Project description
The ‘soft’ enforcement in EU migration policy
Immigration is one of the most divisive issues in Europe today, and enforcing common EU policy is equally contentious. Member States have struggled to agree on clear, cohesive policies, while traditional enforcement methods like legal proceedings brought by the European Commission before the Court of Justice have proved slow. With this in mind, the ERC-funded SoftEn project aims to explore a quieter shift in enforcement. It will analyse how EU institutions are increasingly turning to mechanisms such as peer reviews, oversight bodies and administrative accountability processes within migration agencies. It will combine legal analysis with empirical research to show how these soft approaches shape migration governance, and whether they can make EU law more effective.
Objective
This project will establish soft enforcement of EU migration law as a new research field in which legal and political science scholars will be equally active. Migration is a salient issue for the EU, and we are witnessing deep shifts in the implementation and enforcement landscapes of EU migration law. Traditional enforcement methods, such as Court of Justice proceedings initiated by the European Commission against Member States, have met their limit. Soft enforcement is becoming a flexible and politically palatable alternative. For example, Fundamental Rights Offices have been established within EU migration agencies that operationalise novel Ombuds-type administrative accountability processes, and a peer review mechanism, run jointly by the Commission and Member States, has been integrated with the Schengen area of free movement.
SoftEn conceptualizes soft enforcement and unlocks the black box of its operationalisation in the context of migration. It brings together theoretical insights from legal and political science on governance, enforcement, and accountability, combining legal analysis with empirical qualitative methods. Its groundbreaking nature lies in three characteristics. First, the project will generate a new interdisciplinary, legally grounded and empirically informed theory of soft enforcement in the migration context. Second, it will generate datasets on soft enforcement along three axes (steering policy implementation; supervising policy implementation; and ensuring actor accountability) across the EU’s migration policies. Moving beyond ‘law on the books’, it will also generate unique qualitative empirical insights at EU and selected national levels. Third, it will generate a new evidence-informed governance framework for soft enforcement that can impact the work of public institutions at EU and national levels, and ultimately, individuals.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2024-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
6200 MD Maastricht
Netherlands
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