Abstract
<p>The EU–Jordan Compact (hereafter Compact) has been identified as being a groundbreaking, comprehensive approach to global refugee protection. Thus far, research on this underexplored case has mainly focused on the effects of the Compact. The policy process leading to the adoption of the Compact, as well as the motivations of the EU (i.e., the main donor), remain blackboxed. This article explores how the migration crisis affected the EU Commission’s ability to create coordinated, strategic action in external policy. It does so by tracing the internal EU negotiations and developing a causal model that explains how the Commission could overcome silos and efficiently draft a policy proposal linking the issues of migration and trade. The analysis is based on 13 original in-depth interviews with EU representatives. The article contributes to crisisification theory by presenting a mechanism that explains how the Commission can make use of crises. The Commission created cohesion by reframing the crisis, identifying the relevant policy tools with which to address it, and by reframing the responsibilities of the relevant directorate-general. Furthermore, by utilizing the urgency of the crisis, the Commission enabled rapid policy drafting and created an explicit linkage between refugee policy and trade policy. This linkage provided the member states with the motivation to adopt the proposal as a solution to the ongoing migration crisis.</p>
Highlights
In 2015, the number of refugees entering Europe surged to over one million
I argue that the external relations units within the Commission along with the External Action Service leveraged the migration crisis to increase their influence within the Commission by arguing that trade concessions were the most appropriate measure and by reframing the responsibilities of the directorate‐general (DG) for Trade, and that they created interest alignment with the member states through issue‐linkage
Through tracing the internal EU negotiations that led to the Compact, this article demonstrates the presence of a causal mechanism explaining how external relation units within the Commission and the External Action Service (EEAS) can leverage a crisis to influence external EU policy
Summary
In 2015, the number of refugees entering Europe surged to over one million. In July 2016, the EU–Jordan Compact (hereinafter referred to as the Compact) was signed to provide the refugee‐hosting state of Jordan with economic support and trade benefits. The contribution of this article lies in its demonstration of how the Commission used the crisis to influence pol‐ icy This contribution relates to the Politics and Governance thematic issue on The Impact of Rule Change on Policy Outputs, by highlighting the effects that external shocks can have on the relative power of EU institutions and on policy output. She argues that the Compact is an example of the rising number of practical and infor‐ mal agreements in the EU’s external migration policy, which have negative consequences for the balance of power between the EU institutions as it undermines the role of the EU Parliament
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