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AbstractThis study analyses the European Commission's strategies to counteract Member States' non‐compliance with EU law between 1989 and 2018. Based on a theoretical framework that distinguishes between a normative and a regulative approach in the Commission's strategies, the study conducts a semi‐automatic content analysis of all annual reports on monitoring the application of EU law and further supports this analysis with other EU sources. The results demonstrate that the Commission shifted from a normative approach based on management tools in the late 1980s and early 1990s to a more regulative approach with enhanced enforcement four decades later. Moreover, the Commission's role as driver for European integration has changed. In times of crisis and increased domestic contestation, the Commission has become a more authoritarian prosecutor of European policies.

Public procurement is a policy area located between two contradictory tendencies. On the one hand, the European Commission strives for greater competition to widen procurement markets. On the other hand, the boosting of competition encounters resistance among the member states. This article investigates how these colliding tendencies played out during the initial stages of the Covid-19 crisis and, more specifically, how changes in the field of procurement affected legitimate governance in the EU. Based on institutionalist and EU governance theories, the study contributes to the literature with three principal findings. First, it demonstrates that the pandemic enabled exogenously driven changes in the field of public procurement with new policies and guidelines, while the EU's overall aims in this field were upheld. Second, the study demonstrates that the Commission was the main driver of change and that it enhanced the harmonisation of procurement rules and supranational integration despite the crisis. Third, while these changes strengthened the role of supranational actors, the study demonstrates that the changes introduced allow member states increased flexibility when it comes to the implementation. In practice, however, this flexibility has the potential to undermine the EU's initial aims, thereby jeopardising the EU's legitimacy.

While many studies have focused on the European Commission and its potential to act as a policy entrepreneur, little research has been undertaken into how intergovernmental institutions as a whole are able to shape and advocate certain policies. This article fills that gap by analysing debates in the Council of the European Union on two major strategies: the Small Business Act for Europe and the Europe 2020 strategy. These debates were analysed using newspaper articles in the daily bulletins of Agence Europe, yielding 469 statements which were qualitatively evaluated by means of content analysis. The results demonstrate that the Council as a whole is able to act as a policy entrepreneur if certain conditions are met, namely a common interest and political goal among member states, a need for economic measures due to a crisis situation, and the possibility of shifting unpopular decisions to Brussels.

In the Council of the European Union (EU), a qualified majority is mostly required to adopt legislative acts. Based on this majority rule, individual member states can be outvoted and are subsequently obliged to implement the law. This article analyses whether opposition in the Council of the EU affects the transposition of directives into national law by using the example of Austria from 2000 to 2008. The results demonstrate that domestic factors, rather than a negative political attitude, were responsible for delays and procedures when implementing previously contested directives. However, the effects of opposition in the Council on implementation were particularly apparent in cases where there was a high degree of misfit between EU provisions and the domestic legal structure.

In order to adopt binding legislation in the Council of the European Union, a qualified majority is required in most policy fields. Due to this majority rule, individual Member States can be outvoted when adopting legislation that has to be implemented into national law. What are the specific effects of being outvoted in the Council on the transposition of Directives? Does oppositional behaviour in the Council (defined as a vote against or an abstention) actually induce Member States to transpose the respective Directive with a delay or not in compliance with the law? This doctoral thesis will answer these questions by using the example of Austria during the investigation period from 2000 to 2008. In order to answer the research questions, a mixed methods approach with the integration of both qualitative and quantitative elements was chosen. Initially, a comprehensive data set was generated which included information on all formally adopted Directives and the voting behaviour of Member States between 2000 and 2008. The analysis of this data set revealed – among other things – that out of 439 Directives, Austria voted against a new law five times and abstained from voting in seven cases. Only Belgium (with 19 oppositional votes) showed an oppositional attitude more often, while France was equal to Austria with 12 cases of oppositional voting. Austria's cases of opposition referred to the following Directives: Firearms Directive (2008/51), Critical Infrastructure Directive (2008/114), Timeshare Directive (2008/122), Directive laying down minimum rules for the protection of chickens kept for meat production (2007/43), Directive for working conditions of mobile workers engaged in interoperable cross-border services in the railway sector (2005/47), Packaging Waste Directive (2004/12), Environmental Liability Directive (2004/35), Linking Directive (2004/101), Directive on the intra-Community trade in and imports of semen of domestic animals of the bovine species (2003/43), Directive as regards health requirements for animal by-products (2002/33), Tobacco Products Directive (2001/37) and Directive on measures for the control of classical swine fever (2001/89). These twelve Directives, the corresponding decision-making process at EU level, and the respective transposition at the national level were analysed qualitatively, which included 22 expert interviews. A survival analysis was then applied to calculate and compare the delays in the transposition of approved and opposed Directives. The number of initiated infringement procedures (including preliminary proceedings) was also assessed. The results demonstrate that, rather than a negative political attitude, other factors were crucial for delays and procedures when transposing Directives during the period under investigation. These factors included changes of government, domestic conflicts, federal structures, issue linkage (the linkup of EU-Directives with national reforms), the transposition deadline set by the Commission, uncertainties about the level of adaptation, and administrative difficulties. It is not common political practice in Austria to express an oppositional stance towards an EU-Directive by neglecting to implement the Directive. ; Grade: with the highest distinction

This article presents a new and previously unchartered dataset on roll call votes for all 28 member states in the Council of the EU between 2010 and 2019 and studies the effects of politicisation on governments' oppositional voting in the different policy areas. We contribute to the literature with two main findings. First, our study provides strong evidence for bottom-up politicisation, where Euroscepticism and the left-right positions of national political parties strongly affect governments' voting in the Council. Second, we provide new evidence for a form of differentiated politicisation where ideological standpoints of political parties in government and opposition have different effects on oppositional voting in the various policy areas.

AbstractThis paper examines institutional change in father‐specific leave ‐ a centre‐piece of the EU's work‐life balance directive (WLBD) ‐ from the perspective of gradual institutional change. The WLBD, a highly contentious directive, represents a litmus test for the possible impact of the European pillar of social rights (EPSR), on welfare state institutions, which are responsible for the organisation, financing and delivery of social rights in member states. The analysis comprises in‐depth case studies in Denmark, Germany, France and Poland, with different combinations of family and parental leave policies prior to the WLBD. The findings reveal that the EU's directive is leading to convergence in paternity leave, but to divergence in parental leave. Our study is important because it shows that even if EU directives in social policy in principle can lead to upwards social convergence across the EU, when they are relatively weak in terms of precise constraint, for instance, for the level of remuneration for leave, this leads to differentiated integration. This could undermine the very purpose of the EPSR, which seeks to improve social rights for all citizens across the EU. Similar dynamics are likely to be present in other areas at the welfare state‐labor market nexus, such as minimum wages or platform work, where the EU is also developing regulation under the auspices of the EPSR.