
bestuursniveaus
F oreign Affairs
(D E A)
C O R EP ER
F oreign Affairs
(D E A)
Per manent R epresentation
(ambassador or adj.)
n o con sen sus
Inter minist. C onfer ence
on For eign Policy
n o con sen sus
C oncertation C om.
C ouncil
federal / regional
m inistries
F ooreign Affairs
(D E A)
n o con sen sus
Inter minist. C onfer ence
on For eign Policy
n o con sen sus
C oncertation C om.
6
(2) Once a joint position is defined within the coordination mechanism, the 1994 Cooperation
Agreement provides for a system that determines who must represent this joint position at
the European level. Figure 3 describes this system, which is based on six categories. The
following logic applies. First, the issues on the agendas of the Council meetings are compared
with the domestic division of competencies. Next, the delegation leaders and assessors are
determined, with rotation when necessary (i.e. where Community or Regional representatives
are involved). For most policies, the Community (German-speaking, French or Flemish) or
Regional (Flemish, French or German) representatives rotate on a six-monthly basis.
Figure 2: rotation of representation in the Council of Ministers (source: (Beyers and Bursens 2006b))
Category
Internal
European Councils
division of
(up to June 2002)
Rotation
Representation in the Council
of Ministers
competencies
Delegation
Assessor
Leader
I
Dominantly
General Affairs, Ecofin,
federal
Budget, Justice, Telecom,
-
federal
/
federal
Regions /
Consumer Protection,
Development Cooperation
II
Shared, but
Single market, Public
Yes
more federal
Health, Energy,
(assessor)
Communities
Transport, Employment –
Social Affairs
III
IV
Shared, but
Industry, Research,
Yes
more regional
Environment
(leader)
Dominantly
Tourism, Culture,
Yes
regional
Education, Youth,
Regions
federal
Regions /
/
Communities
Housing, Land Use
V
Exclusively
Fisheries
No
Flemish Region
/
Agriculture
No
federal
Walloon Region
regional
VI
Dominantly
regional
and Flemish
Region
7
In short, no other federal system has granted its subnational entities so much foreign policy
powers as Belgium. In all areas of external relations, Regions and Communities enjoy full foreign
policy powers for the competences they posses in domestic politics. This becomes above all manifest
with respect to Belgium’s European policy-making. This unique situation is widely accepted in the
literature on paradiplomacy (Criekemans 2006; Paquin 2003), on multilevel governance (Marks,
Hooghe, and Schakel 2008b) and on federalism (Bursens, Förster, and Swenden 2007). The obvious
next question then becomes why Belgium is such an outlier. How can we understand and eventually
explain the evolution of the Belgian federal system and of its organization of foreign and European
policy in particular? In the next paragraph, we turn to the aspirations of the paradiplomacy literature
to do so. We will argue that the paradiplomacy concept lends itself perfectly to describe the foreign
policy constellation. However, to explain variation between federal states, we argue that we need to
go beyond the concept and link it to a sound theoretical framework.
Going beyond paradiplomacy: understanding the evolution of regional
foreign policy powers
Scholarly attempts to map and understand the foreign relations of regional entities most often
refer to the framework of paradiplomacy and in addition – with regard to the relation between
subnational and supranational governance levels in the EU – also to the framework of multilevel
governance. Er gebeurt verder niet veel met MLG…laten we dat dan niet beter weg hier? Het is denk
ik wel zinvol om MLG te vermelden als theoretisch perspectief dat in combinatie met institutionalisme
wel tot bevredigende resultaten leidt (zie hieronder).
Blatter et al. (2008): 467-469 recently identified two major gaps in the study of regional
foreign activities. First of all, they find ‘some clues but no solid empirical base regarding the variety
among European sub-national governments in respect of specific types of foreign activities’ (Blatter et
al. 2008): 468). Secondly their evaluation of existing literature is that it mainly consists of case studies
which ‘either have no theoretical framework or use quite different ones, making it very difficult
systematically to derive general conclusions’ (Blatter et al. 2008): 469). In the following paragraphs,
we test this double claim by means of a short review of the paradiplomacy literature.
