CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020
| Author | Bojovic, Jakov |
|---|---|
| Title | Beyond Ever Closer Union: The Juncker Commission-s Ambition in Migration and Economic Policy |
| Summary | Since the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, in new areas of EU activity such as migration and economic policy, the Member States have substantially integrated policymaking at the EU level without transferring new powers to the traditional supranational bodies like the European Commission. Because of the intergovernmental nature of many of these new governance mechanisms, the Commission’s leadership and the ability to drive integration forward has been put into question ever since. It is certainly true that the traditional way that the EU has integrated in the past – expansion of the Community method leading to an ever closer union – does not work in these policy areas. The possibilities for the European Commission to be an ambitious policy entrepreneur within such constraints are investigated in this thesis. Beyond ever closer union, there are still options for the Commission to lead in other ways. In other words, there are other types of ambition that the Commission may have. These are the ambition to empower other EU institutions (the so-called de novo bodies), to find and propose new types of integration or coordination of policies, and to act politically by pursuing policy changes within the existing institutional architecture. All of these ambitions can be, in one way or another, in a clash with the Commission’s potential appetite for an ever closer Union. Delegating powers to new bodies runs against its presumed role as the government of Europe in an ever closer union, new types of integration or coordination of policies means that powers remain mostly at Member State level and acting politically negatively affects its perception of neutrality necessary for traditional EU integration. In the analytical framework developed in this thesis, the three are referred to as subjects of “focus of ambition” of the Commission. Some would expect that Member States would have primary roles in pursuing such solutions, with the Commission being either opposed to or complicit with them. However, this thesis hypothesizes that the Commission takes an active role in pursuing them, as a highly ambitious actor. As highly ambitious, the Commission proposes, rather than waits for the European Council or other intergovernmental body to instruct the solution. Being initially highly ambitious, the thesis hypothesizes that the Commission is also ready moderate its ambition after discussions with the stakeholders. In some situations, its high ambition can also lead to its proposals being ignored by the decision-makers. While the first set of expectations are about the focus of ambition, these expectations of a highly ambitious Commission are about the level of the Commission’s ambition. The thesis takes the presidency of Jean-Claude Juncker as a time frame for analysis, specifically six policy episodes within the policy fields of EMU and JHA. Semi-structured elite interviews, process tracing, and document analysis are used to investigate the Juncker Commission’s ambition. The findings confirm the hypotheses relating to the focus and the level of ambition, which shows that the Commission has moved its focus to other projects rather than ever closer Union, as the second hypothesis of new intergovernmentalism suggested, and has done so with a high level of ambition. |
| Supervisor | Puetter, Uwe |
| Department | Public Policy PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2020/bojovic_jakov.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University