Promoting the regulatory or the redistributive state? The politicisation of core state power integration in the German Bundestag, 1978-2019

Abstract

We analyse the party politics of core state power integration in all German Bundestag debates on EU government declarations since 1978. Our analysis shows an increasing politicisation of the costs of integration. In general, all mainstream parties have expressed a continuous preference for regulation over capacity-building. Over time, however, cross-party differences increased. Parties developed distinct, ideologically grounded profiles on core state power integration, and costly supranational capacity-building produced particularly outspoken opposition. Ultimately, core state power integration ended the general consensus on EU affairs among integrationist mainstream parties in Germany, revealing fundamentally different understandings of the EU polity. Centre-right parties regard the EU as a market-centred community of self-reliant states, championing the instruments of the regulatory state. Centre-left parties, by contrast, see the EU as a political union that also organises solidarity among its member states, increasingly embracing a European redistributive state.