With respect to the empirical data available, Blatter et al. seem to be right. One could,
however, argue that recently some progress has been made. A few projects are currently generating
some comparative descriptive empirical output (Blatter et al. 2008; Criekemans 2008). These studies
mainly stick to summing up the different utterances of foreign without proceeding to formulating
theoretically embedded hypotheses. They typically come up with categories of activities: Blatter et al.
distinguish between economic, cultural and political activities, while Criekemans presents a list of
8
diplomatic instruments. The dependent variable in these studies is quite often the type of foreign
activity. However, in order to make generalizations (and therefore also predictions) of foreign
activities used by regions, we need hypotheses discussing under what conditions what kind of regions
would develop what kind of activities. It is clear that such hypotheses are either still missing or, if
present, are insufficiently theoretically embedded to allow for testable hypotheses.
As mentioned earlier, this paper doesn’t aim to explain the type of regional foreign activity,
but takes one step back and deals with the genesis of the regional competency to conduct foreign
policies of whatever type, focusing on EU policy-making. This is also the approach taken by Marks,
Hooghe and Schakel. They focus on the measurement of regional authority in 42 countries. Regional
competency over foreign relations is measured indirectly by one of the dimensions used to
operationalise regional authority (Marks, Hooghe, and Schakel 2008a; Marks, Hooghe, and Schakel
2008c) and (Marks, Hooghe, and Schakel 2008b)). What is interesting for our paper are not the data
as such, but the idea to collect data in order to formulate hypotheses with respect to the conditions
that cause particular levels of regional authority. We will also use such an exploratory design later in
this paper.
While the collection of comparative data is increasingly narrowing the empirical gap, the
theoretical caveat seems to by more persistent. Lecours correctly argues that the paradiplomacy
literature suffers from two weaknesses: ‘The absence of a general theoretical perspective that can
explain how regional governments have acquired international agency, and what shapes their foreign
policy, international relations and negotiating behaviour; the second is a lack of focus on constructing
general analytical frameworks that can guide the study of paradiplomacy’ (Lecours 2002): 92). He
goes on arguing that ‘There has been little effort to ground the study of paradiplomacy in a theoretical
perspective that could serve as the foundation for a general explanatory framework’. (Lecours 2002):
94).
A short overview of the paradiplomacy literature confirms Lecours’ evaluation. Duhacek (1990)
identifies three basic forms of paradiplomacy: transborder-, transregional- and global paradiplomacy.
This typology is considered to be a seminal contribution in terms of classifying types of regional
external activities but it did not elucidate under which conditions paradiplomacy can be of a particular
character, e.g. conflictual or cooperative.
In the same volume Soldatos (1990) claims to build an explanatory framework for regional
foreign activities. Close reading of his article can, however, only lead to the conclusion that he doesn’t
live up to the expectations. He presents an inventory of determinants of paradiplomatic activity
(Soldatos 1990): 44-49), distinguishing between domestic determinants on the regional level
(objective segmentation, perceptual segmentation (electoralism), regionalism/nationalism, asymmetry
of federated units, growth of federated units, ‘me-tooism’), domestic determinants on the federal level
(federal errors / inefficiency, problems with the nation-building process, institutional gap,
constitutional
uncertainties,
foreign
policy
domestication)
and
external
causes
(global
interdependence, involvement of external actors, regional interdependence). However, he stops short
9
from building a theoretical framework from which hypotheses can be developed with respect to the
conditions that lead to particular types of paradiplomatic activities. As a result, his conclusions are
limited to claims such as ‘can be the result of’, ‘can lead to’, or ‘contributes to’. Somewhat loose from
the classifications he in addition mentions (Soldatos 1990): 51) ‘Favourable conditions may include
personality of the leaders, historical and cultural ingredients, socio-political climate, important
geographic position and resources, supportive paradiplomacy of the federated units’ cities, and
legislation promoting for example, foreign investment.’ Again these additional factors are not
incorporated in a theoretical framework. In short, Soldatos’ contribution is above all relevant regarding
its conceptual work. He convincingly defines paradiplomacy as direct international activity by
subnational actors supporting, complementing, correcting, duplicating or challenging the nation-state’s
diplomacy. He adds that paradiplomacy points to ‘direct and relatively autonomous external activity,
i.e. the federated unit has its own domestic and “foreign service’ channels of communications with the
international environment and direct links with foreign actors, its own corpus of foreign policy
objectives and strategies and increasingly important financial resources devoted to paradiplomacy.’
