Case Studies of Traditionally Internal Policy Areas with Outward Effects: Competition, Climate Change and Health

Marie Vandendriessche, Andrea Christou, Chad Damro, Anna Fonts Picas & Mateu Tomi

The EU’s external action comprises a host of different policies. Harnessing tools from all these areas holds great potential to help the EU effectively and sustainably meet strategic challenges and become a stronger global actor. This paper studies the layer of traditionally internal policies with external dimensions – i.e. external action ‘plus’. Within this policy layer, we focus on the policies of competition, climate change and health, which were selected based on their present relevance for EU external action and their varying legal competences. For each policy area, we study the EU’s legal objectives, the linkages that can be identified between the policy area and other external action policies, and the factors that facilitate or obstruct those linkages. To do so, we draw on a set of semi-structured interviews with current and former EU officials, as well as on secondary literature. We carry out our analysis using an actorness-based analytical framework developed in ENGAGE Working Paper 17, which builds on the concepts of opportunity, presence and capabilities.

We find strong differences in the extent of linkages between the three policy areas, with limited linkages in competition; widespread and longstanding ones in climate change; and rapidly growing ones in health. Competences play a role, but perhaps a slightly unexpected one: while exclusive competences might theoretically facilitate linkages in the case of competition, the non-political view of the EU’s competition authorities in fact acts as an obstructing factor for linkages. In health, in contrast, where competences are in principle “weaker”, Member States endowed the EU institutions with a stronger role following the COVID-19 outbreak, thereby facilitating linkages with external action. External crises were furthermore identified as a highly relevant factor overall, modifying opportunity structures and potential for linkages – not just in the health field. At the same time however, the 2022 Russian war against Ukraine may detract attention from certain policy areas, which could dampen prospects for linkages in the case of climate change and health. Furthermore, four factors were identified as potentially facilitating linkages: the EU’s market size (particularly in the cases of climate change and competition policies), a plethora of coordination channels, resource scarcity in individual units, and the new Team Europe approach.