Florian Trauner

From membership conditionality to policy conditionality: EU external governance in South Eastern Europe

In view of the uncertainty about the final outcome of the current enlargement process, how effective is the EUs acquis conditionality in South Eastern Europe? By elaborating on the example of justice and home affairs, the article argues that the EUs external leverage has remained strong, as the EU has developed additional ways to render its conditionality approach credible. Although the hurdles for entering the EU have been raised, Croatias compliance efforts can be considered to be similar to the logic observed in the eastern enlargement. The key to understanding the compliance of Macedonia, whose membership prospect is less certain or even questionable, is to take into account policy conditionality in addition to membership conditionality. The EU managed to compensate for less credible membership rewards by substantially increasing the value of the policy reward of visa-free travel. This strategy was effective but has created tensions with regard to the EUs broader objectives in the region.

Asylum policy: the EU’s ‘crises’ and the looming policy regime failure

Abstract What has been the impact of the European Union (EU)’s multifaceted crisis on asylum law and policy development? The article argues that the EU has sought to safeguard the core of its asylum policy by adding new layers of policy instruments in response to both the financial and economic crisis post-2008 and the refugee crisis starting in 2015. These instruments have had the overarching aim of providing EU member states facing high migratory pressures and/or financial constraints with additional support. Their efficiency, however, has remained questionable, reflected by a widening gap between the EU’s asylum laws and actual asylum practices of member states. By avoiding a paradigm shift in asylum policy, the EU has come to face a difficult situation: the implementation of the existing EU asylum rules may overburden southern member states while the perpetuated ignorance of these rules risks overburdening northern member states.

Creeping EU Membership in South‐east Europe: The Dynamics of EU Rule Transfer to the Western Balkans

Abstract The countries of the Western Balkans have all been subsumed under a pre‐accession framework that is comparable to previous enlargement rounds, but with two main differences: the EU has thus far refrained from naming a timetable for eventual membership and supports flexible forms of integration in different policy fields. With only a loose prospect of membership, how strong is the EU’s influence in the Western Balkans? With our empirical examples, drawn from energy policy and Justice and Home Affairs, we argue that the incentive of membership remains powerful in terms of initiating EU rule transfer. The key to successful rule adoption in the Western Balkans is to provide clear and tangible short‐term incentives. Rather than full membership, the result is sectoral integration and a creeping process towards EU membership.

Do supranational EU institutions make a difference? EU asylum law before and after 'communitarization'.

ABSTRACT This article examines whether the empowerment of the European Unions (EU) supranational institutions has had an impact on the development of EU asylum. By systematically investigating EU asylum law before and after ‘communitarization’, it argues that its ‘policy core’ has maintained a high degree of continuity. An advocacy coalition under the leadership of the interior ministers managed to co-opt pivotal actors in the newly empowered European Commission and European Parliament. By contenting themselves with changes of secondary order, these EU institutions accepted and institutionalized the restrictive and weakly integrated core of EU asylum set by the Council in the first negotiation round. Their role and decisions were driven not only by the negotiation dynamics and political expediency, but also by new inter- and intra-institutional norms fostering consensual practices.

EC Visa Facilitation and Readmission Agreements: Implementing a New EU Security Approach in the Neighbourhood

With the Eastern Enlargement successfully completed, the EU is searching for a proper balance between internal security and external stabilisation that is acceptable to all sides. This paper focuses on an EU foreign policy instrument that is a case in point for this struggle: EC visa facilitation and readmission agreements. By looking at the EUs strategy on visa facilitation and readmission, this paper aims to offer a first systematic analysis of the objectives, substance and political implications of these agreements. The analysis considers the instrument of EC visa facilitation and readmission agreements as a means to implement a new EU security approach in the neighbourhood. In offering more relaxed travel conditions in exchange for the signing of an EC readmission agreement and reforming domestic justice and home affairs, the EU has found a new way to press for reforms in neighbouring countries while addressing a major source of discontent in these countries. The analysis concludes with the broader implications of these agreements and argues that even if the facilitated travel opportunities are beneficial for the citizens of the target countries, the positive achievements are undermined by the Schengen enlargement, which makes the new member states tie up their borders to those of their neighbours.

Deconstructing the EU’s Routes of Influence in Justice and Home Affairs in the Western Balkans

Abstract What routes of influence could the European Union use to bring the Western Balkan states closer to EU standards in Justice and Home Affairs (JHA)? The paper argues that although the mechanisms of Europeanization identified for the Central and Eastern European countries are useful for understanding the EU’s external influence, they are not sufficient for fully deconstructing the avenues of external leverage. The key to understanding the Europeanization of the Western Balkans is to take policy‐related conditionality into account, in addition to membership conditionality. In offering more relaxed travel conditions in exchange for the signing of an EC readmission agreement and reforming domestic JHA, the EU could counterbalance the shortcomings of the pre‐accession strategy and establish an additional avenue of external leverage. The paper suggests understanding the EU’s use of policy‐related conditionality in the Western Balkans as exemplary for the European Neighbourhood Policy.

