Abstract
This chapter describes how the most sovereign competence of all; immigration, became an EU competence with the completion of the single market and the creation of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. It draws from the historical development of the EU policy on immigration and integration to underline the importance of actors and their interactions within specific institutional settings. On this basis, the second part of this chapter elaborates on Scharpf’s actor-centred institutionalism and provides analytical and theoretical insights helpful to understand the argument this book develops throughout. Namely, it insists on the role of rules, the effects of unanimity decision-making, the relationship between principals and agents, and the nexus between politics and policies.
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- 1.
See Title II; Chapter 2 Crossing External Borders. Convention implementing the Schengen agreement of 14 June 1985 between the Governments of the States of the Benelux Economic Union, the Federal Republic of Germany and the French Republic on the gradual abolition of checks at their common borders, 19 June 1990.
- 2.
Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement. Article 9.1 and 10.1 notably.
- 3.
The effectiveness of EU secondary law rests upon the principles of direct effect and precedence as respectively established by the famous Van Gen den Loos (1963) and Costa vs. Enel (1964) cases. Together, these two principles allow citizens to invoke EU provisions before national and European courts and have these provisions supersede national ones.
- 4.
See Eurostat (1996), for more information on the number of applications.
- 5.
European Council (1999).
- 6.
Helene Urth is referred to as Commission Official but was actually a Danish national expert detached to the European Commission from 2002 to 2005 and was responsible for developing the Commission’s policy for the integration of third country nationals.
- 7.
But see also COM (2000) 757 final.
- 8.
These grey areas and derogations were dealt with at length in legal and political scholarships. Some underline the little binding power of such a legal framework (Mazeron 2008; de Bruycker 2005; Luedtke 2011). To give two examples: Hailbronner (2010) underscores the derogations to the family reunion and blue card Directives; de Bruycker (2005) counted about 50 derogations out of 40 articles to Directive 2005/85/EC on minimum standards on procedures in Member States for granting and withdrawing refugee status.
- 9.
COM (2001) 387 final.
- 10.
- 11.
COM (2001) 387 final, paragraph 3.
- 12.
COM (2001) 387 final, paragraph 3.4.
- 13.
See for instance Bourdrez (2010). This point was corroborated by the interviews conducted with Commission staff.
- 14.
Tsebelis (2013: 17); but see also Franchino (2007) posits the “conditional agenda setting” power of the Commission under qualified majority voting given the fact the Commission proposes a text to the Council that is more difficult to amend than to accept: the Council vote at qualified majority but may only amend the Commission’s proposal with unanimity.
- 15.
As Scharpf argues, there are different kinds of capabilities, one of which flows directly from the institutional design. Institutional capabilities for a small member state, say Slovenia, are much greater under unanimity (in which it weighs as much as any other member states, at least formally), than under qualified majority (in which, at least until 2014, it has 4 votes out of 352). Differently, material capabilities may refer to items not directly related to the institutional design, such as GDP and the likes.
- 16.
At least not until the Treaty of Lisbon entered into force.
- 17.
See notably Kassim and Menon (2003), in this regard.
- 18.
See Kassim and Menon (2003), for an overview.
- 19.
See for instance executive delegation in Franchino (2007).
- 20.
What Lupia (2003), calls the “perils” of delegation.
- 21.
The Treaty of Lisbon ended the unanimity voting rule. The scope of this research however does not cover policy outputs adopted after its entry into force.
- 22.
The first part of the aphorism, politics determines policy, corresponds to the bottom-up phase of Europeanization whilst the second part, policy determines politics, reflects the top-down phase.
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Van Wolleghem, P.G. (2019). Setting the Scene: History of a Competence and Analytical Framework. In: The EU’s Policy on the Integration of Migrants. Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97682-2_2
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