Transparency in the European Union: When do International Institutions reveal Sensitive Information about Member States’ Policy Gaps?

Accountability or responsiveness of political leaders to public demands lies in the heart of every democratic system. Transparency of government policy is an important precondition for accountability, as it affects the extent to which citizens are able to observe deviations from the public interest and, thus, effectively voice their discontent. In a similar vein, multi-level systems of governance are conceived as lacking legitimacy because citizens lack knowledge about the implementation of international rules in domestic settings. Because law-violating states are generally averse to having their implementation problems on the spotlight, international oversight institutions may not want to reveal states’ implementation gaps, if this would endanger their cooperation and participation in common policy in the future. In the present study, I apply this logic to the European Union (EU) policy context. In particular, I analyze the likelihood that the EU enforcement system (the EU Commission) would reveal sensitive information about member states’ implementation activities. Under what conditions would the Commission disclose and disseminate information about member states’ policy violations? To address this question, I rely on unique data on the disclosure of compliance assessment reports. My findings suggest that the Commission is generally a faithful guardian of the Treaties and reveals most of member states’ law violations. However, the Commission chooses not to inform citizens about implementation gaps caused by national governments, when government policy was influenced by powerful interest groups. The study concludes with discussing the implications of the findings for the legitimacy of the EU’s enforcement system.