European Law Journal最新文献

This article assesses the impact of strategic foresight in shaping the European Commission’s new industrial policy. It argues that, since it was introduced by President von der Leyen as a political portfolio, foresight has contributed to mainstreaming the concepts of ‘resilience’ and ‘open strategic autonomy’ into the EU's industrial strategy, via the Strategic Foresight Reports and new participatory structures inside and outside the Commission. This responded to the need for building up preparedness in the face of ‘radical uncertainty’ on future supply chain disruptions. We conclude that strategic foresight—if supported by an effective governance—will play an increasingly large role in shaping the EU's future policymaking. In particular, the concepts of ‘competitive sustainability’ and people's wellbeing, advanced by the 2023 Strategic Foresight Report as pillars of open strategic autonomy, may help futureproof the EU's green industrial policy going forward.

This article examines the European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS) network and assesses its impact on efforts to embed strategic foresight in EU policy-making. It analyses the development of the network through three stages: preparatory steps to 2014, quasi-institutionalisation from 2015 and high-level anchoring from 2019. Throughout, the view that a new approach to strategic analysis was needed met concerns about preserving institutional prerogatives and competences. The article suggests that this tension mitigated the network's impact, which has been more significant on matters of process than of substance. Achievements include the creation of foresight capacity and of dialogue across institutional and sectoral boundaries and greater appreciation of the interdependence of global challenges across different domains. Progress towards deeper engagement with worst-case scenarios and with the challenge of societal fragmentation has been more limited.

This article examines the foundational principles and methodologies of foresight and their integration into EU policy-making. It explores how foresight can improve policy analysis to create future-ready, resilient decisions amid uncertainties. By synthesising empirical evidence and interpreting multifaceted issues through an interdisciplinary lens, foresight provides EU policymakers with tools to make informed decisions that remain adaptable in the face of unpredictability. The author argues that foresight, through comprehensive analysis of trends, uncertainties and potential challenges, can guide policymakers in forming future-focused strategies. Key foresight methods emphasised include horizon scanning, systems analysis, stakeholder engagement and scenario planning. The article advocates a holistic policy approach, urging analysts to acknowledge biases and assumptions while integrating diverse perspectives. Concluding with a framework for responsible policy-making, the article argues that foresight can shape evidence-based, inclusive and transparent strategies, ensuring that the EU will be prepared for unpredictable futures.

The article argues that the ever-closer Union among peoples of Europe finds itself at a critical juncture: the unstated and implicit assumption of a community made up of liberal democracies is being challenged and pitted against the rival rebirth of the nationalistic narrative of uniqueness and self-sufficiency. The readiness to live, or paddle together, is on the line as the once sacrosanct ‘ever closer union among the peoples of Europe’ seems to be the focal point of the principled disagreement that calls into question the very belonging to the community and its continued existence. Faced with these challenges, this article charts an interdisciplinary and holistic road map to grapple with the big supranational questions of the day. It argues that the traditional European discourse moves beyond the technical dichotomy of ‘market regulation versus deregulation’ and ‘Union competence versus Member State competence’ and instead zeroes in on the more fundamental questions pertaining to mega-politics centred on the identity of the common legal order. While the analysis appreciates the critical interaction between the legal dimension of European supranational integration—the search for optimal tools to safeguard the integrity of the supranational order—it stresses the importance of the ethical face—the narrative and justification that would explain in the name of whom the supranational governance and design acts when it defines and then defends its narrative and First Principles of the common legal order today in flux more than ever.

Although foresight has played a central role in the history of European integration since its inception in the 1950s, it has not always had the same meaning, nor has it always been used in the same political way. This article looks at the genesis and development of foresight on a European scale between 1950 and 2020, analysing it as a specific public policy: such a perspective aims to highlight the differentiated relationships to time and future, the different conceptions of the respective roles of administration, politics and science, and the forms of competence on which successive foresight policies are based. It also enables us to identify the institutional and political factors that explain its development, and the particular forms it takes.

Contemporary politics require a swift and responsive policy-making approach to respond to emergency situations quickly and to anticipate them in a strategic manner. Maintaining decision-making agility in times of urgency makes it necessary to think ahead of stress-impacting situations. To increase systemic resilience, policies must be designed in an adaptive way. Strategic options, futurity of policies and potential futures must be elaborated and kept in sight when developing policies. Anticipatory governance and strategic foresight activities are elements of such an adaptive governance mode. To transform decision-making in a future-oriented way, these forward-planning elements need to be institutionalised to support governance resilience. This article asks how anticipatory governance and strategic foresight are embedded within EU multilevel governance. It investigates the EU Better Regulation Agenda to understand how anticipatory governance already contributes to EU governance. Additionally, it discusses how the institutionalisation of strategic foresight can contribute to EU anticipatory governance.

This article analyses how the automation of border control challenges the rule of law requirement on sufficient limits to discretion by using the idea expressed by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) non-delegation doctrine that it is possible to make a clear distinction between technically complex assessments and political discretion. To illustrate these challenges, the article uses the examples of the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) and the conferral of discretionary powers to EU agency Frontex to establish pre-determined risk criteria. The article argues that not recognising the inherent political aspects of exercising technical powers leads to insufficient limits to discretionary powers in the context of automated risk assessments. Beyond raising serious rule of law concerns of arbitrary exercise of power, the idea that technical assessments and policy choices can be clearly separated enables ‘algorithmic discretion’ as a new form of administrative discretion.

In response to widespread human rights violations involving the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex), multiple accountability mechanisms were activated, leading to the resignation of the agency's executive director. Does this mean the current framework can ensure Frontex's overall accountability? Playing with IT metaphors, this article scrutinises Frontex's accountability framework as a whole. It explores a holistic understanding of accountability, which includes judicial and non-judicial (administrative, democratic, social) accountability mechanisms that can together safeguard the Rule of Law. The article highlights the fragmented and ineffective current accountability framework. It challenges traditional accountability notions and suggests a ‘system reset’, introducing the concept of systemic accountability. Systemic accountability addresses systemic issues underlying consistent rights violations through focused structural solutions. As an accountability model, it can be applied further than Frontex operations to the complex realities of shared administration at external borders, where multiple actors and obscured accountabilities lead to systemic violations.

The essay deals with the enhancement of the legal framework for informal readmissions at internal borders enshrined in the former Schengen Border Code (now Union Code on the rules governing the movement of persons across borders), which in turn requires enhancement of bilateral police cooperation. It focuses on the impact of the new rules on the prohibition on police controls equivalent to border checks to highlight that the case-law of the Court of Justice on the matter creates a huge grey area which is critical for the ideal of a border-check-free Union. Increased use of video surveillance and other technologies also faces the legal bottleneck of prohibition on police controls having equivalent effects to border checks, as well as raising serious concerns about fundamental rights. It is argued that the situation resulting from these amendments to the former Schengen Border Code should be considered in terms of an impending rule of law crisis at internal borders.