From Policy Integration to Intra-institutional Politicisation in the European Commission: Insights From the Global Gateway

Abstract

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Recent initiatives, such as Global Gateway, highlight the increasingly political nature of the European Commission. This, in turn, creates policy opportunities and challenges related to both how the European Commission works on the global stage and how its different services interact with each other and work internally. Thus, initiatives such as Global Gateway increase the need for policy integration across policy domains, in this case related to connectivity. This article looks at how policy integration becomes a policy ambition that is confronted with increased internal politicisation. By studying four empirical expectations in relation to how Global Gateway tests the European Commission's integrative capacity, the article unpacks the ways in which the European Commission's integrative capacity has become fundamental to ensure its effectiveness in external policies. The capacity to integrate different policies to allow different sectors and policy communities to develop joint work, including strengthened cross-directorate-general co-ordination, can enable the Commission to present itself as a credible external actor with a unified external strategy. However, this goal is questioned by resource competition, intra-institutional politicisation and the need for external flexibility.