SISP Conference 2023

Scholars have described the period that began in the second half of 2008 – when the economic and financial crisis hit the EU – as the “poly-crisis” or “perma-crisis” of the Union. Starting with the Eurocrisis, moving on with the migration and refugee crisis, the long-process of withdrawal of the UK leading to Brexit, and finally the COVID-19 pandemic, the EU has been confronted with a dramatic string of unprecedented events. While the EU has managed to navigate through the storm, the crises have fuelled support for anti-EU and populist parties, contesting the EU and its policies sometimes from the highest executive office in some Member states.
The implementation of Next Generation EU to boost post-pandemic recovery and the strategic and policy responses to counter the Russian invasion of Ukraine are possibly the biggest challenges that the EU is currently confronted with. Besides, the EU is also dealing with both long-standing and newer issues, such as the respect of its fundamental values by member countries like Hungary or Poland; post-Brexit arrangements with the UK and specifically the issue of the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland; the energy crisis following the sanctions on Russia with their cross-policy impact; the reform of economic governance which may eventually come to light.
The five-year cycle which started in 2019 – with, for the first time, the absence of an absolute majority between the centre-right (the group of the European People’s Party) and the centre-left (the Socialists and Democrats) in the European Parliament – is also nearing its conclusion, and the EU will soon renovate its Parliament – strongly shaken by the Qatar-gate and corruption scandals investing some members and staff – and ‘elect’ a new President of the Commission in the early summer of 2024. There is some uncertainty over the Spitzenkandidaten process, which was successfully introduced in 2014 but already abandoned in 2019, and the reform of the electoral law for the EP elections, introducing transnational constituencies.
Despite these serious, we could call them ‘quasi-existential’ setbacks, it has to be, however, stressed that the mistakes that had been made in the aftermath of the sovereign debt crisis – for example the rushed endorsement of the doctrine dubbed “expansive austerity” – and which have done so much harm by alienating voters and governments, thereby fundamentally shaking the foundations of the European project of shared prosperity, have not been fortunately repeated. Above and beyond the ‘Hamiltonian moment’ represented by the relatively solidaristic answer to the challenges of the pandemic or the recently approved gas price cap in response to Russian threats, a shift away from economic towards social Europe, that had started under the aegis of the Juncker Commission, has continued unabated under the Von der Leyen Presidency.
If a list of the market-correcting policies supplanting market-making ones is beyond the scope of this summary, as they range from ecological measures such as the European Green Deal to regulatory breakthroughs such as the Digital Markets Act, just a brief look at the social policy domain indicates that a number of initiatives have been pushed forward or are being debated that would have been inconceivable just five years earlier. Planned or definitive legislative acts, such as the Minimum Wage Directive, the Platform Work Directive, the setup of Individual Learning Accounts represent paradigmatic changes in the conception of what a European social model signifies and may influence its design and operation for decades to come. It is in the light of these contrasting developments that the ninth legislative period of the European Parliament needs to be assed.
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The main goal of this Section is that of analysing, interpreting and explaining, from a variety of angles and using different methodologies, the challenges impacting upon and the ensuing changes on the EU political system, both at the supranational level and in a multi-level governance perspective. The analytical focus is placed on the EU institutions, actors and public policies. In an illustrative fashion, the Section welcomes contributions exploring:
– the validity of theories of EU integration to explain the more recent changes in the EU political system;
– the assessment of the Europeanisation of the member states, in particular but not only Italy;
– intra-institutional dynamics, such as the reforms adopted by the European Parliament to tackle corruption and limit foreign interferences;
– inter-institutional dynamics and power-relationships between the European Council, the Council of the EU, the Commission and the EP;
– the run-up to the 2024 EP elections and the reform of the electoral law, the Spitzenkandidaten process and policies to protect the integrity of elections;
– the narratives about the EU in the media and in the public sphere;
– the current fractures between economic and social Europe and between market-making and market-correcting measures;
– the latest developments in the hottest policy fields, such as the labour market, social security and protection, energy capacity, environmental preservation, digitalization and its regulation etc.;
– the implementation and subsequent adaptation of the National Resilience and Recovery Plans;
– the tensions between the green transition and the need for energy security;
– the stepping up of security and defence coordination.