Still in the same volume Michelmann (1990) lists a series of reasons and motivations for
paradiplomacy, including economic, political, cultural and environmental motivations, but fails to
formulate hypotheses with respect to what kind of circumstances lead to what kind of paradiplomacy.
Michelmann also mentions the constitutional and institutional setting of federal countries as relevant,
but has to conclude: ‘But sketches of federal constitutional arrangements in the field of international
relations, even those much more complete than the present one, cannot by themselves adequately
account for variations in the extent of international activities by the component units of modern
federations.’ In other words, also Michelmann recognizes the limits of the paradiplomacy concept.
More recently, Keating (1999): 1 and 13) treated paradiplomacy as an empirical phenomenon
whose variation needs to be explained. He points to multiple answers to the question ‘why do regions
go abroad?’, citing economic reasons (seeking trade and investment), cultural reasons (seeking
support in the international arena for language and culture) and political reasons (seeking recognition
and legitimacy as something more than regions). Next to this series of internal drivers for foreign
action, Keating also points to the changing international opportunity structure, such as multilateral
organizations providing direct access to regions and the possibility to create interregional partnerships
and cooperation. While Keating recognises correctly that paradiplomacy cannot explain but is in need
to be explained, he doesn’t himself develop a sound theoretical and explanatory framework. From his
contribution, we nevertheless note that he points to both internal and external factors as relevant for
regions developing foreign activities.
Hocking (Hocking 1993) suggests that the concept of multilayered diplomacy can replace the
concept of paradiplomacy, to avoid a strict division between the national / federal level and the
subnational level. (Kaiser 2005). In a later publication Hocking suggests that ‘a clear understanding of
the motivations for specific modes of NCG [Non-Central Governments] international activity needs to
relate domestic to international forces and the interactions between the two’. (Hocking 1999): 22)
10
Aldecoa in the same volume defines paradiplomacy as plurinational diplomacy (Aldecoa 1999)
to denote a typical type of multilayered diplomacy and to describe that regions get involved in EU
politics. Again we find no attempt to build an explanatory framework.
In a recent volume Paquin and Lachapelle (2005) address the question of why regions engage
in international relations. They point to three macro-level variables: nation state crisis and
globalization, nationalism and internationalization, but stop short from stepping down to a more
microlevel, hence from theorizing the mechanisms that cause paradiplomatic competencies or
activities.
Lecours (Lecours 2002) additionally mentions some other paradiplomacy literature, such as
(Bernier 1994) and (Palard 1999), which equally suffers from the same shortcomings.
Our conclusion from this literature review is that paradiplomacy has clearly helped
International Relations and even Comparative Politics scholars to become aware of the external
activities of regional entities. The literature that uses the concept of paradiplomacy has delivered a
series of interesting and useful conceptualizations and inventories of paradiplomatic activities and
instruments. We now have some clues about what paradiplomacy exactly is. In our eyes, however the
paradiplomacy literature doesn’t go beyond the descriptive work. It has failed so far to present a
sound theoretical framework from which hypotheses could be derived with respect to (1) the level of
foreign policy competences of subnational entities and (2) the type of foreign policy activities regions
develop.
The status of paradiplomacy in International Relations seems to resemble the status of
Multilevel Governance in the European Studies literature. The generally accepted perception of
Multilevel Governance, even to a certain extent backed by its inventors Gary Marks and Liesbet
Hooghe, is that the concept has opened scholarly eyes for regions as relevant actors in EU decisionmaking. (Rosamond 2000) and (Bache and George 2006)). However, Multilevel Governance literature
had to turn to middle range theories of comparative politics in order to find variables that can explain
the power distribution between actors and governance levels in EU politics. (Bursens and Geeraerts
2006) and Benz and Zimmer (2008)) More in particular, scholars writing from a Multilevel Governance
perspective have successfully linked the descriptive strength of Multilevel Governance with insights
from institutional theory in order to build testable explanatory frameworks.
