Migration on the Agenda of the European Council: A struggle for attention

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Migration on the Agenda of the European Council

A struggle for attention

Bachelor Thesis

International Relations and Organizations

Peter Breedveld Universiteit Leiden S1664263

Supervisor: Dr. I.L. Elias Carrillo Date: 2 June 2020

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2 I would like to say special thanks to my thesis supervisor

Dr. I.L. Elias Carrillo who was always available for questions and had plenty of useful advise.

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Introduction

The Schengen Agreement of 1985 created a single area without internal border checks consisting of France, Germany and the Benelux (European Parliament, 2018). In the years that followed, the Schengen area was extended to other member states and currently it comprises 26 European countries. The Schengen Agreement also covered other related issues, like a common visa regime, illegal immigration, cross-border police competences and asylum (Young, 2010, p.459). Although this was an important step for the European integration and it prompted closer cooperation on these issues, it also spurred concern about the safeguarding of the internal security (Ibid.).

Since the Schengen Agreement, migration became a topic of attention on the agenda of the European Council (Figure 1). Figure 1 shows the European Council’s attention for migration in the period of 1975 – 2014. Alexandrova et al. produced a dataset containing all the European Council conclusions from March 1975 until December 2014 (Alexandrova et al., 2014). They have coded all quasi-sentences of the conclusions according to its policy content. This method allowed them to determine the attention of the European Council concerning several major topics, like migration, agriculture, governance and macroeconomics (Ibid.). Based on these quasi-sentences, the attention for migration in that period was always below 10%. Although the attention pattern was relatively stable, there were some small peaks of attention in 1986, 1991, 2003 and 2011 (Figure 1).

Figure 1 European Council attention for Migration, 1975 - 2014

Source: Alexandrova et al., 2014

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 Perc en ta ge o f an n u al Eu ro p ean Cou n cil at ten tio n for m igrat ion Years

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6 Research Puzzle

The dataset of Alexandrova, Carammia, Princen and Timmermans contains the European Council conclusions until 2014. The European Council attention for migration after this period was not measured by them. In the years that followed 2014, migration received a very big amount of attention from the media (Bonomolo and Kirchgaessner, 2015; Tondo, 2019; Cusumano, 2019, p.4). The so-called migration crisis of 2015 was one of the biggest crises in the history of the European Union. The arrival of millions of refugees from unsafe countries in the Middle-East and Africa provided the European Union with various challenges. Although the direct effects of this crisis were mostly visible in the Southern European countries, it was clear that the crisis would have long-term consequences for the entire European Union. Therefore, it would be interesting to research the attention of the European Council for migration in the period after 2014. This leads to the following research question:

How did the issue of migration develop on the agenda of the European Council between 2009 and 2019 and how can this be explained?

The Punctuated Equilibrium Theory of Baumgartner and Jones will be used to analyze this pattern of attention. This theory predicts that the attention for a certain issue by a serial processing institution will follow a pattern with relatively long periods of stability, alternated with short periods of sudden large-scale changes (Baumgartner and Jones, 2005, Introduction). Since such a pattern can only be observed over a longer period of time, the scope for this research will be 2009 – 2019. Altogether, this results in the following hypothesis:

H1: The pattern of attention for migration by the European Council between 2009 and 2019 would show relatively long periods of stability, alternated with short periods of sudden large-scale changes.

Once the pattern of attention for migration has been established, the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory will be used to verify or falsify this hypothesis. Finally, the pattern will be analyzed with two theoretical concepts: focusing events and issue competition. The reason for a sudden spike in attention can be a focusing event: an unexpected event with large scale consequences (Birkland, 1998, p.54). Issue competition entails that a serial processing institution, like the European Council, would have to sacrifice some issues coming its way, since it is not able to

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7 deal with them simultaneously. These concepts could be of help, to explain the established pattern.

This thesis focuses on the European Council, since it consists of the highest political officials of the European Union’s member states. Sensitive matters are sometimes shifted to this top level and therefore the European Council is often the institution that takes the decisions on politically sensitive issues (Alexandrova, 2015, p.9). This, together with the long-term agenda-setting function of the European Council, makes it an appropriate institution to research. Since the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory is designed for the United States, a section in the theoretical framework will be about its applicability to the European Union.

The study of agenda-setting in the European Union is relatively young (Alexandrova, 2014, p.3). Most research in this area focusses on the European Commission and the European Parliament. “Systematic analyses of longer time periods of European Council agenda setting are nonexistent.” (Alexandrova, Carammia and Timmermans, 2012, p.71). Since this statement in 2012 more research on agenda-setting in the European Council has been done (Alexandrova, 2014; Elias and Timmermans, 2014). This thesis will add to the knowledge of the agenda-setting of migration in the European Council, since not much research on this topic has been done before.

