Does the European Union have a reverse gear? Policy dismantling in a hyperconsensual polity

Abstract

The financial crisis has triggered demands to halt and even reverse the expansion of European Union (EU) policies. But have these and previous demands actually resulted in policy dismantling? The existing literature has charted the rise of dismantling discourses such as subsidiarity and better regulation, but has not examined the net effect on the acquis. For the first time, this contribution addresses this gap in the literature through an empirical study of policy change between 1992 and 2014. It is guided by a coding framework which captures the direction of policy change. It reveals that, despite its disposition towards consensualism, the EU has become a new locus of policy dismantling. However, not all policies targeted have been cut; many have stayed the same and some have even expanded. It concludes by identifying new directions for research on a topic that has continually fallen into the analytical blind spot of EU scholars.

Crisis, Climate Change and Comitology: Policy Dismantling Via the Backdoor?

“…Analyses of policy retrenchment or termination within states are well established (Hanf, ; Pierson, ), but their application at the EU level is relatively novel, because of the challenges associated with retrenchment at that level, such as the complexity of the legislative system and the presence of numerous veto players (Steinebach and Knill, ). Yet, as Gravey and Jordan () note, there has been an emerging agenda since the early 2000s to streamline EU legislation via the ‘better regulation’ process, recently incarnated as the regulatory fitness and performance (REFIT) platform. REFIT focuses upon ensuring the cost‐effectiveness and efficiency of policy and emphasizes reducing regulatory burdens, possibly by removing existing legislation (European Commission, ).…”

“…A mixed picture emerges from the literature as to whether this turbulent context has influenced European environmental policy. Some authors suggest that EU environmental policy has been dismantled (Gravey and Jordan, ; Steinebach and Knill, ); for Knill et al . (), the Commission has maintained a rhetorical commitment to environmental policy leadership, while seeking to minimize environmental regulations.…”

“…For example, in 2017, across all policy areas, there were 267 committees, which held 616 meetings and issued 1906 opinions and 1687 implementing acts (European Commission, ); yet only 44 pieces of legislation were adopted via OLP. The shift to technical policy instruments has been accompanied by an explicit effort to reduce EU policy outputs ‘through doing less but doing it better’ (Gravey and Jordan, ). The growth of this technical policy‐making area is politically important as it shifts power from the co‐legislators to the Commission, and to an arena that is notoriously lacking in transparency and subject to limited accountability.…”

How do Member States Return Unwanted Migrants? The Strategic (non‐)use of ‘Europe’ during the Migration Crisis

“…Against the backdrop of the EU's multifaceted crisis and the rise of populist movements and parties, the EU is increasingly framed as a problem instead of a solution. This not only justifies the strengthening of national policy frames but may also fuel the dismantling of particular policy regimes or, as the case of the UK has shown, may even lead to the disintegration of a Member State (see Falkner, 2016;Gravey and Jordan, 2016).…”

Policy Stability in Climate Governance: The case of the United Kingdom

“…This is part of an emerging trend of environmental 'policy dismantling', i.e. rolling back the policy advances made in the 1990s and 2000s in the wake of ongoing economic austerity measures (Gravey and Jordan 2016). This poses a direct challenge to the need for stable policies that facilitate investment in clean technologies and help implement the Paris Agreement.…”