Delegation in EU Migration Policy: What Role for EU Institutions in Shaping Legislative Outputs?

Much of the academic work on EU migration policy has tackled developments in this field from a normative perspective. One such view describes EU institutions as liberally oriented, while others argue that these same bodies are building up a gated continent. However, it is not clear what the benchmarks at the basis of those statements are. In that sense, the liberal/restrictive divide could be a slippery framework for analysis.

This paper opposes to the aforementioned divide an institutionally-oriented approach. Institutional dynamics between the Commission and the Council are investigated through official documents in three areas: borders and visas, irregular immigration, and asylum and refugee. Three legislative measures adopted between 1999 and 2009 are analysed to understand to what extent the Commission’s positions can be characterised as liberal. Parallel to that investigation, the conflict between the Commission and the Council is taken into account to see to what extent it affects the eventual delegation to the Commission.

The first section of this paper reviews the literature and investigates to what extent normative characterisations help us understand EU migration policy. In the second part the notion of delegation is introduced as an alternative analytical lens able to clarify policy as well as institutional dynamics. The third empirical part investigates three legislatives measures, testing the various approaches. The fourth and final section recaps the findings and draws some conclusions.