Oriol Costa

Drawing the Neighbours Closer … to What? Explaining Emerging Patterns of Policy Convergence between the EU and its Neighbours

The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) launched in 2004 was purposefully conceived as a strategy to encourage neighbours’ approximation with the European Union (EU). This aim by the EU to extend its own system of rules beyond member states has become the focal point of the literature on the EU’s relations with neighbours. In this article, however, we aim to broaden the scope of the analysis of the EU’s role as it pursues policy convergence in the ENP area. More specifically, we argue that the convergence processes can be established on a basis other than EU’s norms, namely, international and bilaterally developed norms. Building on this three-fold distinction, we propose a model explaining how and when policy convergence is more likely to happen on the basis of every one of these norms. The model takes into account three variables: the structure of incentives between the EU and its neighbours, mutual perceptions of legitimacy and intra-EU coherence. Based on a number of empirical examples, we illustrate that EU-based convergence is less predominant in EU’s relations with its neighbours than it is usually portrayed in the literature.

Which rules shape EU external governance? Patterns of rule selection in foreign and security policies

This article addresses a particular aspect of EU external governance: rule selection. Drawing on institutionalist and power-based explanations we put forward an account for the choice of the specific rules that guide policy convergence between the EU and third countries. The proposed analytical framework broadens the scope of the studies examining the externalization of EU rules beyond its borders, in that we claim that the EU can promote policy convergence using rules other than the EUs. More specifically, the EU also promotes policy convergence on the basis of international and bilaterally developed rules. These analytical claims for explaining rule selection are checked against empirical data. We compare policy convergence between the EU and four neighbouring countries (Morocco, Ukraine, Georgia, and Russia) in three subfields within foreign and security policy: foreign policy dialogue, control of export of dual-use goods in the context of non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and crisis management.

Is climate change changing the EU? The second image reversed in climate politics

The participation of the European Union (EU) in the international negotiations on climate change has attracted a significant share of scholarly attention. Climate change has certainly become a new dimension of European foreign policy and has enabled the EU to play a leadership role in the international arena. However, the relationship between the EU and the international climate regime is not a one-way street—while the EU has been active and decisive in shaping international negotiations, the latter have also had an impact on the EU. The international negotiations have influenced the EUs decision-making processes and internal negotiations—which has in turn influenced European integration itself. This article builds on the arguments of second image reversed analyses and proposes that there is a reciprocal relation between certain conditions of the EU-domestic setting and the international climate regime. The internal arrangements of the EU regarding climate change have maximized the influence of the regime and the very existence of the international negotiations has moulded these arrangements, making them more prone to external influence.

The Influence of International Institutions on the EU

The Influence of International Institutions on the EU: A Framework for Analysis O.Costa & K.E.Jorgensen Less than you Might Think: The Impact of WTO Rules on EU Policies A.Young Playing into the Hands of the Commission? The Case of EU Coordination in the ILO M.Riddervold & H.Sjursen The External Institutional Context Matters: The EU in International Negotiations T.Delreux , E.Drieskens , B.Kerremans & C.Damro The Influence of International Institutions on Access to Justice in Environmental Matters in the EU and its Member States A.Wetzel The Influence of Global Internet Governance Institutions on the EU G.Christou & S.Simpson Combating the Financing of Terrorism Together? The Influence of the United Nations on the European Unions Financial Sanctions S.Leonard & C.Kaunert Linking up Levels of Governance: The Agencies of the European Union and their Interaction with International Institutions M.L.P.Groenleer NATOs Influence on the Evolution of the European Union as a Security Actor J.Koops The Influence of the Council of Europe on the European Union: Resource Exchange and Domains Restriction as Venues for Inter-institutional Influence B.Schumacher How do International Institutions Influence the EU? X.Dai & G.Martinez The Top-down Dimension of the Relationship between the EU and International Institutions: Taking Stock R.Kissack When Multilateralism hits Brussels: Generalizations and an Agenda for Further Research K.E.Jorgensen & O.Costa

