The Influence of the European Semester: Case Study Analysis and Lessons for its Post‐Pandemic Transformation^*

Abstract

This paper examines whether and how the European Semester has influenced structural reforms in member states. It does so by analysing the interaction between the Commission and the national bureaucratic and political levels. The paper presents two process‐tracing exercises with a focus on those actors that directly worked with the CSRs to assess the political dynamics underpinning the CSR implementation process. First, it examines the more nuanced and indirect effects the Semester had on the liberalization of professions in Italy. Second, it shows how the debate on wage indexation in Belgium turned around over the years and how the Semester was an important factor in introducing reform. The analysis shows the influence of the Semester in terms of issue salience and agenda setting, but it also shows how the Commission can exert real pressure. This pressure may in turn affect the EU's perceived legitimacy, which holds lessons for the Semester's post‐pandemic transformation.

Beyond the European Semester: The supranational evaluation cycle for pensions

“…Moreover, implementation depended on several factors, resulting in variable influence on national policy reforms (Bokhorst, 2022; Mariotto, 2022; Efstathiou and Wolff, 2019). In a comparative study of social CSRs, Al-Kadi and Clauwaert (2019) showed that ‘tinderbox’ policies such as wages and pensions were less likely to be the object of reform.…”

“…Bokhorst (2022) contends that assessing the Semester only through its impact on national policy is misleading. The influence is more cognitive and seldom direct: ‘(b)y continuously confronting the domestic actors with evidence and demanding a response in return, (the Semester) makes it harder to ignore pressing issues.’ This stems from the rational-legal authority of European bureaucracy, which socializes national actors through ‘the iterative use of EU concepts, categories, and metrics in formulating and reviewing Member States’ plans for achieving common objectives’ (Zeitlin, 2009: 227).…”

Reconsidering the drivers of country-specific recommendations: The Commission's ideological preferences on wage policies

“…The nature of these recommendations feeds into the question of whether different wage-setting regimes and labour market types are associated with heterogenous economic outcomes, which is a topic that has been subject to considerable debates in the EU's political economy literature (Johnston, 2016; Nölke, 2016). Höpner and Lutter (2018) have, for instance, found that decentralized wage-setting institutions are associated with higher wage inflation, whereas centralized and corporatist labour relations regimes tend to have lower wage inflation. The different outcomes that different constellations of wage-setting regimes give rise to has even led some scholars to question the compatibility of different wage-setting regimes and labour market institutions in a common currency area (Johnston and Regan, 2016).…”

“…Second, even when not binding, CSRs can have an indirect impact on member states' reforms initiatives. CSRs on labour market flexibilization and wage-setting have, for example, had an important impact in the domestic political agenda of labour market reforms in Belgium, France and Italy (Bokhorst, 2022;Syrovatka, 2021b). Although the exact nature of the mechanisms through which member states comply with CSRs constitutes a burgeoning area of research (Guardiancich and Guidi, 2020), CSRs have often found to have had a significant impact on national reform programs.…”

“…Existing literature on the post-crisis' EU economic governance has identified two dominant strands of preference formation for the Commission: the first conceives the Commission as a de-politicized and technocratic institution implementing a rules-based system, the second instead considers the Commission as a politicized actor, whose recommendations are informed by a set of ideological preferences (Van der Veer and Haverland, 2019). While the dichotomy between these research strands has animated investigations on the Commission's labour market policy preferences (Bokhorst, 2022;Schulten and Müller, 2015;Syrovatka, 2021b), an empirical investigation on the determinants of the Commission's recommendations on wage policies has thus far been missing. In this article, I show that the analysis of wage policies constitutes an important area of research for EU studies.…”