The Effects of Steering by Multiple Principals of National Agencies in EU Implementation: A Comparison between Policy Sectors

The application of EU laws is often delegated to national agencies. Since 2001 the Commission is using EU agencies to improve the manner in which EU rules are applied and enforced by the member states. This is achieved by giving them steering instruments such as formulating implementation guidelines and inspecting the implementation practices of national agencies. As the national government remains responsible for the implementation of EU laws, they will also use steering to ensure that ‘their’ national agencies implement EU laws according to their goals and preferences (which might be similar or diverging from those of the EU actors). This creates a situation in which national agencies have to deal with multiple principals. Egeberg and Trondal (2009) have demonstrated that national agencies are multi-hatted, which means that agencies navigate between the preferences of their national governments and EU actors. So far there is, however, little known on how steering by multiple principals works and how national agencies’ implementation practices and level of compliance is affected by steering signals from multiple principals. The aim of this study is to fill this gap. The central question of this paper is: How does steering by multiple principals affect the implementation practices and level of compliance of national agencies in EU implementation processes? Insights from the theories on multi-hattedness and multiple principal-agent relationships are used to answer this question. Empirically I conduct a comparative case study in the Netherlands of two directives from different policy fields: maritime safety and food safety. The responsible national agencies for implementing the directives each have to deal with national and EU principals. By comparing the influence of steering by multiple principals in two different policy sectors, we can investigate whether patterns of steering by multiple principals are universal of whether there are policy sector specific patterns.