Structure of this thesis

This thesis is divided into separate sections as can be seen in the contents section above. The first section is the theoretical framework. It provides an insight into the process of agenda setting and gives some relevant background on the European Council. An elaboration of the punctuated equilibrium theory of Baumgartner and Jones is added in order to analyze the European Council’s attention pattern for migration. Finally, it elaborates on the two explanatory factors: focusing events and issue competition. The second section deals with the methodology and shows the research design for the quantitative part of this thesis. The aim of the quantitative research is to get insight into the attention dynamics of the European Council for migration. In the third section, the analysis, the research design will be executed. This will result in a visualization of the European Council’s attention for migration. This graph will be the starting point for the qualitative analysis in this section, that tries to explain the pattern. First, the concept of focusing events will be examined in light of the established pattern. Second, the agenda dynamics between migration and Brexit will be analyzed, in order to find out whether issue competition influenced the pattern. Finally, the results of this thesis will be summarized in the conclusions. This section will also include some recommendations for further research on the topic.

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Theoretical Framework

The policy cycle

Politicians take political decisions all the time. To understand this policy-making process, five stages are distinguished in the ‘policy cycle’ (Hague and Harrop, 2007, p.378). This model is a simplification of the process, but enables scholars to analyze the policy-making process. Young describes the policy cycle as follows (Young, 2010, p.46). The cycle usually starts with an issue being conceived as problematic by policy makers, which puts it on the agenda (agenda setting). The bureaucracy will formulate specific proposals to deal with this issue (policy formulation). Decision-makers can choose one of these proposals or can decide not to deal with an issue (policy decision). The fourth step is to implement a policy when a decision has been taken (implementation). Once a policy has been implemented, the result has to be evaluated (evaluation) (Ibid.). Although the policy cycle has been criticized for being too simplistic, since the chronology of the stages is not fixed, it still provides an insight into the function of agenda setting for the policy-making process (Sabatier, 1999, p.7). It shows the necessity for issues to get onto the political agenda in order for a political decision to be taken.

The agenda

Kingdon defines an agenda as the list of issues that receive serious attention in a political system (Kingdon, 2003, p.3). Political scientists distinguish three types of agendas: the political agenda, the public agenda and the media agenda (Princen, 2009, p.21). The difference between these agendas is about the entity paying attention to the issues: respectively political decision-makers, the public and the media. Agenda setting is not simply about an issue being ‘on’ or ‘off’ the agenda, but it is about the ranking of the issue on the agenda. The process of agenda setting is therefore a political struggle with the aim to get the issue as high on the agenda as possible (Ibid.). The focus of this thesis will be on the political agenda of the European Council. A fundamental part of agenda setting is attention, since it determines what problems are attended by the government, or in this case the European Union (Elias, 2019, p. 11). In relation to an agenda, this means that issues compete with each other, since they go up and down and on and off the agenda (Alexandrova, Carammia and Timmermans, 2012, p.70). This thesis will use PET to analyze the distribution of attention.

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9 The European Council

The European Council is an institution of the European Union consisting of the Heads of State or Government of the member states of the European Union (Wallace, 2010, p.81). The French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing had a proposition in 1974 to establish an intergovernmental institution to balance the supranational European Commission (Keulen van and Segers, 2015, p.96). Consequently, the European Council was erected as an informal political arena for prime ministers and presidents to discuss important matters. The European Council was not mentioned in the European Union treaties for a long time, but with the Treaty of Lisbon the European Council was included as a European Union institution (Alexandrova, 2015, p.11). Although the European Council is a very important institution, its formal powers are limited (Lelieveldt and Princen, 2015, p.52). The Treaty of Lisbon states the following about the task of the European Council: “The European Council shall provide the Union with the necessary impetus for its development and shall define the general political guidelines thereof.” (Treaty of Lisbon: art. 9B). This means that the European Council is responsible for the long-term strategic agenda of the European Union. Article 9B of the Treaty of Lisbon also provides a basis for the agenda setting function of the European Council. The European Council meets at least four times a year. Its meetings take place behind closed doors, its proceedings are undocumented and it is hard to gain access to its participants due to their high political status (Tallberg, 2008, p. 687). This means that the written conclusions are the most important evidence of the content discussed and agreed upon by the members of the European Council (Alexandrova, 2014, p.23). It is important to note that the conclusions do not directly reflect the debates of the meetings. They often represent the lowest common denominator, but for analysis of the documents it does not matter how the European Council gets to its conclusions, it matters what has been decided (Ibid., p.11).

The Punctuated Equilibrium Theory

The Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET) is derived from the empirical observation that political processes are characterized by long-lasting periods of stability, with merely some incremental changes. These periods of stability are sometimes broken by sudden large-scale changes, that often happen within a short timespan (Green-Pederson and Princen, 2016, p.70). Baumgartner and Jones designed a framework in order to explain both these periods of stability

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10 and the sudden large-scale punctuations in the same theory (True, Jones and Baumgartner, 2007, p.1).

