“Technical support” has emerged as an institutional response to the growing focus on the implementation of structural reforms in the member states of the European Union (EU). Its development, notably through the creation of a specific service called DG REFORM, reignites some core tensions in EU (post-crises) government: between the technical and the political, the social and the economic, as well as between the autonomy of member states and EU norms. Indeed, technical support inherently carries political significance, raising issues on the mechanisms shaping authority within a growing field of expertise on Member states. Moreover, the study of DG REFORM allows for bridging previously disparate literatures - those focusing on particular case studies related to accession or development policy - and thus allows for a broader view of the EU's evolving governance landscape.

This paper will present preliminary findings from my postdoctoral project examining European technical assistance, specifically in the area of public administration reform. I will present: 1. A comprehensive mapping of DG REFORM as an instrument, elucidating the nature of projects, their integration within EU economic governance and the profile of experts involved. 2. Using the Greek case as a study, I will highlight the persistent correlation - both in terms of projects and individuals involved - between crisis management and institutionalised 'technical support’ provided by the EU. To do so, I draw on a corpus of complementary empirical material collected as part of a sociological analysis of EU professionals and instruments: sociographic data on experts, institutional documents, observations of events, and interviews.

The EU’s approach to external borders, migration, and asylum has changed in many important ways since the 2015 migration crisis. While there has been a remarkable proliferation of legislation, initiatives, and instruments at EU level, striking differences persist between Eastern and Southern frontline Member States regarding access to asylum, recognition rates, and the border procedure Going beyond the extensively studied aspects, this article shifts its focus to a previously underexplored area: the involvement of the European Border and Coast Guard (Frontex) and the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) in national border and asylum procedures. Tasked to harmonise national rules on border controls and asylum, Frontex and EUAA have experienced a remarkable expansion in their mandates and operational capabilities since the 2015 crisis. However, Eastern and Southern frontline Member States exhibit different attitudes towards their participation in policy implementation and crisis management, as evident in the 2020 Greek–Turkish border crisis and the 2021 Poland–Belarus border crisis. Southern Member States generally display more willingness for the agencies' involvement, whereas Eastern Member States approach it with caution. In this light, this article seeks to examine the reasons for such differentiation in agency engagement and explore its implications for EU border management. Through the Complexity lens, this article perceives the EU’s eastern land border and southern sea border as two complex adaptive systems, each characterised by self-organisation, path dependence, and adaptability. Findings suggest that recent crises at the eastern borders have prompted these two systems to adapt to each other’s presence through mutual reinforcement dynamics. While differentiated integration at the EU’s external borders can demonstrate resilience, there has been a convergence in crisis response and a normalisation of joint implementation. Relying on the analysis of official documents and on semi-structured elite interviews that were conducted between 2021 and 2023, this article offers a new perspective on EU border management and, by extension, the EU’s integration of core state powers.

EU railway policy obliges Member States to fully liberalize the railways. Moreover, the Single European Railway Area stresses the importance of trans-European lines connecting all parts of the continent. This harmonized regime could nonetheless lead to a different understanding of the meaning of railways. One could expect the persistence of an East-West divide regarding the implementation of railway policy. Indeed, the beginning of the liberalization process started in the early 1990s and especially with the first railway package of 2001, i.e. before the accession of the New Member States. The latter had to implement the acquis before joining the EU and comply with the numerous administrative requirements foreseen in EU railway regulations, not least the separation of the infrastructure manager and the stat-owned incumbent or the establishment of an administrative independent regulatory body. Besides, varieties of capitalism and different historical and political developments regarding railways between Western and post-Soviet states could also have proved to be an impediment to the harmonized implementation between these 2 groups. The study of the implementation and compliance of the 4 railway packages in France and Poland shows on the contrary a regulatory and practical convergence. Both states have regulators performing similar functions and obtaining similar results in terms of partial liberalization. They also share a similar perception of their role in governance: they are independent institutions with the best knowledge of their respective networks, leading them to oppose a further role of the Commission’s DG MOVE in the liberalization of domestic markets. They share a similar voice within the Independent Regulators Group-Rail and face similar difficulties regarding their relationship with the infrastructure manager, that they see as an impediment in the liberalization process. The East-West divide persists however in terms of accessing the networks of other Member States. The opening of borders allows for incumbents to enter the network of other Member States. While French undertakings supported by the regulator face little hurdles in entering the networks of neighboring countries, the Polish regulator (interested in providing a rail access to Polish citizens working in Germany) still faces the refusal of German authorities to enter Germany’s network, whereas Deutsche Bahn has been for long granted access to the Polish system and drop passengers as far as Warsaw.