The Influence of International Institutions on the EU: A Framework for Analysis

The promotion of effective multilateralism is allegedly a key objective of the European Union’s foreign policy. Over the last twenty years, the relationship between the European Union and international institutions has become ‘more sustained and consistent’ (Jorgensen, 2009: 188), as it has become a popular topic for research. Scholars have studied the origin of the multilateral identity and preferences of the EU (Groom, 2007; Jorgensen, 2006a; Manners and Lucarelli, 2007), the role of the EU in promoting regionalism (Grugel, 2007; Soderbaum and Langenhove, 2006), the uneasy intersection between the EU and the state-centric multilateral organizations (Laatikainen and Smith, 2006), and the EU’s potential for shaping norms and rules of the multilateral system (Chaban, Elgstrom and Holland, 2006; Smith, 2006; Smith, 2010). Others have focused on the role of the EU in specific international regimes and negotiations (Ahnlid, 2005; Kerremans and Gystelinck, 2008; Kissack, 2008; Mortensen, 2009).

Convergence on the Fringe: The Environmental Dimension of Euro-Mediterranean Cooperation

This article examines environmental policy convergence in the Mediterranean from three different perspectives. First, it describes the main features of this convergence. Namely, that convergence is more about principles and approaches than about environmental quality standards, and that it is undifferentiated in sectoral and geographical terms, but there is scope for normative differentiation. Secondly, the article explores the strategies available to promote convergence. Actors in charge of environmental Euro-Mediterranean cooperation cannot resort to conditionality, and thus have developed two alternative strategies, functional cooperation and international legitimation. Finally, the article reviews the results delivered by these strategies.

Assessing Influence Between International Organizations

How much do inter-organizational relations (IORs) matter for international organizations (IOs)? How much do they change IOs? These are key questions, if we are to compare different instances of inter-organizational interaction and understand the relevance of IORs across issue areas and regions, and along time. Nevertheless, assessing the influence of IOs on other IOs has not been a key endeavor of the literature on IORs, that has preferred to pay attention to the causes and modes of interaction. This chapter deals with the issue of inter-organizational influence by (a) clarifying the concept and distinguishing it from neighborly ones, (b) suggesting ways to measure influence, and (c) discussing the multiple domains of an IO that can be influenced by another IO, including both issues related to IOs as containers and to the contents of IOs.

When Multilateralism Hits Brussels: Generalizations and an Agenda for Further Research

The contributions to this volume suggest that the influence of international institutions on the EU can be significant. It has been demonstrated that international institutions shape EU policies, sometimes strongly. Similarly, they can act as a source of preferences and strategies for EU stances in international fora. International institutions can also influence policy-making processes by triggering the emergence of new actors and coalitions or differentially empowering some of them. The reinforcement of the Commission or the facilitation of agreements among member states can even foster small-scale processes of EU integration. Importantly, sometimes these effects are unintended or even undesired by the states that created the international institution in the first place, which shows that top-down processes are at least occasionally independent from previous bottom-up ones. In other words, the studies in this volume suggest that international institutions constitute the EU, and not only the other way around.

A force for and because of multilateralism: when is the EU a multilateralist actor in world society?

The European Union (EU) presents a Janus-faced profile concerning multilateralism. While in some areas it embraces multilateral institutions to a greater degree than other major players, in others it displays a less than unconditional support. Both patterns have been accounted for, but no account has explained why the EU shifts from one to the other. This article advances a reason for this bifurcated international identity. The EU is embedded in a world society that is culturally and normatively dense with regard to the standard of what qualifies as an actor. In the areas in which its actorness is further away from such a standard, the EU is impelled to take remedial action and embrace other components of the model of international actorness, like multilateral institutions and multilaterally developed norms. In order to test this hypothesis, the article examines the role of the EU vis-à-vis negotiations on anti-personnel landmines and hormone-treated beef.

Beijing After Kyoto? The EU and the New Climate in Climate Negotiations

The EU has made a point of leading negotiations on climate change. It repeatedly presents itself to the world and the citizens of member states as the champion of the fight against global warming. Nevertheless, the role of the EU in climate negotiations has not been without changes and setbacks, as the conditions that made its leadership possible no longer obtain—has and this has been so for a decade now. In effect, changes in the power structure have had all throughout this decade a particularly acute effect on climate negotiations. In this chapter the argument will be made that, after having attempted entrenchment until 2009, the EU chose to accommodate the new strategic situation.