 

The war in Ukraine and the latest increase in irregular mobility across the Mediterranean have caused a new increase in asylum seekers’ arrivals to the European Union. As epitomized by the aftermath of tragedies like the shipwreck off the cost of Crotone in March 2022, the latest restrictions on non-governmental organizations conducting sea rescue operations, the building of fences at land borders with Belarus and Russia, the resignation of Frontex directors’ Leggeri and Italy’s recent indictment by the European Court of Human Rights, migration remains a salient and heavily polarized political issue that exacerbates tensions both within and between EU member states.
This panel seeks to advance the debate on migration to Europe by welcoming contributions on issues including (but not limited to) the governance of EU external borders on land and at sea, the securitization of irregular mobility, European publics’ varying attitudes to asylum seekers from Ukraine and the Global South, the reform of the Dublin system, and other relevant themes.

 

The war in Ukraine and the latest increase in irregular mobility across the Mediterranean have caused a new increase in asylum seekers’ arrivals to the European Union. As epitomized by the aftermath of tragedies like the shipwreck off the cost of Crotone in March 2022, the latest restrictions on non-governmental organizations conducting sea rescue operations, the building of fences at land borders with Belarus and Russia, the resignation of Frontex directors’ Leggeri and Italy’s recent indictment by the European Court of Human Rights, migration remains a salient and heavily polarized political issue that exacerbates tensions both within and between EU member states.
This panel seeks to advance the debate on migration to Europe by welcoming contributions on issues including (but not limited to) the governance of EU external borders on land and at sea, the securitization of irregular mobility, European publics’ varying attitudes to asylum seekers from Ukraine and the Global South, the reform of the Dublin system, and other relevant themes.

 

This panel addresses the occurrence of differentiation in EU foreign policy. It aims to assess the evolution of differentiation in this area by focusing both on formal and informal practices. In recent years, the scholarly literature on differentiation has been flourishing. Such a heightened interest comes as no surprise. While multiple crises had put into question EU existing paradigms, BREXIT turned the spotlight on the issue of differentiation. Among other sectors, foreign and security policy constitutes a relevant case to address the occurrence of differentiation in the EU. Differentiation has been characterizing EU foreign policy ever since the beginning of the European integration process. Additionally, informal institutional practices have become increasingly differentiated in this policy domain. The frequent emergence of informal groupings steering EU response to conflicts and crises provide a relevant example of the recurrence of informal differentiation in the EU. True, the Russia-Ukraine war led to instances of formal de-differentiation, with the end of the Denmark opt-out from the common security and defence policy. Still, EU foreign policy continued to be differentiated, with an informal grouping of member states steering EU initial diplomatic response to the war and member states’ differentiated increases in spending and bilateral provision of military aid to Ukraine. In essence, despite the centralization of member states’ foreign policy that the Lisbon Treaty’s institutional modifications should have determined, differentiation seems to remain a qualifying feature in EU foreign policy. And yet, our understanding of differentiated practices in this policy domain is still at an early stage. Against this backdrop, the panel aims to assess the causes, determinants and modes of differentiation in EU foreign policy, as well as its implications for the conduct of EU foreign policy and the nature and evolution of the EU as a polity. It welcomes theoretical and empirical contributions on the development of differentiated patterns in this policy domain, with special consideration to the Russia-Ukraine war.

