EU External Policy Research Articles

The Ideational Power of Strategic Autonomy in EU Security and External Economic Policies

AbstractThis article undertakes a comparative analysis of European Union security and external economic policies to explore the different trajectories of strategic autonomy (SA) in these two domains. In so doing, it contributes to a better understanding of endogenous drivers of policy change in response to geopoliticising pressures. Drawing on discursive institutionalism, it analyses three dimensions of ideational power: power in, power through and power over. The evidence, based on documentary analysis and interviews, demonstrates that though SA presented a more significant challenge to pre‐established paradigms in external economic relations, the role of the Commission as an ideational entrepreneur, supported by its coercive power, facilitated the adoption of the idea of (open) SA. Conversely, French President Emmanuel Macron was unable to persuade others of the adoption of a sovereigntist conception of SA in security, with the exception of defence industrial policy, where the Commission enjoys budgetary power and competences.

The Mobility-Democracy Nexus Betrayed: When the European Commission’s Talks Fall Apart in the Mediterranean

In the aftermath of the Arab uprisings, the European Union’s (EU) relations with the Southern neighbour countries (SNCs) have been reframed in the light of a new élan of democracy promotion. The underlying logic of this approach was to leverage the building and consolidation of democracy and rule of law through enhanced cooperation in terms of more ‘markets, money and mobility’. A sort of mobility-democracy nexus has been assumed by the European Commission as a crucial dimension of the EU’s external relations with SNCs. Within this strategy, Mobility Partnerships (MPs) with SNCs have been identified as a key policy tool for EU democracy promotion. Via original qualitative analysis of European Commission’s documents, MPs, and other migration and mobility agreements that the EU has negotiated with SNCs since 2011, this paper explores how the mobility-democracy nexus has been defined in the Commission’s talks. We critically discuss the effectiveness of this nexus and demonstrate the inefficacy of MPs as a tool to promote democracy by fostering more mobility and regular migration flows. Looking at the content of MPs with three SNCs (Tunisia, Morocco, and Jordan) allows to trace the transformation of EU external relations with SNCs from a principled approach into selective issue-oriented cooperation based on more specific and sectorial policy choices. European Union, Southern neighbourhood, EU external policies, post-Arab uprisings, mobility partnerships, democracy promotion, migration, content analysis

White knight or partner of choice? The Ukraine war and the role of the Middle East in the energy security of Europe

The Ukraine war has forced Europe to redefine its energy security policies towards more diversification and less reliance on Russian energy. As an energy-rich and relatively close region, the Middle East can play a potentially important role in Europe's future energy security. However, a short-term and static view on the Middle East's readiness as Europe's energy partner conceals the dynamic nature of Europe's external policy towards this region. Closer energy cooperation with the Middle East requires a holistic approach and informed strategies that consider the realities and perspectives of energy-exporting countries. This paper provides an analysis of the role of the Middle East in Europe's energy security by considering political economic factors such as capacity, domestic reforms, and long-term supply reliability. Using a perspective based on international political economy, long-term strategies for energy cooperation between the Middle East and Europe are highlighted. Integration with North Africa's energy markets and infrastructure can deliver energy supplies and foster energy transition in Europe and the Middle East. Oil diplomacy with Gulf countries is necessary for price stability and the compensation of oil supplies for Europe. Finally, there are opportunities for European countries to strengthen energy trade partnerships (particularly with Qatar) and thus become more involved in the interstate competition for the abundant gas supplies of the Middle East. Europe's energy rapprochement with the Middle East solicits a re-examination of EU external energy policies in order to achieve more long-term and mutually beneficial energy cooperation.

Spillover dynamics and inter-institutional interactions between CSDP and AFSJ: moving towards a more joined-up EU external migration policy?

ABSTRACT The EU’s response to the European ‘refugee crisis’ has involved parallel efforts to strengthen the EU’s capacity for external migration management in the domains of CSDP and AFSJ. To provide a swift response to the ‘refugee crisis’ in 2015, EU member states decided to utilise existing operational CSDP capabilities as a short-term foreign policy tool. Simultaneously, we have seen an impressive strengthening of the mandate and capabilities of ASFJ actors in external migration governance. Although institutional links between civilian CSDP and AFSJ have existed for over two decades, the parallel task expansion has created new demands for inter-institutional coordination between the two policy areas. Combining neofunctionalist theory with insights from research on inter-institutional overlap, this article argues that responses to neofunctionalist spillover pressures may trigger inter-institutional dynamics, which can involve both cooperation as well as conflict. Empirically, we find that these inter-institutional interactions have had important implications for integration in both policy areas, which cannot be fully understood by studying these policy domains in isolation.

