New publication by the SYNCPOL team

The paper titled “The Crisis and Force Majeure Regulation through the lens of synchronization: institutionalizing the EU migration crisis response” by Nermine Abbassi and Radu-Mihai Triculescu was published in the Journal European Politics and Society. https://doi.org/10.1080/23745118.2025.2576701

Abstract:

This article examines how the European Union has institutionalized the temporalmanagement of migration crises through the Crisis and Force Majeure Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2024/1359). Building on the concept of synchronization, defined asthe deliberate temporal ordering of inputs into policy processes, we analyze how theRegulation embeds timing arrangements across six dimensions: actors, extension,distinctness, instrumentation, authority, and compliance. The findings show that theRegulation codifies crisis response into law by setting predefined triggers, deadlines,and responsibilities for the Commission, the Council, and Member States. In doing so,it represents a shift toward routinized procedures that orchestrate who must act,when, and under what conditions. Synchronization thus captures urgency no longer managed informally but embedded in legal and institutional design. While this framework promises coherent and timely responses, it also blurs the line between normalcy and emergency by incorporating exceptional measures into the ordinary governance toolkit. The Regulation illustrates both the EU’s capacity to coordinate collective action and the enduring risks of politicization, weak compliance, and constrained democratic oversight. More broadly, the study contributes to scholarship on crisis governance by showing how synchronization has become a constitutive mechanism through which the EU manages time under conditions of recurring emergency.