Failing under the ‘shadow of hierarchy’: explaining the role of the European Parliament in the EU’s ‘asylum crisis’

Abstract

ABSTRACTOne of the main proposals to solve the ‘asylum crisis’ of 2015–2016 was to reform the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) and, in particular, the Dublin regime. However, the European Council conclusion of June 2018 exposed the failure to find an agreement on the CEAS reform. This article examines the conditions for policy failure – focusing on how crises affect inter-institutional negotiations and the role played by the European Parliament (EP) in particular. It shows how the EP successfully managed to form a united position and frame the crisis as a failure of previous CEAS reforms, but that this was not sufficient to break the deadlock among member states. Therefore, it demonstrates how the ‘shadow of hierarchy’ cast by the European Council may be a sufficient condition to explain policy failure, which may potentially lead to the gradual disempowerment of the EP in EU policy-making.