EU sectoral integration in the Eastern Neighbourhood: the case of Frontex-Moldova relations in border management

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article explores EU sectoral integration in the Eastern Neighbourhood. It shows that extant approaches to explaining EU meso-level engagement with third countries – differentiated integration and functional cooperation – fall short of capturing all dynamics at play. Drawing on the literature of ‘Europeanisation,’ it develops a novel conceptual framework for the study of EU sectoral integration entailing four avenues – rules, institutions, practices and knowledge – and two features – local ownership and cross-fertilisation. Through an in-depth empirical study of Frontex-Moldova relations, the article demonstrates that engagement in border management remains below the threshold of differentiated integration by precluding institutional inclusion but reaches beyond functional cooperation through combining integration concerning practices and knowledge. Furthermore, unlike differentiated integration, it allows for local ownership, and contrary to functional cooperation, it enables cross-fertilisation, even if these features are absent from the macro-level cooperation context. Thus, the article contributes to the refinement of the theoretical framework of European integration.