In order to understand the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory, it is useful to make a distinction between macro-political institutions and policy sub-systems. Macro-political institutions are the ones that make major decisions which may affect policies or the power structure of a policy area (Thurber, 1996, p.78). The issues dealt with by macro-political institutions are usually highly visible and are covered extensively by the media (Ibid.). Policy sub-systems on the other hand are groups of policy experts, bureaucrats, politicians and lobbyists, all focused on a specific issue (Green-Pederson and Princen, 2016, p.72). Sub-systems are organized to elaborate on a specific policy area and to influence specific programs. They usually work on the micro-level of policy, which results in low visibility of their work (Thurber, 1996, p.82). This is in contrast with the officials of macro-political institutions that are visible on the news, in newspapers and in talk shows. The European Council itself is a clear example of a macro-political institution. It has huge political authority, since it consists of the Heads of State or Government of the member states of the European Union. Furthermore, the European Council takes major decisions which matches its ability to decide on the long-term agenda of the European Union (Treaty of Lisbon: art. 9B). The European Council can call on other institutional actors of the European Union to carry out an action or to create or change policy (Alexandrova, 2015, p.51). These institutional actors like the Council and the Commission get supported by working parties and low-level groups. These groups and working parties function as the sub-systems in the European Union. They work on a detailed level on specific issues and their work is not very visible.

The theory of punctuated equilibrium builds on the notion of bounded rationality. This notion is derived from Herbert Simon and entails that individuals are bound by the limited processing capacity of their minds (Simon, 1985, p.294; True, Jones and Baumgartner, 2007, p.2). “People are endowed with very large long-term memories, but with very narrow capacities for simultaneous attention to different pieces of information.” (Simon, 1985, p.301). This means that decision-makers are not able to deal with all the problems coming their way at the same time. A gathering of individuals, an organization, on the other hand is capable to deal with more than one issue at the same time (True, Jones and Baumgartner, 2007, p.6). It is important to add that not every organization has the same level of administrative capacity. Simon distinguishes two ways of issue processing: parallel and serial. Parallel processing means that organizations are able to handle more issues simultaneously. Serial processing on the other hand means that

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11 organizations only handle one issue at the time (Simon, 1985, p.302; True, Jones and Baumgartner, 2007, p. 6). The existence of sub-systems allow a political system to process issues parallel. In that way a political system is able to consider a big number of issues at the same time (True, Jones and Baumgartner, p.6).

The European Council as a macro-political institution is an example of an institution that processes issues serially. In contrast to the European Commission, the European Council does not have an administrative body to help it with its tasks (Elias and Timmermans, 2014, p.6). Therefore, the European Council cannot deal with too many issues at the same time. A diverse range of issues has to find its way through a ‘bottleneck of attention’, which causes a punctuated-equilibrium pattern of agenda setting. (Ibid., p.10). This ‘bottleneck of attention’ is caused by the bounded rationality of decision-makers and the lack of agenda capacity of serial processing institutions like the European Council. The European Council has to sacrifice issues, in order to deal with others. This results in serious issue competition (Alexandrova, 2014, p.150). The next section will explain why PET can explain both periods of stability and periods of change.

The way that macro-political institutions and sub-systems deal with issues, influences the amount of attention that issues receive. Most actors in a specific sub-system share a ‘policy image’. This means that they have the same interpretation and definition of an issue and have a shared point of view (Green-Pederson and Princen, 2016, p.72). The actors dominating the system constitute a ‘policy monopoly’ (Ibid., p.73). A policy monopoly occurs when the sub-system is dominated by a single interest (True, Baumgartner and Jones, 2006, p.7). Every policy entrepreneur in a sub-system has the primary interest to establish a monopoly on political understandings, concerning the policy of interest (Baumgartner and Jones, 2009, p.6). Policy entrepreneurs achieve to get such a monopoly by convincing others that ‘outsiders’ are not qualified to make decisions in the policy area of interest. Since a policy monopoly is concerned with just one single interest, it will not allow for alternative points of view. Therefore, policy monopolies in sub-systems create stability, or equilibrium, for a specific issue (Ibid., p.8).

A second reason for sub-systems creating stability goes by the term ‘institutional friction’. Institutional friction occurs when thresholds for change are created by institutional rules. These rules are usually designed in a way that inhibits policymaking from getting too volatile (Alexandrova, Carammia and Timmermans, 2012, p.72). Elias and Timmermans add that political institutions are designed to provide stability and to avoid day-to-day overhaul of priorities and course of action in policymaking (Elias and Timmermans, 2014, p.4). Therefore, political institutions usually have rules to protect this stability. Examples of those rules are rules

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12 of qualified majority or unanimity and constitutional designs of separation of powers (Alexandrova, Carammia and Timmermans, 2012, p.72). Once decisions require unanimity or qualified majority, it will become harder to change policy. Someone with an opinion that deviates from the policy image has to mobilize all other decision-makers entitled to vote in order to change something in the case of unanimity. Constitutional designs of separation of powers make sure that one single institution cannot change policy on its own. These rules prevent political systems from being too volatile. Sub-systems therefore provide stability or equilibrium around policy questions. Change from within the sub-systems happens incrementally and with minor policy adjustments (Green-Pederson and Princen, 2016, p.73).

