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Capacity or Preferences? Explaining the Implementation of the European Integration Fund

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The EU’s Policy on the Integration of Migrants

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics ((PSEUP))

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Abstract

This chapter looks at another aspect of implementation: the actual use of the fund. Three years after the closure of the implementation period, only 80% of the money available has been used by EU member states. This chapter draws from the literature on structural funds and compliance in order to delve into the determinants of this implementation gap. Using multilevel regression analysis, it tests the effect of capacity against preferences in a comparative fashion. Strong support is found for capacity factors and none for preferences. Even so, not all aspects of capacity matter.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Testa (2014), but see also European Commission (2011).

  2. 2.

    Realizing the potential of migration has been a recurring theme of the EU integration policy from 2003 onwards; see notably COM (2003) 336 final.

  3. 3.

    European Council (1999).

  4. 4.

    See notably the Common Basic Principles for immigrant integration policy (CBPs), Box 3.2.

  5. 5.

    See Chapter 1 for a selective literature review.

  6. 6.

    This chapter uses the same type of models as that presented in the previous chapter. Note that the specifics and data used are detailed in the appendices.

  7. 7.

    A first mention was made in the rejected constitutional treaty though.

  8. 8.

    During the negotiation phase, the Commission declared having ‘copied’ the provisions regarding spending rules from the structural funds [see Council of the European Union 5578/06 (2006)].

  9. 9.

    Chapter 4 goes through the policy-making process and describes this point in detail.

  10. 10.

    Note that, in the absence of the additionality principle, co-financing conditions may be easily met where the member state presents a significant integration budget (see below).

  11. 11.

    The United Kingdom does not systematically take part in policies relating to the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. It may, however, opt in for some policies; as it did for the EIF.

  12. 12.

    For more on this point, see Schnapper (1994), Wischenbart (1994), Zincone et al. (2011) Mouritsen and Hovmark Jensen (2014), Mandin (2014), Fischler (2014); but see also Chapter 3.

  13. 13.

    COM (2003) 336 final.

  14. 14.

    Mulcahy (2011) is an exception; see Chapter 1 for more on this. More generally, law scholars have been more interested in the topic, notably because of potential conflicts of competence between levels and consequences on legal frameworks (see inter alia Groenendijk 2004; Szyszczak 2006; Velluti 2007; Murphy 2009).

  15. 15.

    See, for instance, Geddes and Achtnich (2015), Pratt (2015), Scholten and Penninx (2016); to name but a few. Note that Mulcahy did not mention the EIF in her opus on the EU integration policy.

  16. 16.

    Several EU reports have looked into the implementation of the EIF (Ramboll 2011, 2013; European Court of Auditors 2012). They highlight the issues that arose in the process in a descriptive fashion without undertaking systematic or complete (most were written before the end of the programme) analysis of implementation.

  17. 17.

    Regulation 516/2014/EU.

  18. 18.

    On this point, see notably Barca et al. (2012), Mendez (2013), Kemmerling and Bodenstein (2006), Bouvet and Dall’Erba (2010), Dellmuth (2011).

  19. 19.

    See Commission Decision C. (2008) 795 establishing the rules for implementation. It notably constrains the possibility for government to act as a direct implementer.

  20. 20.

    See, for instance, Kemmerling and Bodenstein (2006), who consider the role of left-right cleavages.

  21. 21.

    A particularly relevant example is that of France which used at least 90% of the first two years of allocations to finance its national integration strategy (see Carrera and Faure Atger 2011).

  22. 22.

    See notably Eurobarometer 60 in 2004 and Eurobarometer 83 in 2015.

  23. 23.

    Robustness checks (next section on post-estimation analyses) show that the variable is significant in model (2), provided that Greece, Finland or Romania be present in the model. In other words, these three countries are influential level-two units that mitigate the effect of the variable. See the appendices for more detail.

  24. 24.

    Robustness checks show that the variable is sensitive to influential level-two units, notably to data points relating to the United Kingdom. See the next section for more detail.

  25. 25.

    Tosun (2014). Tosun hypothesised the positive role of decentralisation but did not find supporting evidence.

  26. 26.

    Dropping any of the level-two influential observations dismisses the results displayed in Fig. 6.3 (see next section). They are therefore considered invalid.

  27. 27.

    This explanation originates from midterm implementation reports summarized in Ramboll (2011: 45).

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  1. Fondazione ISMU and University of Milan, Milan, Italy

    Pierre Georges Van Wolleghem

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Van Wolleghem, P.G. (2019). Capacity or Preferences? Explaining the Implementation of the European Integration Fund. 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_6

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