European Union Agencies

Everson, Michelle; Vos, Ellen

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-51791-5_17

Cited by 17 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Most scholars agree that EU agencies are not making purely technical decisions (Busuioc and Rimkut_ e, 2020;Egeberg and Trondal, 2017). Arguably, efficient agencies are impossible on a restrictive reading of the Meroni doctrine that constrains delegation of political discretion (Everson et al, 2014). Our argument brings out why the political nature of agency reasoning about political ends is not in and of itself a threat to accountability.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 81%

Accountability through mutual attunement: How can parliamentary hearings connect the elected and the unelected?

Eriksen

Katsaitis

2020

Public Policy and Administration

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The increased authority delegated to independent agencies raises questions about the conditions of politically accountable governance, and specifically parliament’s role as a representative institution. Focusing on committee hearings as an accountability mechanism, we ask: How can a parliament employ hearings to ensure that the ends pursued by agencies have a democratic foundation? We propose a model of “mutual attunement” where accountability relations presuppose a process of working-out shared understandings of the ends, means and circumstances of policy needs. We test our argument through a case study assessing the interaction between the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic & Monetary Affairs and the European Securities and Markets Authority. Theoretically, we contribute to discussions on agency accountability and European governance, while providing a novel conceptual model and the first analysis of its kind.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 81%

Accountability through mutual attunement: How can parliamentary hearings connect the elected and the unelected?

Eriksen

Katsaitis

2020

Public Policy and Administration

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“…The problems may be exacerbated by institutional turf wars, as can occur even in the most rulebound settings, and especially in international organisations. Technocratic authority in the EU is dispersed across numerous functional agencies at the national and supranational level, often in a state of inter-agency competition (Everson & Vos, 2021). The more power is diffused, the more frictions can be expected.…”

Section: Why Technocracy May Be Prone To Short-termismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Technocratic myopia: On the pitfalls of depoliticising the future

White

2024

European Journal of Social Theory

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That democratic authorities are systematically focused on short-term considerations is a charge often made. This ‘democratic myopia’ thesis typically becomes the basis for advocating the empowerment of technocratic institutions, for example in economic policy. Much less examined is what one may call the technocratic myopia thesis – the possibility that technocratic institutions have their own distinctive drivers of short-termism. This article presents the case, with reference to the legitimacy forms, epistemologies and organisational structures in which technocratic authority is grounded. The suggestion is that not only may technocrats fall short of the claims to long-sightedness made of them, but that this is directly bound up in some of the core features of the technocratic method. The article goes on to discuss the implications for how contemporary societies govern the future in key domains of public policy.

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“…There are, however, no analyses tracing the development of formal independence over time. The debate about EU agencies' “accountability overload” (Everson & Vos, 2021, p. 316) suggests that EU agencies' independence remains constrained. Considering the intricacies of reaching compromises among principals in reducing control mechanisms and increasing formal independence, we would thus expect gradual changes in EU agencies' formal independence at best.…”

Section: Conceptual Foundations For the Analysis Of Eu Agencies' Form...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, EU agencies have not only obtained more de facto decision‐making tasks (Gehring & Krapohl, 2007; Ruffing, 2022), but also legislators have granted them increasingly vast formal decision‐making tasks (Busuioc, 2013; Curtin & Dehousse, 2012). In the EU's polycrisis of the last decade, EU‐level principals have often resorted to strengthening EU agencies in their crisis responses (Everson & Vos, 2021). Regarding EU agencies' formal independence, the Commission has stressed that EU agencies' formal independence is their functional “raison d'être” (European Commission, 2002).…”

Section: Conceptual Foundations For the Analysis Of Eu Agencies' Form...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If this relationship holds cross‐sectionally, it should ceteris paribus also hold longitudinally. As EU agencies gained considerable competences over time (Everson & Vos, 2021), EU agencies should also see less formal independence over time. By contrast, Wonka and Rittberger (2010) demonstrated that political insecurity is a main driver of EU agencies' formal independence: when worried about being outvoted in internal market policies, the “supranational” former first EU pillar, legislators sought to create more independent agencies to shield their policy preferences from political reversals.…”

Section: Conceptual Foundations For the Analysis Of Eu Agencies' Form...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The European administrative space over time: Mapping the formal independence of EU agencies

Ruffing,

Weinrich,

Rittberger

et al. 2023

Regulation & Governance

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Throughout the past decades, the EU's agency landscape has continuously expanded in size and scope. In this article, we address the lack of longitudinal data on EU agencies' formal independence. We introduce a newly revised index to measure the formal independence of EU agencies from other EU institutions over time. Applying a rules‐as‐data approach we coded 206 regulations and amendments to develop a new dataset covering the formal independence of all 39 EU agencies from 1975 to 2022. This longitudinal overview provides first insights about the development of formal independence at the case and population levels. At the case level we identify frequent, albeit gradual reforms of EU agencies' independence. At the population level, we observe remarkable stability in overall independence, but find stark variation across different independence dimensions. Overall, EU‐level principals have shifted over time from controlling individual decisions to controlling the agencies' general decision‐making apparatus.

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European Union Agencies

Cited by 17 publications

References 25 publications

Accountability through mutual attunement: How can parliamentary hearings connect the elected and the unelected?

Accountability through mutual attunement: How can parliamentary hearings connect the elected and the unelected?

Technocratic myopia: On the pitfalls of depoliticising the future

The European administrative space over time: Mapping the formal independence of EU agencies

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