Now long periods of stability have been explained, it is useful to know where the sudden large-scale changes come from. PET argues that the reason for policy change comes from outside of the sub-systems. A first threat to the stability of the sub-systems are macro-political actors, like a president, a party leader or even the media (Green-Pederson and Princen, 2016, p.73). On the European Union level this could be the president of the European Council, a Head of State or Government of a member state or the media. These macro-political actors do not necessarily share the policy image of the sub-systems. Once they get involved, a new policy image could establish itself very fast (Ibid.). The involvement of macro-political actors can for instance be caused by a newly elected president with his own interests. Another cause could be the retrieval of ‘new information’ about a policy issue. New information can derive from a focusing event (Ibid.), an important concept that will be dealt with later in this theoretical framework. The moment a new policy image is created, the agreed-upon image is under attack. The new policy image will likely trigger a wave of either enthusiasm or criticism, which can push the issue onto the macro-political agenda (True, Jones and Baumgartner, 2007, p.14). Policy monopolies dampen the pressure for change, yet this does not mean that these monopolies are invulnerable forever (Ibid., p.8).

In summary, the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory is derived from the observation that political processes are characterized by both longer periods of stability, or equilibrium, and sudden large-scale changes, or punctuations, in attention. Long periods of stability can be explained by monopolistic sub-systems, where experts make sure that their dominance over the sub-system is guaranteed. Outsiders with different opinions and proposals for change get discredited by being called unqualified. Another explanation is institutional friction: the creation of institutional rules to prevent change and volatility. Since sub-systems create stability, change comes from the outside of these sub-systems. Change happens when macro-political actors attack the policy image of a sub-system with new information or a personal

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13 agenda to change the status quo. Focusing events play an important role in the creation of change.

PET was originally designed for the United States. Baumgartner and Jones argue that policy punctuations are not confined to the American system, but occur in many European systems as well (Baumgartner and Jones, 2009, p.255). Since this thesis focuses on the European Council, it is important to know whether the theory is applicable to European Union institutions. Princen and Rhinard show in their article ‘Crashing and Creeping’ that both sub-systems and macro-political actors do exist in the European Union. They do so by distinguishing two ways for issues to get onto the agenda of the European Union: from below and from above (Princen and Rhinard, 2006, p.1120). When issues arrive on the agenda from below (creeping) it means that it happens through experts and officials who formulate new policy directions in working parties and low-level groups, which are sub-systems. When issues arrive on the agenda from above (crashing) it means that Heads of State or Government in the European Council urge for political action concerning a specific issue (Ibid.). This distinction shows that the European Union has a number of policy sub-systems with a role in policymaking, but also consists of macro-political actors with policymaking power (True, Jones and Baumgartner, 2007, p.27-28). They add to this that the sub-systems and macro-political actors operate and interact in a way that is very similar to the American pluralistic policymaking system (Ibid.).

PET has been used in research in relation to the European Union before. Princen applied PET to the policy domains of health and environment (Princen, 2009). Elias and Timmermans found that the European Council attention for organized crime followed a pattern of punctuated equilibrium (Elias and Timmermans, 2014). Finally, Alexandrova and Timmermans have shown that the European Council attention for energy also followed a punctuated equilibrium pattern (Alexandrova and Timmermans, 2015). PET will be applied to the European Council’s attention for migration in this thesis.

PET explains why political processes are characterized by both stability and sudden changes. This thesis will use two factors that can explain a pattern of attention: focusing events and issue competition. Focusing can be linked to PET, since they spur a lot of attention to an issue which can create a punctuation after a period of stability. The next section deals more in-depth with this concept. Issue competition can be linked with PET as well. A serial processing institution always has to prioritize, which means that there is issue competition. Therefore, issue competition can explain why periods of stability are relatively long and sudden large-scale punctuations are relatively short. While the institution deals with a specific issue, other issues

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14 are neglected. This means that some issues get neglected for a very long period, before they finally receive attention. This attention is usually short, because often soon a new issue arrives that needs immediate attention. The elaboration on the concept of issue competition is part of the elaboration on PET.

Focusing Events

Birkland defines a focusing event as follows: “A focusing event is an event that is sudden; relatively uncommon; can be defined as harmful or revealing the possibility of potentially greater future harms; has harms that are concentrated in a particular geographical area or community of interest; and that is known to policy makers and the public simultaneously.’’ (Birkland, 1998, p.54). These events can cause policy entrepreneurs, interest groups, the media or government groups to pay a lot of attention to an issue. This can result in the identification of new problems or in more attention for dormant problems, which might lead to a search for solutions (Ibid., p.55). Therefore, focusing events can be important opportunities for groups who seek policy change to help them champion the message of policy failure (Ibid., p.54).