Introduction: EU external migration policy and EU migration governance: introduction

ABSTRACT While the EU’s external migration policy arguably constitutes the most dynamic strand of EU migration policy, especially since the 2015/2016 asylum crisis in Europe, and while there is also a growing body of research on this dimension, more comprehensive, conceptually informed social science publications analysing this policy area in a more encompassing fashion are scarce. In an attempt to make progress on this front, this special issue focusses on four sets of issues: (1) conceptualising EU external migration policy; (2) identifying the drivers and conditioning factors of EU policy; (3) analysing interdependencies and interactions between different policy areas and instruments; and (4) tracing the influence and reactions of third country actors and non-European host countries of migration. After describing key developments and aspects of EU external migration policies over time and after reviewing the state of the art in research on EU external migration policy, the key contributions of the individual papers are identified and contextualised.

Third time lucky? Reconciling EU climate and external energy policy during energy security crises

ABSTRACT The Russian aggression against Ukraine brought energy security to the top of the European policy agenda. Existing literature suggests that the prioritization of energy security would come at the expense of climate policy. We argue that the EU’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine may constitute a departure from this pattern. Our assessment shows a higher level of coherence of objectives and instruments between energy security and climate objectives than the EU’s energy policy responses to previous crises with Russia, notably the gas supply crisis of 2009 and the annexation of Crimea in 2014. While some uncertainty about final outcomes remains, we argue that change in several contextual conditions helps explain coherent policy outputs and make coherent outcomes more likely on the occasion of the present crisis.

Principal-agent relations, politics of discretion, and the Africa-EU Partnership on Peace and Security

ABSTRACT Interregionalism constitutes a main feature of EU external policy and unfolds specifically in Africa-EU-relations. However, research has merely focused on the EU as a coherent actor, although many EU institutions implement cooperation with African partners. Likewise, principal-agent research, a prominent path to unpack the internals of EU policies, on the EU´s interregional relations is nascent. This paper seeks to fill these research gaps by applying a principal-agent framework to internal processes of the EU in its Africa relations. After analyzing acts of delegation, it analyzes the discretion of the agents. Pointing specifically to the EU-Africa Partnership on Peace and Security, the study investigates on principal-agent relations from a non-principal-related perspective that puts forward structure-induced and interest-induced factors for increased agent discretion. The results suggest that agents enjoy substantial discretion enabled by the specific environment and agent actions in a policy field of high importance to the principals.

The EU as a Global Gender Actor: Tracing Intersectionality in the European Gender Action Plans for External Relations 2010–2025

Abstract In recent years, the European Union has been paying more attention to social categories other than gender in its external policies. The authors’ aim is twofold. First, we trace how the concept of intersectionality has evolved in EU external gender policy since 2010. Second, we analyze to what extent the framing of intersectionality is able to harness intersectionality’s transformative potential. Using a tailored critical frame analysis of EU Gender Action Plans I–III, the study finds a growing and more profound engagement with the concept since 2020, due to the amenability of the policy field and a changed opportunity structure resulting from the 2019 appointment of a new Commission which put (gender) equality back on the agenda. While not yet transformative in the strict sense, the policy shift is an important leverage for equality advocates as it sets out a progressive course for the European Union as a global gender actor.

The European Union and Central Asia: Economic development and trade

This paper analyses EU-Central Asia trade and EU economic assistance to Central Asia. Some EU companies have had a high profile in individual countries or in energy projects (reflected in trade relations between parent and host country), but overall EU companies have lagged the higher profile of Russian companies and the increasing Chinese economic presence. Central Asia had low priority in EU external economic policies towards Soviet successor states. After 2007 the EU became more active in designing a Central Asia strategy, but funding has been limited and the impact small. A significant development for EU-Central Asian economic relations has been the expansion of Eurasian rail services. This has a firm economic foundation and, if currently important routes are disrupted by events in Russia, alternatives will be found. The paper concludes with discussion of prospects for EU-Central Asian relations with new presidents in Uzbekistan since 2016 and Kazakhstan since 2019.

