The OMC inclusion and national social NGOs: From enthusiasm to ...

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Asked if the social NGOs had themselves undertaken evaluations of the OMC process ingeneral and the NAPs in particular, most answered “no”, with two exceptions in France andone in Germany, all of which large NGOs. Additionally, the six large German welfareassociations proceeded to an internal evaluation, in 2002, of the implementation of the NAP(2001). The trend to no evaluation probably must be linked to the above-mentioned lack offinancial and human resources. As time went by, it certainly also had to do with theunwillingness to invest (time) resources in a process that the governments quite apparently didnot take serious.After this overview how national social NGOs used this OMC internally, I will now turn tothe larger policy-making process around it.3.2 The “external” implementation of the OMC inclusionWhen analysing and evaluating the domestic implementation and for the methodologicalreasons mentioned above, one necessarily and almost exclusively has to turn to the processesof consultation around the elaboration of the NAPs as these are the only times where some“OMC activity” can be tracked down. Since the launch of this OMC, there have been threesuch rounds (2001, 2003 and 2005).In France, the monitoring of the NAPs lays with the Direction Générale de l’Action Sociale(DGAS) that belongs to the ministry of work, social cohesion and housing. The DGAS has atits disposal eleven consultative bodies, amongst which the Conseil National des politiques deLutte contre la pauvreté et l’Exclusion sociale (CNLE), a political body made up of publicelected representatives, administrations, civil society organisations and qualified members.Also, there exists since 1998 an interministerial committee in the fight against poverty andsocial exclusion, which, however, has only convened once since (July 2004).Here, consultation is reported to have been either non-existent or minimal in all three rounds.While the first NAP was “elaborated by a few heads” 17 , the administration did consult theCNLE once in the second round, even though only little time before the handing-over of thefinal document to the Commission 18 . At this meeting, however, representatives of thedevolved authorities were broadly absent, as seems to have been the case repeatedly 19 .According to several interviewees, there has been no consultation and participation17 Interview DGAS key officer, 15.6.200418 See also Brandsen et al (2005: 23).19 Interview president of the CNLE, 21.9.2005.
whatsoever of the regions, départements and local communities 20 . Since the delegation ofcompetencies to the départements in the social field, in January 2004, one could expect agreater involvement of the respective authorities in the process – due to political opposition,this did not happen so far. The last exercise, in 2005, seems to have followed the samepattern. Interviewees reported that in 2005, the exercise had been even more formal than in2003, the meeting mainly being a presentation of the Plan de cohésion sociale, presented inspring 2005. The French government does not foresee parliamentarian debate of the NAPs(see also Legros 2005).Besides the consultation process directly linked to the elaboration of the NAPs, there havebeen in France a number of initiatives where it is hard to tell whether they can be drawn backto the OMC inclusion, even though involved actors claim a direct connection. In December2003, the then in place Prime Minister Raffarin received a delegation of NGOs in order tolearn about their concerns. At this meeting, the participants agreed that there should be a firstnational conference on poverty and social exclusion, to be continued on an annual rhythm.This conference took place in July 2004 and gathered, amongst others, all the ministersconcerned. It was directly after the conference that the interministerial committee againstsocial exclusion convened for the first time. The second “annual” conference took place inApril 2006. Another rather recent development has been the decision to create a text called“document de politique transversale inclusion sociale” (DPT) in the context of the financialact, which regulates the yearly state budget 21 . Finally, the unit in charge of the OMC at theDGAS has commissioned an office with the development of an measurement system of theimpacts of the policies in the fight against social exclusion on their recipients, which washanded over in September 2005.The German government’s position towards the OMC inclusion cannot be called but sceptical(see also Huster et al. 2004). There is a profound mistrust that the Commission is slowly butsurely seeking to extend its competencies in the area of social policies, an idea that is totallyand repeatedly rejected: „The OMC holds risks for the protection of national competencies. Itshould not mutate to a vehicle for system comparison but help to find answers for concretequestions. The ministry refuses an inflation of common objectives and indicators. It should be20 In 2003, this may be explained by the fact that the main competencies in the social field still led with thecentral government, whereas main competencies were shifted to the départements and local communities as fromJanuary 2004 on.21 Namely the Loi Organique relative aux Lois de Finances (LOLF), an act dating back to 1959 and revised since2005. In France, there are currently eight such documents in different policy areas; their aim is to facilitate andimprove interministerial cooperation.
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