EU Justice and Home Affairs Strategy in the Western Balkans: Conflicting Objectives in the Pre-Accession Strategy

[From the Introduction]. The states of the Western Balkans constitute a major source of ‘soft security’ threats to the EU. The EU attaches a great deal of importance to this subject, as reflected by the fact that justice and home affairs is officially one of the most prominent areas of cooperation in the region. This paper aims at elaborating on this process and poses as its key analytical question: What are the actual routes of influence through which the EU can bring these states closer to EU standards in justice and home affairs? The analysis presents the EU’s pre-accession strategy as one of the chief mechanisms for exerting influence on the domestic political processes and structures of the Western Balkan states. Yet the application of the EU’s pre-accession framework to this regional setting suffers from two major shortcomings, namely the EU’s ‘commitment deficit’, which generates doubts about the credibility of the EU’s membership promise, and the uncertain timeframe within which compliance with EU rules will be rewarded. To counterbalance these shortcomings, the EU uses its visa regime for the region as a threat and main incentive for strengthening reform efforts. The analysis concludes with the argument that this strategy creates tension with the broader objectives for the region. Although the EU’s overall aim is to integrate these countries and to support them in their transformation towards stable democracies and open, European-oriented societies, its visa regime functions as an obstacle to this very aim by confining the movement of persons, such that they lose sight of the wider horizon.

The Communitarization of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice: Why Institutional Change does not Translate into Policy Change

This article proposes an explanation as to why institutional change – understood as more competences for the European Unions supranational institutions – has rarely led to policy change in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ). It draws attention to the constraints that newly empowered actors have faced in the wake of introducing the co-decision procedure. If the key principles of a given AFSJ sub-policy – its ‘policy core’ – were defined before institutional change occurred, the Council (as the dominant actor of the early intergovernmental co-operation) has found it easier to prevail in the altered structural environment and to co-opt or sideline actors with competing rationales. The article compares the importance of the new decision-making procedure with two alternative pathways potentially leading to policy change, namely, the power of litigation and the impact of unexpected external events.

Europol and its Influence on EU Policy-making on Organized Crime: Analyzing Governance Dynamics and Opportunities

While issues relating to the development, legitimacy and accountability of the European Police Office, Europol, have been intensively discussed in political and academic circles, the actual impact of Europol on policy-making in the European Union has yet to receive scholarly attention. By investigating the evolution and the role of Europols organized crime reports, this article elaborates on whether Europol has been able to exert an influence beyond its narrowly defined mandate. Theoretically informed by the assumptions of experimentalist governance, the article argues that the different legal systems and policing traditions of EU member states have made it difficult for the EU to agree on a common understanding on how to fight against organized crime. This lack of consensus, which has translated into a set of vague and broadly formulated framework goals and guidelines, has enabled Europol to position its Organized Crime Threat Assessments as the point of reference in the respective EU policy-making area. Europols interest in improving its institutional standing thereby converged with the interest of different member states to use Europol as a socialization platform to broadcast their ideas and to ‘Europeanize’ their national counter-organized crime policy.Abstract While issues relating to the development, legitimacy and accountability of the European Police Office, Europol, have been intensively discussed in political and academic circles, the actual impact of Europol on policy-making in the European Union has yet to receive scholarly attention. By investigating the evolution and the role of Europols organized crime reports, this article elaborates on whether Europol has been able to exert an influence beyond its narrowly defined mandate. Theoretically informed by the assumptions of experimentalist governance, the article argues that the different legal systems and policing traditions of EU member states have made it difficult for the EU to agree on a common understanding on how to fight against organized crime. This lack of consensus, which has translated into a set of vague and broadly formulated framework goals and guidelines, has enabled Europol to position its Organized Crime Threat Assessments as the point of reference in the respective EU policy-making area. Europols interest in improving its institutional standing thereby converged with the interest of different member states to use Europol as a socialization platform to broadcast their ideas and to ‘Europeanize’ their national counter-organized crime policy.

The Negotiation and Contestation of EU Migration Policy Instruments. A Research Framework.

AbstractThis article develops a research framework for the analysis of the politics of migration policy instruments. Policy instruments are seen as living instruments; they evolve and develop similar to moving targets. A scholar interested in this field of research may focus either on the establishment of a given instrument or on its use. The question of an instrument’s design relates to the policy transfer literature focusing on how certain policies move from one setting to another. In the context of a policy transfer, actors from the other – ‘receiving’ – institutional setting negotiate and, potentially, contest or reinterpret a policy instrument. The evolution of policy instruments once adopted in a specific institutional context is a second area of interest. The original goals can be diluted throughout the implementation process notably due to tensions between intergovernmental and supranational actors, or sticky institutionalization, which is characterized by path-dependencies. Often the choice of new instruments derives from an inefficiency or loss of credibility of past instruments. This editorial therefore seeks to make a twofold contribution: first it investigates the added-value of a policy instrument approach to the study of migration; second it furthers research on the external dimension of EU migration policy.