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In line with the trend of 'agencification' in Western countries, European Union (EU) agencies have been put forward as an instrument expected to improve the way rules are applied in the EU. So far, evidence confirming this expectation is lacking. By assessing the implementation of European transport legislation, this article provides an empirical insight into the role played by two EU agencies -the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). The analysis shows that these EU-level agencies, although created as independent entities to enhance uniform implementation, remain highly dependent on the member states and the Commission. In terms of (legislative) enforcement their contribution has thus been limited. EU agencies such as EMSA and EASA currently seem to add more value by stimulating mutual learning processes among national regulatory authorities.

European Union agencies are increasingly used to stimulate domestic compliance with EU law, without concrete evidence for whether and how these bodies actually realize this. Through in-depth analysis of the European Railway Agency, this article enhances our empirical understanding of the working and functioning of EU agencies, and advances our thinking about compliance in international settings. It leads us to the insight that -in order to be capable of stimulating domestic compliance -agencies should be flexible to resort to a mix of compliance strategies in order to be able to cope with the varying domestic compliance situations.

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This article aims at understanding the challenges of tackling complex policy problems in multilevel governance. In order to better grasp the multilevel regulation of complex policy problems, it is needed to understand how uncertainty and scientific expertise are dealt with. We investigate this via the regulation of pandemics by the EU and the WHO, with the H1N1 pandemic of 2009 as critical case. The analysis of the multilevel practice reveals that the attitude toward uncertainty fundamentally differed between the global (WHO) and the European level. At the global level a classic speaking truth to power approach involved the denial of uncertainty, while at the EU level the assigned role of providing scientific expertise was interpreted as a necessity to openly communicate about uncertainty. While the global approach was heavily criticized, the uncertainty communication at the European level was much appreciated.

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This article analyzes the implications of European integration for national regulatory enforcement. More specifically, it tests the Eurolegalism thesis, which holds that the tendency of using more detailed, prescriptive European Union (EU) regulation combined with more public and private enforcement leads to a convergence in national enforcement styles. It does so by developing and applying a fine‐grained conceptualization of enforcement style. This conceptualization forms the basis of a focused comparison of enforcement of the highly detailed and strict EU Packaging Waste Directive in the Netherlands and Germany – two countries known for their opposed enforcement styles. Our analysis shows that although convergence toward a more insistent enforcement style seems to have taken place, the two countries have arrived at this position in markedly different ways. By identifying differences in style underneath the surface of convergence, the article qualifies the Eurolegalism argument, thus, advancing the literature on EU enforcement styles and deepening our understanding of the subtle and divergent ways in which common international regulatory inputs may affect domestic enforcement.

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