Crisis-Induced Leadership: Exploring the Role of the EU Commission in the EU–Jordan Compact

Abstract

<p>The EU–Jordan Compact (hereafter Compact) has been identified as being a groundbreaking, comprehensive approach to global refugee protection. Thus far, research on this underexplored case has mainly focused on the effects of the Compact. The policy process leading to the adoption of the Compact, as well as the motivations of the EU (i.e., the main donor), remain blackboxed. This article explores how the migration crisis affected the EU Commission’s ability to create coordinated, strategic action in external policy. It does so by tracing the internal EU negotiations and developing a causal model that explains how the Commission could overcome silos and efficiently draft a policy proposal linking the issues of migration and trade. The analysis is based on 13 original in-depth interviews with EU representatives. The article contributes to crisisification theory by presenting a mechanism that explains how the Commission can make use of crises. The Commission created cohesion by reframing the crisis, identifying the relevant policy tools with which to address it, and by reframing the responsibilities of the relevant directorate-general. Furthermore, by utilizing the urgency of the crisis, the Commission enabled rapid policy drafting and created an explicit linkage between refugee policy and trade policy. This linkage provided the member states with the motivation to adopt the proposal as a solution to the ongoing migration crisis.</p>

Blackmailing and Identity Profiling? The Behaviour of Populist Radical Right Governments in EU Development Policy

“…Since 2016, PRRPs have been part of governments in more than 10 EU member states: Austria ), Bulgaria (2017-2021), Croatia (2015), Denmark (2015), Estonia (2019-2021), Finland (2015-), Greece (2015), Hungary (2014-), Italy (2018-), Poland (2015), Romania (2017-), Slovakia (2016-), and Slovenia (2020Rooduijn et al, 2023). Our analysis focuses on the behaviour of the Polish and Hungarian governments in the negotiations of the New European Consensus on Development and the Samoa Agreement, as the PiS and Fidesz governments were the only PRRPs in power throughout the 2016-2023 period of analysis and were active in both processes.…”

The New Role of the European Commission in the EU’s Security and Defence Architecture: entrepreneurship, crisis and integration

“…A crisis can spur new momentum for integration and can serve as a trigger for institutional reform or for the development of new policy initiatives (Andersen 2021; . Due to the EU crisis(es), specific crisis policymaking patterns have emerged within the Union (Ferrara and Kriesi 2022;Vaagland 2021)…”