Policy entrepreneurship and Eastern enlargement: The case of EU children's rights policy

This article examines how and why policy innovation in children's rights occurred at the European Union (EU) level due to Eastern enlargement. Empirically, the case of EU intervention in child protection in Romania before 2007 is employed. By drawing on Kingdon's model of multiple streams coupling, it is demonstrated that the Romanian children's case provided Commission entrepreneurs with the window of opportunity to introduce the protection of children's rights in EU internal policy dimension. In practice, this entailed the establishment of institutional and policy structures to uphold children's rights inside the Union. The policy innovation triggered by the Romanian children's case has not shifted the EU's legal competence in children's rights; however, it has established the protection of the rights of the child as an EU issue and has entrenched the Commission's role and scope as a children's rights actor.