The Costs of Inaction: Strategic Non-enforcement and the Perceived Authority of EU Institutions

As a guardian of the treaties, the European Commission has considerable discretion about when and how to enforce EU values, laws and policies. In exercising this discretion, it has drawn criticism from policy experts and academics, for example when it comes to upholding the rule of law in some of the member states. But we know little about the effects of (non)enforcement on public attitudes towards the EU and the perceived authority of the EU institutions in particular. Does the Commission lose authority when it imposes sanctions that do not change the behaviour of the target state? Does it gain authority when it strategically allows noncompliance to continue, for the sake of future cooperation? These questions have no clear answers in the existing literature. Building on theoretical insights from social psychology and economics, this paper advances hypotheses about the effects of (non)enforcement on public opinion about (a) the perceived authority of the enforcer, (b) the legitimacy of different enforcement actions, and (c) the preferences for future integration. It then proceeds to develop a survey-experimental design that can test the hypotheses. The survey experiment is implemented in two EU member states, one of which is a potential target of enforcement actions, while the other one is not. The paper presents the results from the experiment and discusses their implications about how the EU can be more effective in safeguarding its values, while keeping the support of EU citizens.