The media does have an important role when focusing events occur. It propagates newsworthy events and introduces symbols for these focusing events (Ibid., p.56). An example of such a symbol in the context of migration is the picture of the three year old boy Alan Kurdi that washed ashore in Turkey in 2015. The pictures of the death boy shocked the world and added a lot of attention to the migration crisis (Smith, 2015). Pro-change actors can use these already existing symbols, that the media has selected and propagated as the most significant in the current crisis. “These obvious symbols are likely to carry more emotional weight than industry or government assurances that policy usually works well.” (Ibid.). This makes focusing events and their symbols very important for the process of agenda setting.

As noted in the definition, policy makers and the public learn about focusing events almost simultaneously. This is important because it takes away the advantage of policy elites to frame the substance and nature of a public problem before the public gets a chance to respond (Ibid.). Kingdon states that focusing events rarely carry a subject to the top of the political agenda by themselves (Kingdon, 2003, p.98). A focusing event serves sometimes as some sort of early warning. Kingdon uses the example of bridge deterioration (Ibid.). In 1967 a bridge in Ohio collapsed, killing dozens of people. This could have been an isolated event, but it led the government to establish a program to inspect more bridges (Ibid.). He adds: “Awareness of a

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15 problem sometimes comes only with the second crisis, not the first, because the second cannot be dismissed as an isolated fluke, as the first could (Ibid.).

Literature on the policy process suggests that focusing events have an important influence on the growth of the agenda. The affected policy area gets busier after a focusing event (Kingdon, 2003, p.94-115). For a political system like the European Union, the occurrence of a focusing event can trigger the public opinion, which might result in governments of member states asking the European Union for action in response to the focusing event (Princen, 2009, p.41).

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Methodology

This thesis aims to describe and explain the attention the European Council gives to migration. In order to answer the research question a mixed method analysis is necessary. A quantitative analysis is needed to measure the attention given to migration in a limited span of time. The scope for this analysis is the last decade: between 2009 and 2019. The research puzzle shows that knowledge of the attention for migration after 2014 is missing. Since a pattern of punctuated equilibrium can only be observed over a longer period of time, the five years before 2014 are also included in this research. Once a pattern has been established, a qualitative analysis is needed to explain this pattern.

In order to measure attention, an operationalization of this term is required. Princen argues that the content of policy agendas is useful to determine the attention given to certain issues (Princen, 2009, p.47). The European Council meets behind closed doors and therefore the conclusions are the only written evidence of the topics discussed in the meetings (Alexandrova, 2014, p.23). The attention for issues can be measured via the occurrence of these issues in official documents. The number of references of a certain issue in these documents is taken as the indicator of its status on the political agenda (Alexandrova et al., 2014, p.155). That is why the European Council conclusions are used for the data collection. These documents can be accessed via the official website of the European Council: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/european-council/conclusions/.

In the analysis part a list of all European Council meetings between 2009 and 2019, including their exact dates, is provided (Table 2). Each meeting is categorized with a meeting type: regular, informal or extraordinary. All regular meetings – and some informal and extraordinary meetings – produce conclusions as a result of the meeting. Informal meetings were introduced to facilitate more open discussions, without the explicit need for written conclusions. Finally, extraordinary meetings are arranged when certain developments require a quick response (Alexandrova, 2015, p.16). Most of the informal and extraordinary meetings resulted in either conclusions or statements of the Heads of State or Government. These statements differ from the conclusions in the sense that they are shorter than ordinary conclusions, because they usually only cover the single issue for which the extraordinary or informal meeting was organized (Ibid., p.19). A third category of documents are the guidelines. Some of the Article 50 meetings, arranged to deal with Brexit, have delivered guidelines. “These guidelines define the framework for negotiations under Article 50 TEU and set out the overall positions and principles that the Union will pursue throughout the negotiation.”

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17 (European Council, 2017a). Considering the fact that both the conclusions, the statements of the Heads of State or Government and the guidelines show the content of the agenda of the European Council and are formulated by the European Council, all three types of documents are analyzed in this study.

Table 1 provides an insight in the total amount of European Council meetings in the period between 2009 and 2019 and categorizes these meetings by type and outcome. It shows that 12 out of the 92 meetings between 2009 and 2019 did not produce any official documents formulated by the European Council (Table 1). Consequently, the quantitative analysis is based on the 80 meetings that did produce official conclusions or statements.

Table 1 European Council meetings by type and outcome

These written documents of the European Council meetings are structured with headings and numbered paragraphs. In order to measure the attention for migration between 2009 and 2019 all paragraphs dealing with migration have been counted. All paragraphs containing the terms ‘migration’, ‘migrant’ and ‘migrants’ were automatically counted. Once a paragraph contained the keywords ‘asylum’ or ‘movement’, the paragraph was counted when a clear link with migration could be found. All paragraphs structured under the heading ‘migration’ were automatically counted as well.

