Explaining Political Parties’ Impotence in EU Policy Making

This paper deals with the weakness of political parties in the formulation of public policy at the European level. It explains why the Party of European Socialists (PES) failed in promoting a regulatory policy that preserves public services from the negative effects of the EU’s competition policy. The salience of national cleavages and the preservation of national arrangements have been strongly established in the literature. This paper puts forward two complementary explanations rooted in both a historical and a discursive-institutionalist approach. The structuring effect of the sectorization of EU policy making on the one hand and the absence of an efficient and shared discursive framing on the other have been insurmountable obstacles.