When one door closes, another opens: How the failure of the Turkey - Austria natural gas pipeline project has led to recovery, resilience and scalability of successor projects

There are numerous examples of energy policy failures (Heffron et al., 2018) which are now being systematically studied to provide for much-needed policy-relevant perspectives into key definitions, contexts, and theoretical frameworks for analysis (Sokołowski and Heffron, 2022). This paper will focus on one of the prominent examples of an energy policy failure; the case of the Turkey – Austria natural gas pipeline project,11Seminal research discussing the Turkey – Austria natural gas pipeline project, in the context of East – West gas transportation infrastructure, includes Winrow (2004). also known as Nabucco gas pipeline project (NGPP), and more broadly the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) strategy that dominated much of EU energy import diversification strategy in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Drawing on the NGPP case study, this paper analyses the EU's external policy, identifying its key failures and arguing that, paradoxically, the drawbacks of the NGPP that were attributed to political factors have led to recovery, improved resilience and, ultimately, appropriate scalability in successor projects. The Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) as well as the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) projects enabled the spirit of the failed energy policy to outlive the mega-scale Nabucco project by engaging and emancipating key regional energy stakeholders, particularly Turkey and Azerbaijan, thereby revitalizing their westward-oriented gas transit and supply strategies. With the door of the EU's external energy policy closing, the door of regional stakeholders opens, redefining our understanding of project risk and the associated economic, social and environmental aspects of it.

EU external energy policy: the case of Azerbaijan

The article’s aim is to identify the features of EU external energy policy. The author analyses the evolution of EU energy policy and ongoing energy transition, using the primary and secondary legislation and scientific literature. Particular attention is paid to the European Green Deal, which affects EU energy relations with third countries. Azerbaijan was chosen as the case of analysis, because this country is the one of important suppliers of the natural gas to the European Union. The author concludes that the Europeanisation of Azerbaijan through mechanisms of conditionality and externalisation is beneficial to both the EU and Azerbaijan, and this, in turn, will push Azerbaijan to follow the European Green Deal.

The Impact of the EU Green New Deal on EU Climate Leadership

European Green Deal is a programmatic document for the EU to implement the Green New Deal and an important strategy launched by the EU in the field of climate governance. European Green Deal covers the EU's internal and external policies, covering important areas such as regulation, economy and energy, and is a comprehensive EU green development strategy. European Green Deal has promoted the implementation of the Green New Deal and improved the EU's climate leadership, but the implementation of the agreement has also encountered internal and external pressures. This paper takes European Green Deal as an example to study its impact on the EU's climate leadership and analyze the prospects.

How to Reflexively Decentre EU Foreign Policy: Dissonance and Contrapuntal Reconstruction in Migration, Religious and Neighbourhood Governance

AbstractThis article develops a timely new model for EU foreign policy by advancing the call for a ‘decentring agenda’, focused on the challenge of inclusive ‘reconstruction’. It does so by first staking out an ontological space at the intersection of empirical multiplexity and normative pluriversality. Within this space, it proposes an ethically informed methodological tool: the contrapuntal negotiation of dissonant perspectives on common governance challenges. It then suggests ways to reconstruct analytical and policy‐making processes and outcomes on the basis of mutuality and local empowerment. Using three scales of ‘contrapuntality’ (micro, meso and macro) to read key empirical sites at the intersection of the EU's internal and external policies (migration, religious and neighbourhood governance), it argues that by decentring in these and further arenas, the EU can seek to become a more reflexive global actor in sync with the ethical and practical demands of our multiplex world.

Non-trade Objectives and EU External Policy: Survey Responses on RESPECT Research Findings

Non-trade Objectives and EU External Policy: Survey Responses on RESPECT Research Findings

The EU external policy and the 2015–2018 refugee relocation system in the light of historical institutionalism

The main research objective of the text is to analyse the refugee relocation system in the light of historical institutionalism in 2015–2018. Historical institutionalism refers to the interaction between European integration actors in the European Union system, analysed in retrospect from a documentary perspective. The time factor is particularly important, since it enables to follow the institutional process defined by EU norms, procedures and integration rules and their sequential impact on favoured treatment or disavowing of integration visions, preferences, needs and interests.
 In view of the above, the refugee relocation system proposed and introduced in the period 2015–2018 confirms the above research assumption that the political decision on relocation made by the European Commission and the European Council resulted in a relevant legal act adopted by the EU Council to regulate the issue. Although under the pressure of the situation Member States agreed, some of them began to contest the decisions later.