We suggest that paradiplomacy takes the same route as Multilevel Governance: combine the
descriptive capacities with a sound theoretical framework from Comparative Politics that allows for
understanding why regions acquire foreign policy competencies and why particular regions develop
particular foreign policy activities. This contribution has not (yet) got the ambition to present such an
elaborated framework. Below we present a narrative of the Belgian evolution of foreign policy-making
from an historical institutionalist perspective (Lecours 2002) and conclude with some suggestions
regarding the future formulation of hypotheses. We see this single case study as exploratory work and
a contribution to the paradiplomacy literature. The detailed account of the Belgian case allows for the
11
prudent formulation of hypotheses which need to be refined and tested in future systematic
comparative analyses.
The Evolution of the organization of the Foreign relations in Belgium: An
historical institutionalist account.
Belgium has been reformed from a centralized, unitary state into a fully-fledged federal state
by means of five constitutional reforms over the last 35 years (1970, 1981, 1988, 1993 and 2001). In
what follows, the evolution of the foreign policy powers in Belgium, with a focus on EU policy-making,
will be described.
The state reform of 1970 transferred a limited number of cultural competences from the
Belgian national level to the newly created subnational level of Cultural Communities. Although from a
constitutional point of view, Belgium was not yet a federation at that time, the competency transfers
of 1970 de facto created a dual, competitive federal system and installed the de facto
constitutionalisation of consensus decision making. Historical institutionalists. (Hall 1986; March and
Olsen 1989; Pierson 2004; Scokpol 1985; Steinmo, Thelen, and Longstreth 1993) would consider this
first state reform as a critical juncture: a moment in time that marks a crucial decision shaping many
future decisions during the consecutive state reforms of the following 25 years. This first step towards
the introduction of federalism was exclusively induced by internal Belgian factors; there was no
pressure from the outside world to reform the unitary state. The Flemish political parties demanded
cultural autonomy for the Dutch-speaking Flemish population. In order to do so, they engaged in
negotiations within the Belgian constitutional setting and obtained the creation of the three
Communities.
The second state reform of 1980 created Regions (Flanders and Wallonia) next to
Communities. In this 1980 reform a more extensive amount of person-related matters (youth, sport,
culture) and part of education policy was transferred to the Communities. The economic competences
of the newly created Regions were modest at the time. Again the driving forces were internal: Frenchspeaking political parties demanded and obtained more autonomy to cope with the economic
challenges posed by the rapid industrial decline of the Walloon Region. However, the real significance
of the 1980 reforms was to be found elsewhere, more in particular in the crucial decision of the
constitutional introduction of the absence of a hierarchy of norms between the federal and the
regional governmental levels (Communities and the two newly created Regions). This principle is a
fundamental characteristic of the Belgian institutional set-up. The constitutional equality between the
governance levels in Belgium (except for some competences of the Brussels Capital Region – which
was only created by the state reform of 1988) directed Belgium on a path of consecutive reforms
12
which all had to be organised around this equality principle. For all these reforms, however, there was
no clear masterplan available. The Flemish and French-speaking Communities profoundly disagreed
(and still disagree) about the eventual set-up of the Belgian state. In stead of gradually working
towards a commonly supported destination, the following reforms were the result of crisismanagement and compromise-building within the margins of earlier agreed reforms (Dumont 2006).
The state reform of 1988 is nowadays seen as the first substantial step in the ‘federalization’
of Belgium. First of all, it created the third Region (Brussels Capital Region). Next to yet another series
of person-related matters (education), also a number of territory bound competences (among which
environmental policy and spatial planning) were transferred to Communities and Regions respectively.
