Policy learning within and across European institutions: charting the path towards European integration

Policy learning has long been considered central to the functioning and growth of the European Union (EU). This led to scholarly interest in policy learning by (EU) Institutions to surge over the years, positioning the learning lens as a potent explainer of why European Institutions do what they do, as a function of how, what, and why they learn about policy and governance problems. Building on this progress, and as a corollary, theorists and students of the EU have posited that policy learning within and across European Institutions can also function as an explanatory theoretical approach to European integration, rather than merely a byproduct or residual of the integration process. In this article, three key recent contributions on policy learning within the European Institutional architecture are reviewed and their findings with respect to the contribution of learning to European integration are systematized. The article concludes with an agenda for future research.