Unpacking the unintended consequences of European migration governance: the case of South American migration policy liberalisation

ABSTRACT Research on the external dimension of EU migration governance has focused on the EU’s interests, preferences, and policy efficiency and coherence. Little attention has been paid to the myriad ways both partner and third countries react to the union’s external action. We explore the European influence on immigration and refugee policy liberalisation in South America, a region not directly targeted by extra-regional migration governance. Based on the analysis of 130 original interviews with government officials and NGO and IO representatives in eight South American countries we show that - although South American policymakers generally regard the EU as a model of ‘efficiency’, in terms of the EU’s intra-regional mobility regime – the remarkable legislative liberalisation in the region took place in the context of both political and moral opposition to restrictive shifts in EU extra-regional migration governance. The paper contributes to the literature on the EU external migration governance, policy diffusion, and Latin American migration policies by uncovering some of the unintended consequences of European migration governance in South America.

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE EU STRATEGIC PRIORITIES IN POST-SOVIET CENTRAL ASIA

The Central Asian region has never been a priority area of EU external policy, although the European Union Global Strategy underlines its support for multilateralism in global strategy. The European Union has been more actively engaged in the region since the launch of the New Great Game in Central Asia between China, Russia and the U.S. Following the “neighbors of neighbors” concept, the EU shapes its relations with post-Soviet Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) on the basis of multilateral strategies and bilateral partnership agreements. The first comprehensive EU strategic document focused on post-Soviet Central Asia, The EU and Central Asia: Strategy for a New Partnership, was concluded in 2007. Despite some allegations that the strategy should take into account the individual needs and specificities of each country, it should be emphasized that the strategy intensified mutual relations between Central Asia and the EU, as well as the EU’s institutional presence in the region, mainly in terms of political and diplomatic dialog. Due to a dynamic approach, the analysis undertaken in the research study allowed for the presentation of positive and negative tendencies, changes and reversals in the implementation of the particular components of the previous EU strategy towards Central Asian countries over time. It should be noted that most objectives outlined in its normative strategy towards Central Asia were achieved to a limited extent, especially in terms of democratization and civil society.

Competing Logics of Integration: EU Trade Post-Brexit

The European Union’s (EU) external trade policy has long been championed by scholars and practitioners alike as one of the great accomplishments for European integration. The UK’s exit from the EU in 2020 offers many precedents; one of which is the current negotiation of a trade deal between the EU and a former important member of the single market. This paper outlines the trade negotiation process between the EU and the UK and the resulting Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic to forecast the broader potential evolution of EU trade policy. The increasing visibility of nationalist and protectionist statements in various instances of political communication suggests a major shift in multilateral norms away from the liberal-international emphasis on heightened trade and interdependence. The implications for the EU external trade policy are a re-direction of efforts toward internal single market cohesion, and a more cautious approach to future potential trade agreements.

The use of pseudo-causal narratives in EU policies: the case of the European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa

ABSTRACT The EUTF aims to address the ‘root causes of migration’ by providing development assistance to countries of origin and transit. While it is allegedly based on scientific evidence, scholarly consensus suggests that development assistance is ill-suited to address irregular migration – which is something that some of the actors who designed the EUTF were aware of. We advance a new framework for understanding the emergence and success of pseudo-causal narratives (i.e., narratives relying on unproven and/or disproven causal claims) in EU policymaking. Using frame analysis, we argue that the pseudo-causal ‘root causes’ narrative was adopted against better evidence because it was plausible, compelling and had been used in EU external migration policies before. Faced with the salience of migration and the urgency to act in late 2015, and due to the absence of any clear ideas of what other measures could work, EU actors adopted this narrative to demonstrate that they were actively responding to the ‘crisis’. The narrative met little contestation, since it met the concerns of both those who were keen to stop migration and those who wanted to preserve the core of previous EU development policy.

EU Aid Policy in the Middle East and North Africa: Politicization and its Limits

AbstractSome elements of EU assistance to the countries of MENA have become more politicized in recent years. This is largely because sharper differences of opinion have emerged over EU funds being used to limit migration and for security aims. Contestation has intensified horizontally between different EU institutions and European governments. However, this politicization varies across different policy areas and different parts of the MENA region, and in some instances remains relatively muted. After outlining the general increase in salience and wider institutional engagement; we then contrast this with the more measured increase in the third dimension of politicization, namely polarization over the EU's MENA aid policies. We offer three examples of the way that internal policy‐making dynamics have softened polarization and discuss implications for the broader analysis of EU foreign and security policy. We conclude that different kinds of dynamics both drive and limit politicization within the EU's external policies.