For the first time, foreign policy (including the policy towards the European Union) became part of the
state reform process. The 1988 reform envisaged a different situation for Regions and Communities
regarding their external competences. The constitution obliged the central government to ‘involve’ the
Regions in the formulation of the national Belgian position when the issue at stake touches upon the
competences of the Regions. For the Communities, the in foro interno in foro externo principle was
set up. This principle follows from an important feature of Belgian federalism that has been discussed
above: the absence of a hierarchy of legal norms. Federal laws and regional decrees stand on equal
footing, meaning that they cannot overrule each other. The lack of hierarchy between the federal and
subnational level implies – theoretically - that each level has to organize preference formation and
implementation of international and European policies falling within their respective powers. From
these internal aspects of foreign policy follow direct consequences for the external aspects of foreign
policy. Subnational entities convincingly made the case that, as they need to take care of the
downloading of international agreements, they also need to be involved in the upload stages of
foreign policy-making. Combined with the constitutional principle of exclusive competencies, the
obvious outcome was indeed the exclusive right for subnational entities to manage foreign aspects of
their exclusive competencies. In other words, the federalization of foreign policy powers was more a
consequence from earlier decisions than from new demands of political actors. In 1988 this meant in
concrete terms that the Communities became competent for both the definition and the
implementation of the foreign aspects of the policy domains which belong to their domestic
competences. This includes the right to conclude treaties, to be represented in multilateral and
bilateral fora and the obligation to implement international commitments and case law from
international courts.
The principle clearly brought a competence increase for the federated entities: next to
legislative and executive competences, the Communities obtained the control over the foreign
relations with regard to their internal competences. Other countries who conclude treaties regarding
competences of the Communities (e.g. cultural or education policies) do this with a Community and
not with Belgium. While this principle looks very simple in theory, its elaboration in practice is quite
complex. First of all, international partners need to be informed of the peculiar Belgian system and,
above all, convinced that international agreements in some policy domains (education, environment)
13
need to be concluded with regional governments in stead of the Belgian federal government.
Secondly, a distinction must be made between policy fields and issues that fall exclusively within one
level of government and those that are spread over more levels. Exclusive domestic powers lead to
exclusive international competencies: the Flemish Community, for instance, can conclude cultural
agreements with the Netherlands in its own right. The negotiation of a lot of treaties and the
representation in most multilateral organizations, however, touches upon competencies that are
heterogeneously spread across the Belgian governance levels. Extensive co-ordination mechanisms
and representation arrangements had to be installed to ensure that the Belgian federation can appear
on the international scene with one representative and one position. (Jans and Tombeur 2000;
Kerremans 2000)
Meanwhile, the introduction of the Single European Act in 1987 substantially extended the
powers of the European Community. In many domains the EU received competences that belonged
inside Belgium to the Community and – even more - to the Regional level. This delegation of powers
to Europe occurred simultaneously with the domestic devolution of powers in Belgium. This double
power transfer, both to Europe and to the federated entities, had far-reaching consequences.
Federated entities (in Belgium as well as in Germany) feared that their regional autonomy would be
restricted by this further step in the integration process and demanded a greater say in the
formulation of national positions regarding EU legislation. For the first time, the outside world pops up
as a trigger to reorganize the internal aspects of foreign policy-making. Subnational entities are
confronted with a European institutional setting that is perceived undesirable. They react to this by
demanding further reform of the federal set-up.
Inside the Belgian federation, the asymmetric introduction of the in foro interno in foro
externo principle (effective for the Communities but not for the Regions), resulted in a very
uncomfortable position at the Flemish side. The reason is to be found in the fact that during the 1988
state reform, the councils (parliaments), governments and administrations of the Flemish Region and
the Dutch-Speaking Community were merged into one single Flemish Community. Ministers
responsible for Community competences enjoyed full external powers (though not directly in reality
because of a lacking executive decision) while Ministers responsible for Region competences could not
participate. The latter obstacle became increasingly important since the European level had become
competent for, and also very active in, domains such as environmental policy. On top of this, ministers
of the federal government quite often attended EU Council meetings that discussed issues that no
longer fell within the realm of the Belgian federal level. This situation clearly marked a crossroad. Two
options were available to treat both sets of Belgian subnational units equally: either an abolishment of
the foreign powers of the Regions and the Communities, or an upgrade of the competences of the
Regions, equally granting them full foreign policy powers. The abolishment of the in foro interno in
foro externo principle would de facto mean a decrease of Community competences. It quickly became
clear that no parliamentary majority could be found to turn around the logic of the reforms i.e. to walk
14
back the path that has been deliberately chosen in 1988. Inevitably, therefore, further steps towards
regional competency in external relations were taken: the constitution of 1993 and the special laws of
1993 extended the in foro interno in foro externo principle to the Regions. This is a major example of
