Exploring the EU Commission-Agency Relationship: Partnership or Parenthood?

Vestlund, Nina Merethe

doi:10.1057/9781137339898_20

Cited by 10 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Other studies document that the Commission is a particularly well‐prepared and active actor in management board meetings (Groenleer, ; Johannessen, ). The seemingly key role of the Commission in EU‐agency governance does not at all preclude EU‐agency influence on the Commission as well: In highly technical fields, such as authorization of medicinal products, the Commission is seen as mainly ‘rubber‐stamping’ the draft decisions submitted to it by the European Medicines Agency (Busuioc, ; Vestlund, ). And, although EU‐agency managers perceive EU agencies to be clearly less influential than the Commission in developing new EU policies and legislation, they see them as more powerful than national agencies and ministries in this respect (Egeberg and Trondal, ).…”

Section: Eu Agencies In the Political‐administrative Space: Power Relmentioning

confidence: 99%

Researching European Union Agencies: What Have We Learnt (and Where Do We Go from Here)?

Egeberg

Trondal

2017

J of Common Market Studies

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This review article, with a clear political science and public administration bias, takes stock of the existing literature on EU agencies and suggests a future research agenda. The article reviews studies on EU agencies' organization, tasks, proliferation and location in the political‐administrative space. Whether the advent of EU agencies tends to underpin a basically intergovernmental, transnational or supranational order has potentially huge consequences for the distribution of power across levels of government, for the degree of policy uniformity and pooling of administrative resources across countries, for the role of genuinely European perspectives in the policy process, and for accountability relations. Although the jury is still partly out on most topics, we see the contours of a more direct multilevel administration in which EU agencies not only constitute nodes within transnational agency networks, but in addition, in governance terms, relate more closely to the European Commission than to any other institution.

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Section: Eu Agencies In the Political‐administrative Space: Power Relmentioning

confidence: 99%

Researching European Union Agencies: What Have We Learnt (and Where Do We Go from Here)?

Egeberg

Trondal

2017

J of Common Market Studies

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“…This high degree of autonomy from the Commission even holds true for EMA, although it has experienced a substantive surge in oversight since 2010, when DG SANCO replaced DG INDUSTRY as the agency's partner-DG. While the greater organisational duplication between the DG SAN-CO and EMA triggered closer scientific involvement of the DG (EMA-Federation), the increased influence appears limited to legal concerns (Vestlund, 2014).…”

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confidence: 99%

Driven by Expertise and Insulation? The Autonomy of European Regulatory Agencies

Ossege¹

2015

PaG

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Expertise and autonomy are cornerstones to the effective operation and legitimacy of European Regulatory Agencies (ERAs). Yet, we know little about ERAs' actual autonomy, nor about factors shaping it. This article studies ERAs' actual autonomy from public and private actors, emphasising two crucial explanatory factors: expertise and rulemaking competences. The lack of insights on expertise is particularly striking, as expertise-the "raison d'être" and main resource of expert bodies-provides ERAs with a potentially powerful means to increase autonomy. Relying on a rational institutionalist framework within which ERAs enjoy substantive discretion to pursue their goals, the study empirically compares three powerful ERAs-the European Medicines Agency, the European Chemicals Agency, and the European Food Safety Authority. Based on the analysis of 39 semi-structured expert interviews, findings show that expertise is a crucial explanation for ERAs' substantive autonomy from the Commission. Towards research intensive private stakeholders, the role of expertise becomes less pronounced. Instead, ERAs are more successful in protecting their autonomy by engaging in the risk-averse interpretation of the regulatory framework and by adapting rules over time to adapt their needs: they engage in "procedural insulation". Political salience provides a scope condition for ERAs to use expert knowledge and rulemaking competences more strategically-potentially undermining scientific quality.

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“…On the Commission's side, organisational resources might play a role, too. Empirical research demonstrates that more staff, more expertise and specialisation increase the principal's control over the agent (Egeberg et al, 2015;Vestlund, 2015). However, the Commission's incentives to intervene in intra-agency processes might vary according to the constraining effect of the prospected decision.…”

Section: Agencies' Independence and Influencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…1 Therefore, EMA not only clearly outnumbers the pharmaceutical unit in DG SANTE of the Commission, with only 32 staff members, 2 but in addition borrows organisational resources from the national regulators to a great extent. The Commission extended its organisational resources by splitting up pharmaceuticals and medical products into two units, shortly after the transfer of the competence for pharmaceuticals from DG ENTERPRISE to DG SANTE (Vestlund, 2015) changing the proportion between agency and Commission staff however only mildly. Regarding expertise, there is a great gap between EMA and the Commission in pharmaceutical authorisation (Gehring and Krapohl, 2007;Ossege, 2015).…”

Section: Ema's Role In Pharmaceutical Regulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

What price to pay? The trade-off between independence and influence in European regulation

Ruffing

2020

Public Policy and Administration

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This article asks whether the strengthened, institutionalised role that some European agencies play in delegated decision-making endangers their actual independence. In some particular sensitive policy domains, such as pharmaceuticals security, financial markets and energy, European agencies exist which are formal agenda-setters in delegated decision-making, meaning that the European Commission can either accept or reject their proposals but is hardly allowed to change them. These procedures were established to guarantee particularly expert-based decision-making. However, the article argues that under these conditions, the Commission will be eager to interfere with the agencies’ proposal preparation to ensure that the proposal is in line with its position, thereby weakening the de facto independence of agencies. Such procedures come, therefore, with unexpected effects in practice. However, the article demonstrates that these effects vary with organisational resources on the agencies’ and the Commission’ side and the expected constraining effects of the decisions taken.

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Exploring the EU Commission-Agency Relationship: Partnership or Parenthood?

Cited by 10 publications

References 21 publications

Researching European Union Agencies: What Have We Learnt (and Where Do We Go from Here)?

Researching European Union Agencies: What Have We Learnt (and Where Do We Go from Here)?

Driven by Expertise and Insulation? The Autonomy of European Regulatory Agencies

What price to pay? The trade-off between independence and influence in European regulation

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