Reinforcing Europol’s mandate: a case study of the recent power extention of the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation

Abstract: This study investigates the explanatory power of Liberal Intergovernmentalism and Neofunctionalism on reinforcing Europol’s mandate. More specifically, this thesis studies two EU regulations 2022/991 and 1190/2022 with a focus on Sweden’s position and applies Theory-testing Process-tracing as a method to investigate the case. The findings show that the hypotheses derived from Liberal Intergovernmentalism have a higher explanatory power in comparison to those of Neofunctionalism for the chosen case. The Commission, admittedly, has the power to initiate and design policy proposals, which strengthens the theory of Neofunctionalism. Moreover, it works efficiently to find agreements among the Member States in the negotiations in the Council of the European Union. However, as outlined in the theory of Liberal Intergovernmentalism, Member States exerted high control on the entire process. The initial call for enforcement of Europol’s mandate originated from the Member States. It has also been shown that Member States decide how Law Enforcement cooperation will materialise as they effectively can discard parts of the Commission’s policy proposals. The thesis’ central contention of the case study is that the Member States set the pace for European integration in Law Enforcement policies, to which the Commission adapts its support.