Once the number of paragraphs dealing with migration and the total number of paragraphs per written document have been determined, the sum of all meetings per year will show the total number of paragraphs in a year and the total number of paragraphs dealing with migration in a year. An annual percentage of attention for migration can be calculated by dividing the number of paragraphs dealing with migration in a certain year by the total number of paragraphs in that same year.

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18 This thesis tries to explain the pattern of attention for migration with the concept of issue competition. For this reason a secondary pattern of attention for Brexit is established in order to analyze the dynamics between these two patterns. The same method that was used to established the pattern for migration is used to establish the pattern for Brexit. In order to measure the attention for Brexit between 2009 and 2019 all paragraphs dealing with Brexit have been counted. Since the extraordinary Article 50 meetings were organized to deal with this issue, all paragraphs in the official conclusions and guidelines of these meetings were automatically counted. For the rest of the official documents, all paragraphs containing the term ‘Brexit’ were counted. Once a paragraph contained the keywords ‘referendum’, ‘United Kingdom/UK’ or ‘membership’, the paragraph was counted when a clear link with Brexit could be found.

Some important remarks have to be made concerning this research design. First, the statements of the Heads of State or Government are not always structured with headings and paragraph numbers. Once a statement does not have paragraph numbers, the whole statement was counted as one paragraph. This is done since these documents are much shorter and usually deal with only one issue. Second, annexes in European Council conclusions are not included in the analysis. Most annexes were not structured with clear paragraphs and the European Council is not always the author of the annexes. Third, 12 of the 92 meetings did not produce official conclusions or statements (Table 1). This means that the content dealt with in these meetings is not part of the analysis. Although these 12 meetings skew the analysis somewhat, the general trend shown in the outcome is still very clear. A last important note on this method is that the attention pattern established via this method cannot be compared with Figure 1, which is based on the method of Alexandrova, Carammia, Princen and Timmermans. (Alexandrova et al., 2014). In their method they categorize quasi-sentences of the official documents, whereas this method counts paragraphs instead of quasi-sentences.

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Analysis

The punctuated-equilibrium of European Council attention for migration

Table 2 provides a list of all the meetings held by the European Council between 2009 and 2019. The first two columns show the years and dates of the meetings. The third column shows the type of meeting: regular, informal or extraordinary. The fourth column shows whether a meeting resulted in written documents (conclusions, statements or guidelines) or not. Once a meeting did produce a written document, the fifth column shows the total number of paragraphs in that document. The last two columns contain the number of the paragraphs dealing with respectively migration and Brexit per meeting. The column about Brexit is used for the discussion on issue competition later in this analysis.

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22 * Whenever a meeting lasted for more than one day, the last day of the meeting is recorded

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23 As discussed in the methodology part, 12 meetings did not produce written conclusions or statements and are therefore not included in the analysis (Table 1). The topics dealt with on these 12 meetings are summed up in table 3. Table 3 shows for instance that the meeting in 2015 dealt solely with migration. Consequently, the attention of the European Council for migration in 2015 is actually higher than the result of this analysis. Although these 12 meetings skew the analysis somewhat, the general trend shown in the outcome is still very clear (Figure 2).

Table 3 Content of the European Council meetings without official conclusions or statements

The fifth and sixth column of Table 2 show the total amount of paragraphs per official document and the number of these paragraphs dealing with migration. These two columns were used to calculate an annual percentage of the paragraphs dealing with migration (Table 4).

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Table 4 Annual percentage of European Council attention for migration

The quantitative analysis of the European Council conclusions and statements resulted in the pattern of the European Council attention for migration in the period between 2009 and 2019 (Figure 2). The graph is based on the annual percentages shown in table 4. The Punctuated Equilibrium Theory would predict that the attention a serial processing institution pays to an issue would follow a pattern of punctuated equilibrium. This resulted in the following hypothesis:

H1: The pattern of attention for migration by the European Council would show relatively long periods of stability alternated with short periods of sudden large-scale changes.

Figure 2 shows a pattern that is indeed in line with the punctuated-equilibrium theory of Baumgartner and Jones. Although the attention is measured over a limited scope of time, a clear peak and a clear period of relative stability can be observed. After five years of relative neglect, migration crashed on the European Council agenda in April 2015 with an annual percentage of 33,8%. This is a considerable difference with the years before 2015 when migration received around 5% of the total attention. The issue received a lot of attention in the following three

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25 years. Ever since the second half of 2018 the attention for migration was very limited and even below 2%. This means that the hypothesis based on the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory can be verified.

Figure 2 European Council attention for Migration, 2009 – 2019

The next part is a qualitative analysis which tries to explain the pattern of the graph above with two theoretical concepts: focusing events and issue competition.

