Reassessing Europe’s multi-level policy governance structure: from defence to research
JRC Working Paper Series For a Fair, Innovative and Sustainable Economy, 9/2025
In this paper we discuss the need for a reassessment of the EU’s multiple policy governance structure. Contrary to the often stated, internal diagnosis that Europe, confronted with crises has shown a remarkable ability to respond to crises, it is argued that the EU’s complex, multi-level policy governance structure is preventing today the EU from taking effective policy action. The Lisbon Treaty did not prepare the EU well for the 21st Century, it is argued. On the contrary: the institutional complexities with respect to the multiple policy governance structure as enshrined in the Treaty, made the EU ill equipped to handle crises. It also led to the sort of overregulation which the recent Draghi report described as “gold-plating”. This makes the EU today particularly vulnerable to the recent more political turmoil, linked to the war in Ukraine and the coming to power of the Trump administration in the US. The paper argues that there is today a need for a more fundamental reassessment of the EU’s multi-level policy governance structure.
The focus is on two key areas: the EU’s own defence, the one area which was never part of the European integration project, and which failed as a result to benefit from most of the single market benefits of the formation of the EU. The second area, as mirror picture, is the research and innovation area: an area of “shared policy competence” between both the EC and member states, or in other words an area most directly confronted with multi-level policy governance. Not surprisingly also the area, as pointed out in the Draghi report where Europe has been lagging behind both the US and China. The paper makes the claim, that both areas warrant a more radical approach than what has been suggested so far by the EC itself and the Draghi report.
SCHWAAG SERGER Sylvia;
SOETE Luc;
2025-12-12
European Commission
JRC142626
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC142626,
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