how a decision at one point in time (to grant Communities foreign relations power in 1980) affects
future decisions in the same sphere. Historical institutionalists call this path dependent change
(Pierson 2004)
It is important to add that the authors of the Constitution were aware of potential problems
caused by this decision. The 1993 Constitution therefore added three limitations to the in foro interno
in foro externo principle. The first is the substitution mechanism (article 169 of the Constitution),
which stipulates that if a Region or a Community doesn’t live up to an international or a European
requirement, and if it gets convicted by an international Court (such as the European Court of
Justice), the federal level can take the place of (‘can substitute’) the regional level (but not the other
way around!) in order to execute the internationally agreed policy. Until today, however, this
mechanism has never been used. It is applicable in theory but in practice, a lack of political will
prevents its use. Those opposed to the principle argue that the mechanism stands opposite to the
absence of norm hierarchy and therefore doesn’t fit in the path that has been chosen. In times of
incongruent government coalitions, chances are even smaller that the principle will ever become
operational: it is rather unacceptable for a regional government to be overruled by a federal
government that is composed of (partially) different political parties. The second limitation is the
stipulation that regional foreign policy cannot contradict the broad orientations of the commonly
agreed ‘Belgian’ foreign policy. When, for instance, the federal level takes part in an international
embargo regarding a particular state, a regional government, although (partly) responsible for trade
policy, will not export dual use goods to that state. Finally, Regions and Communities are obliged to
inform the federal level of the foreign policies and actions they take. This means, for instance, that
agreements with respect to educational policy between Flanders and the Netherlands must be notified
to the federal level by the Flemish government.
In the beginning of the 90s, a new development at the European level dramatically changed
the context in which the regional foreign policy powers evolved. The Belgian Regions and
Communities and the German Länder lobbied the 1991 EU Intergovernmental Conference to reform
the article 146 of the EC Treaty. The original article (146) stated that only national ministers can vote
in the Council of Ministers. The new article 203 changed this situation and stipulates that a national
delegation is to be composed of ‘a representative of the member state at ministerial level who can
bind the member state he represents’. Every representative in the Council of Ministers is obliged to
vote with one indivisible vote for his member state. The dominance of national governments is clearly
broken by this amendment, but at the same time the European Union still follows the classic principle
of international law that states act as unitary actors. In any case, European competences could now
be correctly defined as competences which are shared within the Belgian federation by governments
15
at the national and the sub-national level. This forces the Belgian Regions and Communities to
cooperate to obtain common positions. After all, it was still up to the member states to install the
necessary coordination structures in order to guarantee the involvement of the federated entities.
While arrangements regarding representation and voting of Belgium in multilateral fora and
regarding the responsibilities and procedures for the implementation of international rules were very
necessary, the Constitution of 1993 and the supplementary special laws remained very vague with
regard to these arrangements.
Article 167 (1) of the Belgian constitution only states that foreign policy is lead by the federal
government, without prejudice to the competence of the Regions and Communities to arrange
international cooperation, including the conclusion of treaties for the competences which the
constitution appoints to them. In other words, the federal government is, in cooperation with the
federated entities, responsible for the foreign policy, including the policy towards the European Union.
The federal legislator delegated - by the special law of 1993 - the implementation of the procedural
and practical implications to the federated entities and the federal government. Both of them have to
arrange this by means of a cooperation agreement: the Cooperation Agreement between the federal
state, the Communities and the Regions with regard to the representation of the kingdom Belgium in
the Council of the European Union was agreed in 1994. With this agreement, the federal government
abandons the possibility to act as an agendasetter with regard to the organization, development and
implementation of European policies, while the federal legislative branch confirmed the practice of
intergovernmental cooperation.
Again the conclusion of this agreement can be marked as a critical juncture: it was established
by a special law involving special majorities, which makes it difficult to reverse. Cooperation
agreements are the result of an intergovernmental bargaining between the governments of the
federated entities and the federal government. This requires unanimity between the federated entities
among each other and between the federated entities and the federal government. Unanimity has two
consequences: the first consequence is that, in particular when competences are at stake, revision is
not easy to reach. The cooperation agreement for European policy set up in 1994 did have important
caveats, but since 1994 it has not been extensively revised (with the exception of certain aspects of
the agricultural policy). In addition, unanimity has the consequence that the negotiators are
stimulated to maximize their individual impact on the European policy formation. Institutionalists
regard unanimity as a rule that shapes the behaviour of political actors. This is why unanimity was
deliberately chosen as foundation for the Belgian European cooperation of the preparation of the
Belgian position in the Council of Ministers. Because the federal government, as well as the
governments of the Regions and Communities have veto-power, consultation and cooperation is an
absolute necessity to pursue Belgian European policy at all.