 

This panel addresses the occurrence of differentiation in EU foreign policy. It aims to assess the evolution of differentiation in this area by focusing both on formal and informal practices. In recent years, the scholarly literature on differentiation has been flourishing. Such a heightened interest comes as no surprise. While multiple crises had put into question EU existing paradigms, BREXIT turned the spotlight on the issue of differentiation. Among other sectors, foreign and security policy constitutes a relevant case to address the occurrence of differentiation in the EU. Differentiation has been characterizing EU foreign policy ever since the beginning of the European integration process. Additionally, informal institutional practices have become increasingly differentiated in this policy domain. The frequent emergence of informal groupings steering EU response to conflicts and crises provide a relevant example of the recurrence of informal differentiation in the EU. True, the Russia-Ukraine war led to instances of formal de-differentiation, with the end of the Denmark opt-out from the common security and defence policy. Still, EU foreign policy continued to be differentiated, with an informal grouping of member states steering EU initial diplomatic response to the war and member states’ differentiated increases in spending and bilateral provision of military aid to Ukraine. In essence, despite the centralization of member states’ foreign policy that the Lisbon Treaty’s institutional modifications should have determined, differentiation seems to remain a qualifying feature in EU foreign policy. And yet, our understanding of differentiated practices in this policy domain is still at an early stage. Against this backdrop, the panel aims to assess the causes, determinants and modes of differentiation in EU foreign policy, as well as its implications for the conduct of EU foreign policy and the nature and evolution of the EU as a polity. It welcomes theoretical and empirical contributions on the development of differentiated patterns in this policy domain, with special consideration to the Russia-Ukraine war.

 

This panel welcomes contributions focusing on any aspect where inter-institutional relationships in the EU play a key role: legislative relationships, the budgetary process, agenda-setting dynamics, office appointments and oversight dynamics. It is particularly interested in empirical papers which map the evolving relationship between the Commission and the co-legislators, the oversight role of the European Parliament towards EU agencies and the Commission, the power of agenda-setting of the European Council and the Commission, the process of appointment of the President of the European Commission and the Commission more broadly, the differentiated institutional impact of the crises which have hit the EU in the last decade or so. The panel mainly focuses on institutions at the level of the EU, but it is open towards papers seeking to explain and pin down how the domestic politicisation of the Union in the Member States influences inter-institutional dynamics in Brussels. Theoretical papers aiming to understand whether changing patterns in inter-interinstitutional relations can still be effectively captured by ‘old’ theories of integration – such as intergovernmentalism, federalism or neo-functionalism – or by ‘newer’ approaches or conceptual frameworks are also welcomed. The panel does not endorse any particular theoretical or methodological approach: quantitative analyses, small-n comparisons and case studies are all accepted, insofar as they present theoretically-driven – rather than descriptive – contributions.

 

This panel welcomes contributions focusing on any aspect where inter-institutional relationships in the EU play a key role: legislative relationships, the budgetary process, agenda-setting dynamics, office appointments and oversight dynamics. It is particularly interested in empirical papers which map the evolving relationship between the Commission and the co-legislators, the oversight role of the European Parliament towards EU agencies and the Commission, the power of agenda-setting of the European Council and the Commission, the process of appointment of the President of the European Commission and the Commission more broadly, the differentiated institutional impact of the crises which have hit the EU in the last decade or so. The panel mainly focuses on institutions at the level of the EU, but it is open towards papers seeking to explain and pin down how the domestic politicisation of the Union in the Member States influences inter-institutional dynamics in Brussels. Theoretical papers aiming to understand whether changing patterns in inter-interinstitutional relations can still be effectively captured by ‘old’ theories of integration – such as intergovernmentalism, federalism or neo-functionalism – or by ‘newer’ approaches or conceptual frameworks are also welcomed. The panel does not endorse any particular theoretical or methodological approach: quantitative analyses, small-n comparisons and case studies are all accepted, insofar as they present theoretically-driven – rather than descriptive – contributions.

