COALITION BUILDING IN THE EU IS THE NAME OF THE GAME

Policy preferences across the EU member states are not homogeneous, on the contrary, enlargement has contributed to even larger distance among them . Consequently, it has become more difficult to reach negotiation agreement. Member states search for solutions to push their policy positions through. This results in increased tendency to search for allies during the preparatory phase of negotiations and to build coalitions in the Council negotiations in order to maximize the member states influence. Larger countries have more bargaining power in the EU Council negotiations, i.e. their bargaining power to great extent stems from their structural power in terms of territory and population. However, numerous studies demonstrate that some small member states are also powerful players in EU negotiations in spite of their small size and voting weight .

Coordination of policy positions that member states undertake prior to negotiations in the Council can increase their bargaining power and the negotiation outcomes through following mechanisms – (1) pooling voting power, (2) exchanging information which improves members’ ability to choose the best strategy of negotiations, (3) increase members' expertise which allows them to offer solutions that also others might find attractive, and (4) normative entrapment of other member states i.e. members may use to push their preferences that may lead to a situation in which other member states are normatively entrapped.

Practitioners evidence several institutionalized groupings that are framed on cultural and geographic proximity and continuously interact across different policy fields, even though their policy preferences are not convergent across all issues. Cooperation in these groupings can cover various policy fields and cooperation foras, EU policy coordination being just one part of the collaboration. Pre-meeting coordination is usually organized through informal consultations among capitals or in Brussels along the decision-making process and breakfast-meetings in the run-ups to ministerial meetings and European Councils. The strength of these institutionalized partnerships is often explained as a result of personal relationships, socializing effects, and inter-personal trust . The common trait for all groupings is to enhance the influence of the group through “speaking with one voice”. The strength of institutionalized groupings lies in their ability to create normative justifications that put other member states in the situation of a normative entrapment

Power pooling is one of the strategies of the weak aimed to mitigate their disadvantage . Acting strategically, countries may aggregate power resources and achieve outcomes that are more favorable than what could have been secured individually. Power seeking is considered to be the primary reason behind coalition-building.

If coalitions are defined as the coordinated behavior among the actors in order to reach the goals they have agreed upon, the point should be made that there is a difference in bargaining advantage depending on which kind of coalitions member states opt for. Governments may select peers either on ad hoc basis, i.e. selecting allies with close policy preferences, or to collaborate with the partners of the traditional institutionalized groupings. Each of these coalitions have different causality mechanisms and different advantages. Ad hoc formations of the like-minded allies have the highest potential of power pooling through aggregation of voting weight because inter-state coordination mechanism at ad hoc coalitions rests on rational action of member states having similar policy preferences. Within ad hoc cooperation member states undergo all necessary steps of power pooling (selecting peers, exchanging information, and pooling power by joint action) that are necessary for maximizing common favorable outcome. Cooperation within the institutional groupings follows different logics. Inter-action in groupings can increase common bargaining power only when policy preferences happen to be close. Institutionalized groupings are framed on geographic proximity and cultural affinity basis. Their voting weight may not even reach the necessary voting threshold. Moreover, inter-action of member states within groupings not necessarily leads to the joint action, unless the preferences match.

International negotiations consist of several stages that are inter-related . In the pre-negotiation phase participants agree on a negotiation agenda and try to engage in the first contacts in order to exchange information or test the viability of their own policy positions, i.e. if their positions possibly turn out to be too extreme.  During the formal negotiation stage the actual negotiations take place and the negotiation actors have to reach a common agreement even when their starting policy positions diverge. Member states deliberately engage in inter-state coordination long before the formal negotiations start. The earlier this interaction, the higher the probability of reaching a successful negotiation outcome. Sometimes peer-selection starts even before proposal is published by the Commission.