16
Discussion
The overall process of federalization, i.e. of granting the regional level more powers, is
predominantly driven by the domestic political agendas of the major political parties and the two
major language Communities. The shaping of the Belgian federal state reflects the political, cultural
and economic diversity of the Belgian polity in stead of being a direct response to international
pressures. More in particular, the consecutive Belgian state reforms granted competencies to Regions
and Communities because this fitted in the overall logic of state reform, not primarily because of the
process of European integration. Two important remarks should be added, however. First of all, while
the principle of giving Regions and Communities more competencies was domestically driven,
sometimes additional arguments for the transfer of powers were found in the European context. The
almost complete federalization of agriculture policy, for instance, was also motivated by the changing
nature of the European Common Agriculture Policy. It was argued that the European shift towards
more attention for rural development, animal welfare and environmental aspects of agricultural policy
supported the domestic transfer towards the Regions, since these already possessed competencies in
the fields of spatial planning and environmental regulation (Beyers, Delreux, and Steensels 2004).
Secondly, as has been discussed earlier, the practical modalities of the organization of the external
and European dimension of internal policies had to be installed against the background of EU
requirements. Preference formation procedures and representation rules could not be elaborated
without taking into account the European principle of unitary positions of Member States on the one
hand and the regional representational opportunities on the other hand. The Cooperation Agreement
of March 8, 1994 (cf. supra) is the main instrument to adapt the Belgian federal order to EU
membership.
The autonomy status of Regions and Communities is predominantly the result of a domestic
agenda, but was to some extent reshaped by European integration. The combined impact of internal
and external constitutional and institutional context upon the organization of foreign and European
policy-making in Belgium confirms earlier claims by Soldatos (Soldatos 1990) and Keating (Keating
1999). In this respect, Lecours (2002): 99) has argued that ‘The international institutional context is
equally as important in turning regions into international agents capable of multilateral negotiation’.
Our argument runs in addition parallel with findings from the literature on Europeanization –
the latter defined as adaptation of Member States to the institutional and policy requirements of the
European Union (Graziano and Vink 2007). From this analytical perspective, the confrontation
between two multilevel systems has lead to the introduction of new internal rules and procedures to
facilitate domestic European policy-making. These are the result of the search for a modus operandi
between the federal government and the Regions and Communities to reconcile the domestic
constitutional provisions with the European requirements. Political actors in Belgium needed to comply
with Europe while at the same time showing respect for the domestic constitutional framework.
(Bursens 2002) Otherwise said, the constitutional provisions gave the Belgian Regions and
Communities the right to pursue their own foreign policy, but the European Union’s extensive scope of
17
policy domains facilitated the federated entities’ claim to become important actors in the European
policy domain. The institutional environment of the European Union has rearranged the relationship
between the federal government and the Regions and the Communities in the direction of equal
partnership. In a way, European integration reshaped the in foro interno in foro externo principle in
the Cooperation Agreement of 1994 (cf. supra) by giving each actor veto power in the formulation of
Belgian positions in EU policy-making. Within the Europeanization agenda, this is a nice example of
how membership of the EU shapes domestic intergovernmental relations (Börzel 2002).
Based on our narrative of the Belgian case, we argue that actor centred historical institutionalism is a
promising complement to the concept of paradiplomacy regarding a better understanding of the
foreign competencies of subnational entities.
We conclude that the principle to give the Belgian federated entities more competences was
primarily domestically driven, but that sometimes critical junctures at the European level were
additional arguments for power transfers. It is in other words the combined impact of the internal and
external constitutional and institutional context that has lead to the unique division of foreign (and
European) policy powers in Belgium.
Figure 3 briefly summarises our institutional account of the
Belgian case.
