Failing under the ‘shadow of hierarchy’: explaining the role of the European Parliament in the EU’s ‘asylum crisis’

ABSTRACT

One of the main proposals to solve the ‘asylum crisis’ of 2015–2016 was to reform the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) and, in particular, the Dublin regime. However, the European Council conclusion of June 2018 exposed the failure to find an agreement on the CEAS reform. This article examines the conditions for policy failure – focusing on how crises affect inter-institutional negotiations and the role played by the European Parliament (EP) in particular. It shows how the EP successfully managed to form a united position and frame the crisis as a failure of previous CEAS reforms, but that this was not sufficient to break the deadlock among member states. Therefore, it demonstrates how the ‘shadow of hierarchy’ cast by the European Council may be a sufficient condition to explain policy failure, which may potentially lead to the gradual disempowerment of the EP in EU policy-making.

KEYWORDS:

• Asylum crisis
• policy failure
• EU decision-making
• European Parliament
• bicameralism
• new intergovernmentalism

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the editors of this special issue, as well as the reviewers who have offered comments on the various versions of this article. I also appreciate the comments received in the UACES conference in Krakow, the SGEU conference in Paris and the DVPW conference in Frankfurt (Main).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Interviews

Interview #1, GUE/NGL MEP assistant, Brussels, February 2018

Interview #2, ALDE MEP assistant, Brussels, February 2018

Interview #3, Greens political advisor, Brussels, February 2018

Interview #4, ALDE political advisor, Brussels, February 2018

Interview #5, GUE/NGL MEP assistant, Brussels, February 2018

Interview #6, EP staff, Brussels, February 2018

Interview #7, official of the General Secretariat of the Council, Brussels, February 2018

Interview #8, S&D political advisor, Brussels, February 2018

Interview #9, EPP political advisor, Brussels, February 2018

Interview #10, Greens MEP assistant, Brussels, February 2018

Interview #11, Commission official, Brussels, February 2018

Interview #12, ALDE MEP assistant, written communication, February 2018

Interview #13, EP staff, Brussels, May 2018

Interview #14, S&D MEP assistant, Brussels, May 2018

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [RI 2536/3-1].