The quiet politics of migration supranationalization – Commission entrepreneurship and the intra-Corporate Transferee Directive

ABSTRACT

Migration is widely considered a sensitive and contested area of EU policymaking, with Member States reluctant to cede control. Yet, supranational rules on ‘legal migration’ increasingly reduce Member State discretion to control migration. While Commission entrepreneurship has been proposed as an explanation, its importance for supranational outcomes remains unclear. To understand the role of Commission entrepreneurship in enabling supranational policy outcomes, this study traces the negotiations of on one central labour migration policy, the Intra-Corporate Transferee Directive. I demonstrate how the Commission was able to defuse opposition by proposing a narrow policy instrument and framing it as a matter of business needs, international obligations and competitiveness rather than labour migration. This enabled an environment of ‘quiet politics’ where concerns over sovereignty and control were tuned down to a preference for administrative flexibility. The findings have implications for our understanding of the dynamics of supranationalization in politically sensitive policy areas.

KEYWORDS:

• European Commission
• EU policy-making
• intra-Corporate transfers
• quiet politics
• EU migration policy
• supranational entrepreneurship

Acknowledgment

Earlier versions of this paper have been presented at the 2020 DVPW AKER Conference, the 2020 UACES General Conference, the 2021 ECPR SGEU Conference and at colloquia at the University of Neuchâtel, the University of Geneva and the European University Institute, and I am grateful to the participants for their comments. In addition to the comments from the anonymous reviewers, the paper has benefitted from generous feedback by Sandra Lavenex, Francesco Maiani, Oliver Treib, Tanja Börzel, Jenna Althoff, Marta Migliorati, Martin Ruhs, Angie Gago, Lea Kaftan and Jordy Weyns.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics statement

The research conducted for this manuscript meets the ethical guidelines of the University of Geneva and the legal requirements of the study countries (Belgium and Switzerland). The interviews conducted for this research have been conducted with the explicit consent of interviewees to the use of anonymised interview data for publication in scientific journals.

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Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/07036337.2023.2295374.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Own calculation based on Eurostat [migr_resocc], [migr_resict1_1] and [migr_resfirst] for the years 2018–2021 and 27 Member States (excluding the United Kingdom). The calculation method follows an earlier calculation by the European Commission (European Commission 2019b, 209). 2018 is chosen as a starting point since the ICTD and the Seasonal Workers Directive had to be transposed in 2017.

2. Own calculation based on Eurostat ([migr_resbc] and [migr_resict1_1]). Germany has been issuing around 80% of all Blue Cards in recent years, and is the only big Member State using the Blue Card as the main entry channel for highly skilled migration (Kolb 2017, 16). More Blue Cards than ICT cards were issued in the years 2020 and 2021; however this is likely a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

3. Own calculation based on Eurostat [migr_resict1_3].

4. Own calculation based on Eurostat [migr_resict1_1].

5. The United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark did not adopt the ICTD because of their opt-outs from EU immigration policies (see recitals 47 and 48 of the ICTD).

6. The Social Questions Working Party in the Council was invited to draft an opinion, which was then integrated by the Presidency into a compromise suggestion in April 2011 (Council of the EU 2011c).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National Center of Competence in Research NCCR – on the move funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Grant number 51NF40-182897).