Enhancing ‘Enhanced Cooperation’: constraints and opportunities of an inflexible flexibility clause. College of Europe Policy Brief #1.19, March 2019

Gerards, Carsten and Wessels, Wolfgang (2019) Enhancing ‘Enhanced Cooperation’: constraints and opportunities of an inflexible flexibility clause. College of Europe Policy Brief #1.19, March 2019. [Policy Paper]

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Abstract

> In the framework of Enhanced Cooperation in the EU less than a handful of policy projects have been realised so far. > Procedural and substantive bottlenecks in the relevant Treaty provisions streamline the framework’s application towards special legislative procedure in the area of Justice and Home Affairs. > The framework can substantially be improved by: > changing the incentive structure that Enhanced Cooperation is embedded in; > reducing the complexity in the realm of ‘subgroup integration’ in the EU (especially by integrating PESCO into the Enhanced Cooperation framework); > strengthening the role of the European Parliament in the respective procedures.

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