Figure 3: Internal and external critical junctures in the establishment of regional policy powers in
Belgium
INTERNAL
1970: de facto creation of a dual competitive federal system and de facto
constitutionalization of consensus decision making.
1980 absence of the hierarchy of norms
1988: in foro interno in foro externo for Communities, ‘involvement’ for the Regions
1993: extending the in foro interno in foro externo principle to the Regions but
adding of three limitations to the principle.
1994 Cooperation Agreement between the federal state, the Communities and the
Regions with regard to the representation of the kingdom Belgium in the Council of
the European Union
EXTERNAL
1987: Single European Act: extended the powers of the EU
(EUROPEAN)
1992: Art. 203 national delegation is to be composed of ‘a representative of the
member state at ministerial level who can bind the member state he represents’
18
Lecours (2002) has argued in a similar way to bring in institutionalism to explain variation in
paradiplomatic activities of regions. He presents a framework for analysis which is an interesting point
of departure to build hypotheses. Lecours distinguishes between national, continental and global
structural determinants of paradiplomacy: On the national level, Lecours points to the constitutional
framework (do regions have formal competencies or not), intergovernmental relations (are they
conflictual or cooperative), representation of regional government in federal institutions (do they
bypass the federal level or not) and the national foreign policy agenda (focused on high - security versus or low - trade - politics). With respect to the continental level, Lecours refers to the
opportunities created by political and economic regimes such as the EU. On the global level, he points
to role of international organisations, third state willingness, regional government willingness and
global economy as potential opportunity structures.
We argue that a similar use of historical institutionalism to understand the evolution of
regional foreign competencies, can lift the paradiplomacy agenda to a more explanatory level. This
would require a focus on both the domestic and international institutional context, and more in
particular on how these enable and constrain regional actors’ preferences to acquire foreign policy
competences. Following Lecours (2002: 96) This would also include awareness for institutional
contingency, i.e. that ‘institutional realities, development and change associated with specific social,
economic, cultural and political conditions, often have unintended and unforeseen consequences for
the relationship between the regions and world politics.’
We end with sketching out a future research agenda that aims to explain variation in foreign
policy by regions, combining paradiplomacy and institutionalism. In our mind at least two puzzles
could become central for further research. (1) What explains the different kind of foreign policy
powers among subnational entities? And (2) What explains the range of foreign activities that are
used by different subnational entities? In answering both research questions, the concept of
paradiplomacy could be effectively used for a detailed description of the dependent variable. Above,
we discussed a series of publications that presented categories and inventories of foreign policy
powers and instruments. Reframing these in a systematic way would enable to define clear-cut
dependent variables. In other words, we suggest to fully exploit the descriptive power of the
paradiplomacy concept. When it comes down to explaining the variation between the regions with
respect to their foreign competencies and activities, we suggest bring in institutionalism. Institutional
analysis would start from mapping the preferences of the regional actor: how much foreign policy
autonomy do regional actors (regional governments, regional political parties) really aspire? What
foreign activities do these actors prefer to bring into practice? Next, institutionalism would point to
series of domestic and international variables to either enable or constrain their behaviour while trying
to maximize their preferences. These variables then become – together with the preferences potential explanations for regional foreign policy powers and activities. In the literature discussed
19
above, already many variables have been touched upon. By bringing hard and soft institutional
variables into an institutional framework it becomes possible to build concrete and testable
hypotheses. Potential clusters of variables include constitutional and other legal provisions, the
practice of domestic intergovernmental relations and the supranational and international environment.
One example of such a hypothesis would be that the more the relation between a region and the
federal level is conflictual, the more the regional level will develop particular kinds of far-going
paradiplomatic activities. Another example would be that a constitution based on cooperative
federalism generates less foreign policy competencies for regions than a constitution based on
competitive federalism. In addition, and throughout the complete design, historical institutionalism
would point to mechanisms such as critical junctures and path dependency, claiming that major
decisions taken at one point in time shape the scope and direction of future decisions. Finally, these
hypotheses should subsequently be tested in (preferably large scale) comparative empirical research,
either by a multiple case-study design or through qualitative comparative analysis. By following a
research design of this kind, we expect to gain more systematic knowledge regarding the foreign
policy behaviour of subnational entities.
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