Focusing events

On April 19th 2015, a boat disaster in the Mediterranean took the lives of at least 800 migrants on their way to Europe (Bonomolo and Kirchgaessner, 2015). The boat had left from Tripoli, Libya, and had people of multiple nationalities on board. Most of them were Syrians, Eritreans, Senegalese or Somalians (Ibid.). “The smugglers’ boat that sank near Libya had three levels and the doomed migrants were locked in the hull and middle deck” (Ibid.).

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Perc en ta ge o f an n u al at ten tio n f o r m igrat ion Years

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26 The boat disaster was sudden and relatively uncommon at that time. During the ‘migration crisis’ capsizing and drowning accidents happened more often in the Mediterranean Sea, but in April 2015 it was a relatively uncommon phenomenon, especially with this number of casualties (Tondo, 2019). The huge number of deaths from just one event made it harmful and if no measures were to be taken, the possibility of greater future harms would be considerable. The harms were concentrated in a particular geographical area: the Mediterranean Sea. Finally, the public and the policy makers were informed at the same time of the event. All these factors qualify the boat disaster as a focusing event, considering the definition of Birkland (Birkland, 1998, p.54). The literature on focusing events point out that they can attract much attention to an issue, which can result in the issue getting higher on the political agenda.

The European Council organized a special meeting on April 23rd ,2015 to deal with migration and the situation in the Mediterranean. “The situation in the Mediterranean is a tragedy. The European Union will mobilize all efforts at its disposal to prevent further loss of life at sea and to tackle the root causes of the human emergency.” (European Council, 2015a). The European Council organizes extraordinary meetings when certain developments require a quick response (Alexandrova, 2015, p.16). So, it is fair to say that the European Council action was influenced by the focusing event on April 19th. After a relatively long period of stability, migration crashed onto the agenda in April as a result of a focusing event: the tragedy in the Mediterranean. As Kingdon said, awareness sometimes only comes with the second crisis. This is true for the cases of shipwrecking in the Mediterranean in 2014. Although the event on April 19th was followed by a long list of shipwrecking and drowning events in the coming years, it was not the first time it happened (Bonomolo and Kirchgaessner, 2015).

The result of the European Council meeting on April 23rd was a call for action and a call for change. The European Council decided to strengthen the EU presence at sea by reinforcing Operation Triton and Operation Poseidon and by tripling the budget of these Operations (European Council, 2015a). The following European Council meeting in June added: “The Union needs an efficient and well-managed migration, asylum and borders policy.” (European Council, 2015b). In October the European Council added new points of action: “The European Council set out the following further orientations: cooperating with third countries to stem the flows, strengthening the protection of the EU’s external borders and responding to the influx of refugees in Europe and ensuring returns.” (European Council, 2015c). All these points show that change occurred as a reaction to the focusing event and that the period of relative stability in the in the domain of migration had been broken.

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27 Issue competition

Figure 2 shows a clear peak in the European Council attention for migration between 2015 and 2016. The literature on issue competition shows that attention for an issue by a serial processing organization would be at the expense of attention for other issues. This results in serious issue competition (Alexandrova, 2014, p.150). Considering the attention pattern of figure 2, this would mean that migration crashed onto the agenda in 2015 at the expense of other issues. In the period between 2017 and 2019 this would mean that the attention for migration diminished because other competing issues became more important. An issue that became important since halfway 2016 is Brexit.

On June 23rd 2016, the United Kingdom had a referendum on the British membership of the European Union. The ‘Leave’ camp obtained 52% of the votes in comparison to 48% of the votes for the ‘Remain’ camp (Duff, 2016, p.51). The outcome of this referendum and the activation of Article 50 of the Treaty of the European Union (TEU) resulted in the need for a European strategy towards the United Kingdom (Alexandrova, 2017, p.30; TEU: art. 50). The European Council organized extraordinary ‘Article 50 meetings’ for this purpose. These meetings had another composition since the United Kingdom was not represented in them.

In order to understand the dynamics between the attention for migration and the attention for Brexit, a pattern of attention for Brexit has to be established. This will be done via the same method by which the pattern of attention for migration was established. Table 2 shows the number of paragraphs per meeting dealing with Brexit in the last column. The fifth and last column of Table 2 show the total amount of paragraphs per official document and the number of these paragraphs dealing with Brexit. These two columns were used to calculate an annual percentage of the paragraphs dealing with Brexit (Table 5).

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Table 5 Annual percentage of European Council attention for Brexit

This resulted in a pattern of European Council attention for Brexit in the period between 2009 and 2019. The graph is based on the annual percentages shown in table 5. Both patterns were visualized in the same graph in order to analyze their dynamics (Figure 3).

