Third Country Influence on EU Law and Policy-making: Setting the Scene

This introductory article conceptualizes the notion of third country influence on European Union (EU) law and policy and proposes an analytical framework theorizing the venues and means through which third countries may gain such impact, under what conditions and with which implications for the EU’s legal and political order. The article first introduces the focus on outside-in influence in the context of European studies, generally, and EU privileged third country relations, specifically. Thereafter, an analytical framework is developed for mapping and explaining the outside-in dynamics on EU law and policy-making differentiating between diplomatic, governance and discursive venues; coercive versus technocratic and normative mechanisms of influence; and the legal constraints and political implications of these processes. Turning to the potential determinants of these occurrences, the article then proposes a set of hypotheses for conditions under which third countries can influence EU law and policies, before summarizing the individual contributions to this Special Issue

Expanding, Complementing, or Substituting Multilateralism? EU Preferential Trade Agreements in the Migration Regime Complex

Intense pressure for international solutions and weak support for multilateral cooperation have led the EU to increasingly rely on its strongest foreign policy tool in the pursuit of migration policy goals: preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Starting from the fragmentary architecture of the migration regime complex we examine how the relevant content of the EU PTAs relates to multilateral institutions. Depending on the constellation of policy objectives, EU competence, and international interdependence, we propose a set of hypotheses regarding the conditions under which EU bilateral outreach via PTAs expands, complements, or substitutes international norms. Based on an original dataset of migration provisions in all EU PTAs signed between 1960 and 2020, we find that the migration policy content in EU PTAs expands or complements the objectives of multilateral institutions only to a very limited extent. Instead, the predominant constellation is one of substitution in which the EU uses its PTAs to promote migration policy objectives that depart from those of existing multilateral institutions

'Passing the Buck': European Union Refugee Policies towards Central and Eastern Europe

In the light of the abolition of border controls in the internal market, EU member states have developed a common system of redistribution for the treatment of asylum seekers. The central instrument of this is the 'safe third country' rule. While much of the contemporary debate on Western European asylum policies concentrates on the exclusionary character of this new instrument, only little attention is paid to its impact on the Union's neighbouring states. This article addresses the extent to which intergovernmental harmonizations in asylum and immigration matters have expanded to thefieldof external relations and triggered the adoption of corresponding policies in other European states. Here, it distinguishes between the transborder effects of intergovernmental forms of cooperation (Schengen, TREVI), activities under the Third Pillar of the European Union, and bilateral processes between EU Member States and third countries. The paper shows that the expanding use of the 'safe third country' rule implies the unquestioned incorporation of a 'wider' Europe into this new system of asylum co-operation, which not only shifts its borders eastward but also weakens the international commitment to refugee protection

‘Failing forward' towards Which Europe? Organized hypocrisy in the Common European Asylum System

Exposing the ideological conflicts involved in the creation of a common European Asylum Policy, this article calls for an extension of classic integration theories to look beyond whether crises result in ‘more' or ‘less' Europe and to address the substance of European integration. Drawing on actorcentered institutionalism and organizational sociology, the ‘refugee crisis' is interpreted as a manifestation of the growing mismatch between the EU's normative striving towards a ‘Union of values' and the political and institutional limits imposed. The result is organized hypocrisy: the concurrent reinforcement of protective claims and protectionist policies