What shapes the European Union's sectoral integration with its neighbourhood? A look at the EU’s external relations in law enforcement

What conditions really shape the European Union’s (EU) sectoral integration with countries in its neighbourhood? Providing new empirical evidence concerning EU-Moldova relations in the sectors of border management and policing in a comparative manner, this article demonstrates that contrary to extant findings, neither the level of sectoral interdependence between the EU and third countries, nor the extent to which a sector is politicised sufficiently explains variation in the degree of sectoral integration. The article thus refutes a taken-for-granted argument found in two major integration theories applied in European studies, namely (liberal) intergovernmentalism and (neo-)functionalism. Simultaneously, it highlights a key but so-far-understudied condition in this particular context: communitarisation, i.e., the devolution of (sectoral) authority from member states to the communitarian EU level. Its findings indicate that changes in the level of communitarisation correspond to variation in the intensity of the EU's sector-specific, external integration with Moldova in law enforcement.