Figure 3 shows that Brexit became an issue in 2015, when the referendum was announced. The European Council spoke about it for the first time on its meeting on the 26th of June 2015. The conclusions note: “The UK prime minister set out his plan for an (in/out) referendum in the UK. The European Council agreed to revert to the matter in December.” (European Council, 2015b). The first European Council meeting after the referendum on the 23rd_{of June 2016 provided a firm statement on the event. “We, the Heads of State or} Government of 27 Member States deeply regret the outcome of the referendum in the UK, but we respect the will expressed by a majority of the British people. Once the notification of the UK’s intention to withdraw from the Union has been received, the European Council will adopt guidelines for the negotiation of an agreement with the UK.” (European Council, 2017b). In the period that followed this meeting, multiple Article 50 meetings have been held to deal with the issue. Figure 3 shows that the biggest growth in attention happened between 2016 and 2017. In the same period the attention for migration started to decrease. This can be explained with the concept of issue competition. The European Council is not able to deal with all the issues

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29 coming its way and therefore has to prioritize. Since the process of agenda setting is about getting an issue as high on the agenda as possible, it is fair to say that Brexit surpassed migration on the European Council agenda in the period between 2017 and 2019. Therefore, issue competition can explain the decrease of attention for migration since 2016.

Figure 3 European Council attention for Migration and Brexit, 2009 - 2019

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Perc en ta ge o f an n u al at ten tio n f o r m igrat ion a n d Bre xit Years

European Council attention for migration and Brexit

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Conclusions

This thesis is concerned with the question how the issue of migration developed on the agenda of the European Council between 2009 and 2019 and how this can be explained. To start with the first part, a pattern of attention for migration was established by Alexandrova, Carammia, Princen and Timmermans based on their database of categorized European Council conclusions (Figure 1). Since this database stopped in 2014, it would be interesting to know what happened to the issue of migration in the years that followed, considering the fact that the migration crisis was a prominent issue in the media in these years.

The quantitative analysis of the European Council conclusions and statements resulted in the pattern of the European Council attention for migration in the period between 2009 and 2019 (Figure 2). Three stages can be distinguished. 2009 – 2014: A relatively long period of neglect and stability with an attention percentage around 5%. 2015 – 2018: A clear punctuation in attention with an attention percentage above 30%. 2018 – 2019: After the second half of 2018 the attention for migration decreased even below the attention percentage in the period between 2009 – 2014. This means that the pattern of attention for migration in the period between 2009 and 2019 is characterized by relatively long periods of stability alternated with short periods of sudden large-scale changes. Therefore, H1 can be verified.

On April 23rd, 2015, the European Council organized an extraordinary meeting to deal with the situation in the Mediterranean. This meeting was held three days after a tragic boat incident near Libya, which took the lives of at least 800 migrants. This incident, which can be categorized as a focusing event, draw a lot of attention to the migration crisis of 2015. It also explains the peak of attention in 2015, because since this moment the European Council saw the issue of migration as a problem and started to focus on a permanent solution.

Finally, due to bounded rationality a serial processing institution as the European Council cannot deal with all issues coming its way. Therefore, it has to prioritize, which means that the attention for a certain issue will be at the expense of the attention for other issues. This concept of issue competition can explain why the attention for migration dropped after 2016. After the referendum on June 23rd_{, 2016, special Article 50 meetings were organized to prepare} for Brexit. Figure 3 shows that the attention for Brexit grew fast between 2016 and 2017, while at the same period the attention for migration dropped.

In addition to the research of Princen, Elias and Timmermans and Alexandrova and Timmermans, on respectively the domains of health and environment, organized crime and

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31 energy, this thesis shows that the domain of migration also follows a pattern of punctuated equilibrium.

A general problem with research on the agenda-setting of the European Council is the fact that its meetings take place behind closed doors. Therefore, researchers are not able to know entirely what has been discussed in these meetings. As mentioned in the theoretical scope, its written documents represent the lowest common denominator. This means that the European Council can pay a lot of attention to a certain issue, while its official documents will not have to show this when there is no consensus reached.

The research design of this thesis is based on the counting of paragraphs. This method suffices when a pattern of attention has to be established, like what happened in this thesis. For further research it would be better to use the dataset of Alexandrova, Carammia, Princen and Timmermans because their method of categorizing quasi-sentences is more accurate. Not all paragraphs have the same length and paragraphs usually deal with more than just one issue. Therefore, analysis in quasi-sentence level would be more accurate. Therefore, this dataset should be brought up to date, in order to conduct research more accurate.

The results of the qualitative analysis of the European Council conclusions in this thesis are skewed because 12 meetings in the researched period did not provide official documents. This lack of data influences the pattern of attention. Therefore, more research is needed to examine whether there are other ways to measure the European Council attention for an issue. As said before, the closed doors meetings and high profiles of the members of the European Council make this harder. More insight could be gained by researching the statements of Heads of State or Government in their own country after a European Council meeting.

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Migration on the Agenda of the European Council: A struggle for attention