The quest for order: unravelling the relationship between the European Commission and European Union agencies

The contributions of EU agencies are significant components of the EU policy response to migration issues. The extent to which this has come to be in the context of migration, and the successive waves of policy and institutional reforms concerning these agencies in the last decade, pose several questions that the existing literature is only partially equipped to answer. This paper addresses this gap by charting the evolution of EU agencies through documentary analysis, reflecting on the meaning of this evolution for current trends in European integration as captured by the recent theorization on de novo bodies. Findings demonstrate that, far from being static entities, these bodies have constantly deepened their reach into the formation and application of migration policy, while posing no substantial erosion of the authority of the Commission. This incremental empowerment has created accountability issues from the beginning, many of which are still far from being resolved.

Section: Theoretical Perspectives On Eu Agenciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Theoretical Perspectives On Eu Agenciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

De Novo Bodies and EU Integration: What is the Story behind EU Agencies' Expansion?

Scipioni

2017

“…Questionnaire studies of EU-agency officials, managers and board members report quite consistently that the Commission is seen as the most important institution in an agency's environment; both in terms of power and daily interaction (Egeberg and Trondal, 2011;Font, 2015;Trondal and Jeppesen, 2008;Ongaro et al, 2015). The role of Commission DGs as 'parent departments' of their respective EU agencies is clearly reflected in Commission and agency annual reports (Egeberg et al, 2015). Vos (2014, pp.…”

Section: Supra-nationalization?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Egeberg

Trondal

2017

Self Cite

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.

“…Much academic research has been conducted on agencies, including on their relations with the Commission (see, for example, Busuioc et al , ; Egeberg et al , ; Rittberger and Wonka, ). A central finding to emerge from this research is that far from agencies having damaged the Commission's position in the EU's institutional system, in some ways they have actually strengthened it.…”

Section: The Commission and Executive Tasksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is the European Commission Really in Decline?

Nugent

Rhinard

2016

In the academic debate on the relative powers and influence of the EU institutions, it has become common to suggest – especially in the case of advocates of the ‘new intergovernmentalism’ – that the European Commission is in decline. In this article we show that while in some limited respects this is indeed the case, the Commission's overall position in the EU system is not one of having become a weaker institutional actor. The extent of the losses of its powers and influence tends to be exaggerated, while in some aspects its powers and influence have actually been strengthened. We show this by focusing on three of the Commission's core functions – agenda‐setter, legislative actor and executive – all of which are widely portrayed as being in decline. We incorporate into our analysis both the formal and informal resources available to the Commission in exercising the functions.