This paper contributes to a new understanding of the role and influence of the EU institutions in dealing with major EU reforms. Many have argued that, due to successive crises, Eurozone, Refugee and ...Brexit, EU decision making has become more intergovernmental. The role of the main intergovernmental body, the European Council, has been enhanced. Moreover, at various moments during these crises, the political leaders chose to by-pass the Community framework, and opt for intergovernmental solutions. However, in the literature, intergovernmentalism also refers to a dominance of the member states vis-à-vis the institutions in shaping these agreements. This paper looks at the process-level implications of this increased intergovernmentalism. We analyse and compare the role and influence of the institutions in five major reform negotiations: EFSF/ESM, Fiscal Compact, banking union, EU-Turkey deal and British renegotiation. An exploration of these empirical micro-foundations reveals more institution-driven processes and outcomes than the label intergovernmentalist suggests.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NUK, ODKLJ, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
This article analyses the role of the EU institutions in guiding the EMU reform process. Many have argued that the institutions have had to adapt to a 'constraining' environment in which EU ...negotiations are highly salient and touch upon 'core state powers'. To explain how they have been adapting, we provide a detailed process tracing analysis of their role in setting up the banking union. We use insights from principal-agent (PA) theorizing, but extend this framework to account for situations in which there are multiple agents. The analysis shows that in spite of overlapping interests, functional imperatives and a crisis atmosphere, there was nothing inevitable about the banking union. It came about through new patterns of institutional collaboration at different stages and between different levels of decision making. We explore the implications of this type of collaborative leadership at the level of agents, arenas, process and substance.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NUK, ODKLJ, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Several European Union (EU) governments have infringed the obligation to respect ‘rule of law’ as demanded by the European Union Treaty but, despite its supranational features, the EU has done little ...to sanction those violations. Why? The European Union’s institutional features paradoxically permit (and even encourage) logics that might be inhibiting its sanctioning capacity. Thus, a partisanship logic informs the European Parliament and this protects errant states. Then, the Commission, rather than acting assertively, anticipates the Council’s stance and adapts also its actions to anticipate a ‘compliance dilemma’ (i.e. compliance depends ultimately on the good will and cooperation of domestic authorities). The Commission prefers to channel its sanctioning activity via other softer instruments (e.g. infringement procedures). Finally, a distaste for increasing EU competence, ideological sympathy for illiberal governments, or fears of spillovers from sanctioning activity inform the action of governments within the Council. Those three institutional logics combine to explain the unexpectedly low sanctioning record for breaches of EU values.
Full text
Available for:
NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
This paper provides an in-depth reconstruction of the (failed) reform of the EU's Common European Asylum System. Even though this was essentially a legislative process, it was characterized by ...extensive European Council involvement. In fact, the European Council is commonly blamed for the lack of progress in EU reform. Divisions at the level of the Heads and an insistence on consensus made it impossible for the machine room to proceed with the dossier. We challenge this view, by looking at the interplay between the European Council, Council (of Ministers) and Commission. We argue that the effectiveness of European Council involvement crucially depends on the actions of these two institutions. Involvement of the Heads can propel, paralyze or derail EU decision-making, depending on when and how they are brought into play. The Council and Commission play a crucial role by anticipating, setting the scene for and providing the follow-up to European Council involvement.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NUK, ODKLJ, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
This article investigates how traditionally anti‐European Union (EU) right‐wing parties and leaders in four EU member states reinterpreted their relation with the EU in the post‐Brexit period ...(2016–2022). Either for the political opportunity structure's constraints or for the costs triggered by Brexit, right‐wing European nationalists had to redefine their role in remaining in the EU. We conceptualize as ‘sovereignism’ their attempt to endogenize nationalism in the EU. Relying on discourse analysis, this article shows that right‐wing sovereignism criticized the supranational character and the centralized policy system that developed within the EU. However, right‐wing sovereignism differed in the rationale of its criticism, based more on an economic discourse in Western Europe and more on a cultural discourse in Eastern Europe, as well as on the policies to repatriate. The sovereignist approach of nationalist right‐wing parties and leaders would lead to the nationally differentiated disintegration of the EU.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
European leaders have struggled to find common responses to the polycrisis the EU is facing. This crisis of leadership makes it urgent that scholars provide a better understanding of the role and ...impact of leadership in EU politics and policy making. This article prepares the ground for a collection of contributions that addresses this need by strengthening old and building new bridges between the academic domains of European studies and leadership studies. It opens with a discussion of the contested concept of leadership in the context of the European polity and politics, challenging the conventional view that leadership is necessarily a matter of hierarchy. Moreover, it argues that rather than leaderless, the EU is an intensely 'leaderful' polity. Subsequently, this introduction identifies four key debates in contemporary EU leadership research and discusses the value and insights the contributions in this special issue bring to these debates.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
PDF