 

The proposed panel presents some results of research conducted within the H2020 PROTECT EU funded project. The panel addresses specific questions related to international protection: Does the EU comply with the existing actual international protection global regime? Is the existing international protection system adequate to respond to current causes of forced migration? Are people on the move across EU borders aware of their potential rights? The contradictions of the existing international protection regime must be addressed to disentangle distinct interests of the actors involved in guaranteeing protection to refugees and potential asylum-seekers; to explore European public opinion preferences concerning asylum; to identify ineffective legal provisions or discuss diverging stances at EUMS level. The assumption that this panel is going to address is that when the EU invests on cooperation with third countries and externalizes its borders’ control or adopts restrictive asylum policy tools, international protection is put at risk. These are some of the issues to be tackled by the potential papers to be presented at SISP Conference.

 

European economic governance in the polycrisis

We live in a “polycrisis”, meaning that multiple crises (the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing energy and inflation crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate emergency) stress countries around the world in numerous policy domains at the same time.

Among EU member states, after the outburst of the sovereign debt crisis, initial policy responses have focused on the need to increase supranational monitoring of member states. This has materialized in the increased coordination, and increased Commission involvement, in national budgetary policies (with the European Semester, the “Sixpack”, the “Twopack”, the “Fiscal Compact”). Financial assistance to countries was mainly seen in the light of rigid conditionality (“money for reforms”), which can be seen in the bailouts of Ireland, Portugal, and most notably Greece. The creation of a permanent instruments to manage loans to countries in financial difficulties (the ESM) followed the same logic. The European banking union is another example of this increased centralization of EU financial surveillance.

Starting from 2012, a new phase has begun, marked by a more active and anti-cyclical intervention of the European Central Bank (ECB), which has adopted a more accommodating monetary policy, both towards states (committing to do “whatever it takes to preserve the euro”) and businesses: the so-called “quantitative easing” (a massive programme of public and private bond purchases) has helped reduce the cost of financing for both states and businesses throughout Europe, leading to a relative calm on financial markets as well. In the meantime, the Commission reduced its demands of fiscal consolidation.

The COVID-19 pandemic has elicited even more radical responses: i) an upgrading of the ECB quantitative easing (the Pandemic emergency purchase programme, PEPP); ii) the suspension of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP); iii) the adoption of the Next Generation EU relief package. The latter led member states to formulate ambitious National Recovery and Resilience Plans, whose implementation is ongoing.

Finally, the Russo-Ukrainian war has led to a quick and unexpected increase in energy prices that, together with bottlenecks due to the post-pandemic recovery, yielded a rapid rise in inflation rates throughout the continent. The risk of two-digit inflation has prompted a strong U-turn in ECB monetary policy, with the phasing-out of bond purchase programmes and quick rises in interest rates. Meanwhile, the SGP remains suspended and member states are having a hard time agreeing on when and how to reform it and resume it.

This panel encourages papers that explore any aspect related to the changes illustrated above, and in particular:
• investigating the European Semester and its policy cycle, and its change within Next Generation EU;
• investigating the path-dependent and path-departing elements of NGEU;
• investigating and explaining the structure and adoption of the NRRPs;
• looking at the relationship between the “technocratic” bodies established to implement the NRRPs and the “political” bodies at the national and EU levels;
• analysing the genesis of the main institutional innovations of the previous years (which motivations have pushed member states to pursue integration? who has benefitted or lost more from the new setup?);
• focusing on the responsiveness of the EU political environment to demands arising from the European public opinion or from national public opinions;
• investigating the institutional and socioeconomic impacts of the Ukrainian crisis on the EMU and related instruments.

The panel is open to contributions based on different methodologies (quantitative analyses, case studies, analytic narratives, process tracing, comparative qualitative studies). Comparisons between European cases and cases from outside Europe are welcome. The panel is also open to studies from different disciplines: from political science to sociology, from economics to law.

