i Varieties of European Subsidiarity A Multidisciplinary Approach GÜNTER WALZENBACH & RALF ALLEWELDT ii This e-book is provided without charge via free download by E-International Relations (www.E-IR.info). It is not permitted to be sold in electronic format under any circumstances. If you enjoy our free e-books, please consider leaving a small donation to allow us to continue investing in open access publications: http://www.e-ir.info/about/donate/ i Varieties of European Subsidiarity A Multidisciplinary Approach EDITED BY GÜNTER WALZENBACH & RALF ALLEWELDT ii E-International Relations www.E-IR.info Bristol, England 2021 ISBN 978-1-910814-57-4 This book is published under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0 license. 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Production: Michael Tang Cover Image: frees/ilolab/Shutterstock A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. iii E-IR Edited Collections Series Editor: Stephen McGlinchey Books Editor: Bill Kakenmaster Editorial assistance: Patterson Deppen, Kaiqing Su, Simon Hilditch, Alyssa Blakemore. E-IR’s Edited Collections are open access scholarly books presented in a format that preferences brevity and accessibility while retaining academic conventions. Each book is available in print and digital versions, and is published under a Creative Commons license. As E-International Relations is committed to open access in the fullest sense, free electronic versions of all of our books, including this one, are available on our website. Find out more at: http://www.e-ir.info/publications About E-International Relations E-International Relations (E-IR) is the world’s leading open access website for students and scholars of international politics, reaching over three million readers per year. In addition to our books, our daily publications feature expert articles, reviews and interviews – as well as student learning resources. The website is run by a non-profit organisation based in Bristol, England and staffed by an all-volunteer team of students and scholars. http://www.e-ir.info iv This book amply demonstrates the utility of political analysis for a fuller understanding of the concept of subsidiarity. It offers important insights for students of regional and global governance, particularly for those concerned with the future evolution and political legitimacy of European governance. The volume’s organisation is exemplary, and the editors identify multiple sources of political authority with far-reaching consequences for supranational policy making. They do so without losing sight of the real-life stakeholders at national and local levels. – Tsuneo Akaha. Professor Emeritus, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, USA. The editors of this volume reinvigorate the international debate on the role of subsidiarity in theory and practice. Varieties of European Subsidiarity moves beyond legal analysis with a multidisciplinary exploration of the principle in its many empirical manifestations. Despite the focus on EU policy, individual contributions also delve into comparative and international dimensions, offering valuable accounts of key topics in European governance. A rigorous, empirically informed, but critical and new contribution to an important field. – Kostas A. Lavdas. Professor of European Politics, Panteion University, Athens, Greece. Walzenbach and Alleweldt’s Varieties of European Subsidiarity offers a state- of-the-art account of the complex and politically contested system of multi- level governance in Europe. Those with an interest in the shifting sites of political authority in Europe will greatly benefit from the book’s multidisciplinary insights. It competently explores the legal foundation of the principle of subsidiarity and thoroughly examines practical applications in different policy areas and across EU member states. – Oliver Schmidtke. Professor, Centre for Global Studies, University of Victoria, Canada. The multidisciplinary perspective offered here nicely blends theoretical exploration with practical relevance and includes intriguing case studies as a must read for anyone interested in the workings of the European Union. This book will be an essential source for students and scholars in the Eastern Neighbourhood designing their own processes of decentralisation. – Volodymyr Yemelyanov. Professor, Institute of Public Administration, Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University, Mykolayiv, Ukraine. v Abstract Subsidiarity as a principle in favour of decentralised decision-making is a cornerstone of the very legal construction of the EU. Yet, the question of how decision-making powers should be distributed between the EU and the member states is not, or only to a minimal extent, answered in Article 5 (3) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). This collection draws on social science disciplines to go beyond a purely legal analysis to provide clarity over this principle as applied. With the help of theoretical exploration and empirical case studies the contributors identify significant variation in the implem- entation of the subsidiarity concept. By tracing the precise location of political authority at different levels of European governance they examine the pressures for effective decision-making despite the changing policy preferences of governments. vi Acknowledgements We are most grateful to the authors of this volume who invested considerable time and effort to see its successful completion. What started out as a project of German-Italian cooperation soon reached beyond the confines of any specific country comparison. Rosa Mulé deserves our joint credit for getting the project off the ground and for being such a welcoming workshop host at the University of Bologna. While working on this book, the editors have benefitted from discussions on subsidiarity with students and colleagues from the University of the West of England, Bristol, the Brandenburg State Police University, Oranienburg, and the American University of Armenia, Yerevan. The argument advanced here has been further explored in a special issue on ‘Spaces of Subsidiarity – Diverging Politics and Policies’, published by Commonwealth & Comparative Politics as volume 57(2) in April 2019. Finally, without the support of Stephen McGlinchey and the E-International Relations editorial team this collection would have never become a finished product. G.W. and R.A. Bristol and Berlin, February 2021 About the editors Günter Walzenbach is Senior Lecturer in European Politics at the University of the West of England, Bristol, and was Associate Professor of Political Science at the American University of Armenia, Yerevan. His research interests are in comparative political economy and multi-level governance. Ralf Alleweldt is Professor of Constitutional and European Law at the Brandenburg State Police University, Oranienburg. His key research interests are in international human rights law, prevention of torture, refugee law, and constitutional justice. vii Contributors Hartmut Aden is Professor of European and German Public Law at the Berlin School of Economics and Law as well as Deputy Director of the Institute for Safety and Security Research. Sian Affolter is a Doctoral Candidate at the Institute of European Law of the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Her Ph.D. research focuses on European environmental and agricultural law. Marco Balboni is Professor of European Union and International Law at the University of Bologna, where he is also the Coordinator of the Degree in International Relations and Diplomatic Affairs. His research interests include international and EU migration law, EU non-discrimination law and human rights. Marco Borraccetti is Associate Professor in European Union Law at the University of Bologna. His research focuses on EU migration, human traffic- king as well as refugee and asylum policy. Maximilian Bossdorf is a Doctoral Candidate at the University of the West of England, Bristol, and a former Trade Commissioner of the Canadian Govern- ment in Germany. His PhD research explores public-private partnerships in European trade policy. Jörg Michael Dostal is Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University, South Korea. He is also Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Syrian Studies, University of St Andrews. Jörg Dürrschmidt is Professor of Sociology at the University of Applied Sciences Ludwigsburg, where he is the Co-Director of the Institute of Applied Research as well as the Co-Organiser of the International Summer School on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. He specialises in globalisation studies, migration and urban change. Barrie B. F. Hebb is a Development Economist consulting with public and private agencies providing aid to vulnerable people in the