Institutional dynamism in EU policy-making: the evolution of the EU maritime safety policy

Abstract:

This article analyses the emergence of the EU maritime safety policy in the context of neoinstitutional perspectives. The focus is on the interactions between private interests, national governments and supranational institutions through the transformation of this issue-area from a least promising candidate for policy Europeanisation to one of the four pillars of the collective European maritime strategy. The study concludes that, within a context of unprecedented economic internationalisation, the dynamisms of the norms, rules and political institutions of the EU have a critical role to play in persuading key political actors to endorse the expansion of the European policy dimension. Taking advantage of the inefficiencies of pre-existing policies, the EU political institutions, principally the Commission, and their ideas have advanced policy initiatives and shaped policy details. The content, timing, and momentum of these institutions’ actions, the path opened by distinctive EU developments and the norms of the decision-making process have contributed in taking on board national governments and locked-in private actors of different economic importance that had longed argued against regional solutions of maritime safety problems.