 

The long period of economic crises in the European Union has particularly been challenging for Italy. The EU response to the debt crisis and its aftermath, characterized by a series of incremental reforms in economic governance and a widely criticized deflationary and fiscally restrictive stance domestically, contributed to the dramatic fragmentation and transformation of the Italian political system in the 2010s. The response to the pandemic crisis saw instead the creation of NGEU of which Italy was the main beneficiary. However, as the country gets past the pandemic, new challenges lie ahead. The reinstatement of the EU fiscal rules remains a crucial question for Italy’s fiscal space and debt sustainability, while the implementation phase of the PNRR investment plan faces inevitable domestic and external challenges, economic and political. Finally, the War in Ukraine has exacerbated already emerging inflationary pressures which further complicate the policy and distributional space for Italian policymakers, as Italy faces urgent pressures to change the trajectory of its industrial, energy, and climate policy. These multiple crises and the EU responses have differently acted as strong pressures to reform, powerful constraints, incentives, and opportunities for the country’s economic decisions.

The main goal of this panel is to underline the importance of the various facets of Italian domestic politics in mediating, interpreting, or shaping these EU-level transformations, and therefore to connect in new ways the two “images”, the national and the supranational, of the many crises and economic challenges that Italy has faced in the last two decades. The panel aims to place the focus on the political determinants of economic policy and reform outcomes, and in particular on the different Italian politics, plural:
- Electoral and party-, ‘noisy’ politics.
- Producer groups and corporatist politics.
- Business-state relations and ‘quiet’ politics.
- Technocratic and knowledge-based politics.
The panel welcomes contributions focusing on different spheres of economic policymaking in Italy, especially but not exclusively:
- Fiscal and budgetary policy.
- Financial and banking regulation.
- Industrial and competition policy.
- Welfare and labor market policy.
- The drafting and implementation of the PNRR.
- The management of inflation.
Finally, contributions connecting different analytical and theoretical tools from political science, (comparative, international, and critical) political economy, and economic sociology to understand the politics of Italian economic policies, also from a comparative perspective, are particularly welcome.

 

The long period of economic crises in the European Union has particularly been challenging for Italy. The EU response to the debt crisis and its aftermath, characterized by a series of incremental reforms in economic governance and a widely criticized deflationary and fiscally restrictive stance domestically, contributed to the dramatic fragmentation and transformation of the Italian political system in the 2010s. The response to the pandemic crisis saw instead the creation of NGEU of which Italy was the main beneficiary. However, as the country gets past the pandemic, new challenges lie ahead. The reinstatement of the EU fiscal rules remains a crucial question for Italy’s fiscal space and debt sustainability, while the implementation phase of the PNRR investment plan faces inevitable domestic and external challenges, economic and political. Finally, the War in Ukraine has exacerbated already emerging inflationary pressures which further complicate the policy and distributional space for Italian policymakers, as Italy faces urgent pressures to change the trajectory of its industrial, energy, and climate policy. These multiple crises and the EU responses have differently acted as strong pressures to reform, powerful constraints, incentives, and opportunities for the country’s economic decisions.

The main goal of this panel is to underline the importance of the various facets of Italian domestic politics in mediating, interpreting, or shaping these EU-level transformations, and therefore to connect in new ways the two “images”, the national and the supranational, of the many crises and economic challenges that Italy has faced in the last two decades. The panel aims to place the focus on the political determinants of economic policy and reform outcomes, and in particular on the different Italian politics, plural:
- Electoral and party-, ‘noisy’ politics.
- Producer groups and corporatist politics.
- Business-state relations and ‘quiet’ politics.
- Technocratic and knowledge-based politics.
The panel welcomes contributions focusing on different spheres of economic policymaking in Italy, especially but not exclusively:
- Fiscal and budgetary policy.
- Financial and banking regulation.
- Industrial and competition policy.
- Welfare and labor market policy.
- The drafting and implementation of the PNRR.
- The management of inflation.
Finally, contributions connecting different analytical and theoretical tools from political science, (comparative, international, and critical) political economy, and economic sociology to understand the politics of Italian economic policies, also from a comparative perspective, are particularly welcome.