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

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in order to Europeanise national social policy debates was more than limited, resulting in lowinvestments in terms of mobilisation 37 ; and in occupying officials with no policy-makingpower with the OMC (Miebach 2004: 41; Scharpf 2002: 654) who don’t really read thereports nor have the time to discuss them; in lack of adequate information, transparency andpublic visibility as well as in the absence of additional resourcing. This is particularly wondersome for the French case where little would have needed to be done in order to at leastsynchronize the existing national debates with the European agenda.Finally, the external, EU-related reasons for the poor delivery must be addressed. Looking atthe tool box of the OMC inclusion at EU level and its embeddedness is essential whenseeking to understand its limited impact on national policy-making in general and on socialNGOs in particular. With respect to the latter, it seems useful to recall that the OMC(inclusion) is an intergovernmental instrument meaning that its implementation is totally leftto governments’ ambitions. As long as its objectives, amongst which the goal to mobilise allrelevant actors, follow a voluntarist logic, this OMC “does little to empower NGOs vis-à-visstate interests” (Edquist 2006: 502) and does not change the traditional channels of policymakingwhich offer few opportunities to get engaged and influence the policy process(Warleigh 2001). Second, the traditional “ally” of NGOs, the Commission, has a rather weakposition in this process and therefore is not in the position to significantly support NGO’sinterests. It can also be debated if the traditional support by the Commission has beenuniversal (goal: more effectiveness and legitimacy) or particularistic (goal: increase power ofCommission by seeking external support for an initiative or an argument). Finally and notleast importantly, EU social policy, in particular since the revision of the Lisbon Strategy in2005, has become even more centred on employment and competitiveness, leaving less spacefor the more encompassing approach of combating social exclusion that social NGOsgenerally defend. If they nevertheless get involved with the OMC inclusion, this cansubsequently incorporate the risk of distortion of their policy position or cooptation (Edquist2006). If NGOs choose to hang on to their philosophy and their role as a critical voice, thenthey risk to the contrary not being in line with the funding demands of the Commission(which include strategic policy choices) and therefore being excluded from importantresources (Halvorsen and Johansson 2005).37 One German key officer stated that the little amount of consultation was mainly due to the Commission forwhom the mobilisation of all relevant actors was an important issue. Without that, so its conclusion, there wouldhave been no consultation at all – as mostly happened for the first NAPs (2001-2003).
More generally, it is not reasonable to expect far-reaching results of a mechanism in thehighly sensitive area of poverty and social exclusion which is not legally binding, whichremains rather vague about its goal(s), which does not foresee a mandate for independentevaluation as well as for the dissemination of information, etc. More particularly, far-reachingresults cannot be expected of the OMC inclusion in a situation where other, macro-economic,financial and employment-focused processes have more binding instruments at their disposaland therefore foster processes of “negative” integration while rendering steps of “positive”integration ever more difficult (Scharpf 1996). For these and the above mentioned reasons,social NGOs should a) not focus almost exclusively on the Commission in their lobbyingactivities; b) should do all they can in order to overcome the structural limitations forincreased cooperation at EU-level and c) must make greater efforts in order to mobilise theirown constituencies so as to form more powerful pressure groups.6. ReferencesBAGFW / NAK, 2004, Stellungnahme zum Entwurf der Aktualisierung 2004 des NationalesAktionsplans Soziale Ausgrenzung 2003-2005.Brandsen, T. et al, 2005, The National Action Plan on Social Inclusion, Third Sector EuropeanPolicy Working Papers, nr. 14., http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/TSEP/publicdocfind.htm.Büchs, M., 2004, Asymmetries of policy learning? The European Employment Strategy and its role inLabour market policy reform in Germany and the UK, Paper prepared for the ESPAnetconference 'European Social Policy', 9-11 September 2004, Oxford,http://www.apsoc.ox.ac.uk/Espanet/espanetconference/streams/s11.htmBüchs, M. and D. Friedrich, 2005, Surface Integration - the National Action Plans forEmployment and social inclusion in Germany, in: Zeitlin, Jonathan, Pochet, Philippeand Lars Magnusson (eds.) The Open Method of Coordination in Action: TheEuropean Employment and Social Inclusion Strategies (Brussels: P.I.E.-Peter Lang).Camarasa Casals, M., 2005, “The participation of European Networks in the Open Methodof Co-ordination in Social Inclusion”, Paper presented at the First European conference ofEMES and ISTR: Concepts of the Third Sector, The European Debate Civil Society, VoluntaryOrganizations, Social and Solidarity-Based Economy, Paris , 27 to 29 April 2005.De la Porte, Caroline, The emergence of the Open Method of Co-ordination in social inclusion, Paperprepared for the annual ESPANET conference, Fribourg, Switzerland, 22 – 24 September2005 .EAPN-France, 2003, Position d’EAPN France sur le plan national d’action pour l’inclusion (PNAI)2003-2005, July 2003.
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