Agencification of the European Administrative System

Abstract

Agencification of the European administrative system with the proliferation of so-called EU agencies has accelerated during the last 20 years. The establishment of EU agencies has been regarded as a compromise between functional needs for more regulatory capacity at the European level, on one hand, and the member states’ reluctance to transfer more power to the European Commission, on the other. Being an institutional compromise, EU agencies mobilizes several dilemmas that this panel will discuss. Moreover, agencification of the EU administration triggers research questions that remain insufficiently answered: How can we conceptualize EU agencies in a wider European administrative system? To what extent and how do EU agencies coordinate, integrate, co-opt and pool administrative resources in a wider European executive order? In other words, how do they contribute to shift existing power relationships within the EU administration and at the domestic level? To what extent and how do EU agencies facilitate the establishment and operation of regulatory networks? To what extent and how to EU agencies affect domestic regulatory work – such as national agencies’ policy formulation and practicing of EU hard law? The panel will discuss these governance challenges and ensuring governance dilemmas that face the contemporary European administrative system.