Scientific Advice in the Policy Formulation Stage: Influence of EU Agencies in Health Policy-making

Most literature on ‘agencification’ in the EU tells us that EU agencies play an important role in policy-making by providing scientific advice and technical expertise, especially in the policy areas with complexity and uncertainty. However, we know little about how scientific advice is produced by them, and how and what kind of scientific advice is disseminated to the European Commission as input for policy proposals. Focusing on the policy formulation stage, this article presents a framework to analyze the two procedures of scientific advice utilization: production within EU agencies and provision by EU agencies to the Commission. The empirical section of the paper builds upon an analysis of two legislations in the health policy area, using extensive literature review and interview data gathered from Commission officials and experts in the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. The article’s preliminary conclusions are that it is crucial to create opportunities for networking with external experts and maintain strong networks for the production side, and for the dissemination of scientific advice, a well-established, routinized system between the agencies and the Commission is necessary.