Romania's Accession to the EU and the EU Children's Rights Agenda: Policy Entrepreneurship and Feedback Effects

Abstract

Policy entrepreneurs and feedback effects can shape the European Union's (EU's) human rights agenda. This article examines the role of policy entrepreneurs and policy feedback in relation to EU intervention in children's rights in Romania and the impact of this intervention on the EU itself. The children's rights accession conditionality as applied on Romania amounted to an interventionist policy, which radically overhauled the Romanian children's rights provisions. The Romanian children's case, however, provided EU policy entrepreneurs with a window of opportunity to introduce children's rights as an EU internal policy, while, in the context of EU enlargement, positive feedback effects have entrenched the protection of children's rights as an EU accession condition. It is shown that the children's rights conditionality applied on Romania before 2007 has impacted upon the EU's approach to children's rights by forging the development of institutional structures and policy mechanisms at the Commission level to promote children's rights in the EU's internal and external policy dimensions.