Contesting the EU, contesting democracy and rule of law in Europe: conceptual suggestions for future research

In ECE countries, democratisation and Europeanisation seemed to exist in a mutually reinforcing relationship and both concepts provided the main analytical lenses for studying these states. In the light of recent illiberal and anti-EU politics, two different concepts have started to receive increasing scholarly attention, namely the concepts of de-Europeanisation and autocratisation. Their exact meaning, however, remains unclear and the causal link between these specific processes and the rule of law has largely remained understudied. Against this backdrop, this chapter first summarises the state-of-the-art research on autocratisation and de-Europeanisation, and then examines the interaction and causal link between these two phenomena in times of declining democracies in Europe and rule of law problems.Security and Global Affair

Whose children? Protecting unaccompanied migrant children in Europe: A case of diffused responsibility?

This paper examines the reasons behind the failure of EU and national policy interventions to protect unaccompanied migrant children’s (unaccompanied minors-UAMs) rights during the refugee crisis in Europe. By drawing on policy documents and empirical data, it is argued that the deficient protection of UAMs’ child rights was essentially a failure of responsibility allocation in line with the ‘bystander effect’ analytical explanation. While this argument does not disregard the role of other explanatory factors, such as the lack of European solidarity, poor legal enforcement and financial reasons, among others, it is claimed that the diffusion of responsibility (in theory and practice) between various policy systems at the national level, as well as between the EU and domestic levels, contributed to the failure to protect UAMs’ child rights across Europe

A means to an end or an end in itself? EU Roma policy, human rights and the economic investment myth

The Roma face a dire socio-economic situation and structural discrimination across Europe. To address the challenges experienced by this community, the EU adopted a specific EU Roma policy – the ‘EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies’ (2011) – which, together with EU funds, supports Member States with integration of the Roma at the national level. This article argues that the economic framing of the EU Roma policy is underpinned by an economic investment myth: namely, that the EU can only address rights violations as a means to achieving the EU’s economic ends. It is shown that this myth undermines the EU’s legal and constitutional human rights commitments post-Lisbon, according to which the EU has now the legal capability – but lacks the political will – to tackle rights violations such as discrimination in a manner that is not linked to the functioning of the common market

‘DO AS I SAY NOT AS I DO’: EUTOPIA, THE CEECS AND THE CREDIBILITY OF THE EU HUMAN RIGHTS REGIME

This article examines EU’s involvement in human rights from the perspective of a promoter of human rights norms. It is argued that a human rights EUtopia has emerged, i.e. there is a gap between the real and normative EU -when it comes to human rights - which affects the credibility of the EU’s human rights regime. The EU lacks a solid legal entrenchment of human rights and there are different degrees of human rights protection in the Member States which amount to different hierarchical concepts of human rights. There are legal shortcomings regarding EU’s human rights promotion to third countries, while the Copenhagen human rights conditionality attached to EU accession was vaguely stated and was not underpinned by EU internal human rights templates. Furthermore, the screening process of the candidates- by the use of double standards - entailed EU’s involvement in matters falling outside its own internal remits. Hence the credibility of the EU human rights regime is jeopardised by its attempt to export human rights externally– hence the normative and utopian claims – without having a real, substantial legal entrenchment of human rights internally

Policy entrepreneurship and Eastern enlargement: The case of EU children's rights policy

This article examines how and why policy innovation in children's rights occurred at the European Union (EU) level due to Eastern enlargement. Empirically, the case of EU intervention in child protection in Romania before 2007 is employed. By drawing on Kingdon's model of multiple streams coupling, it is demonstrated that the Romanian children's case provided Commission entrepreneurs with the window of opportunity to introduce the protection of children's rights in EU internal policy dimension. In practice, this entailed the establishment of institutional and policy structures to uphold children's rights inside the Union. The policy innovation triggered by the Romanian children's case has not shifted the EU's legal competence in children's rights; however, it has established the protection of the rights of the child as an EU issue and has entrenched the Commission's role and scope as a children's rights actor