This paper sheds light on a rather underexplored aspect of European Union Agencies (EUA), their Management Boards. Although EUAs’ Management Boards are dominated by national representatives, usually one representative per EU member state, there is a vigorous debate taking place if EUAs are really under control of the member states.
In this paper it is first of all outlined, in how far these Management Board members feel themselves as national representatives, accountable to their government or ministry, or if they rather feel as independent experts, accountable to their scientific/expert community. This is based on a survey of Management Board members of 8 EUAs.
As first insights in the data suggests there seem to be differences detectable between particular EUAs (more national accountable vs. more expert oriented Management Boards) and also between the particular members states (strongly acc. national representatives vs. weakly acc. national representatives). Therefore, in the second part of the paper it will be evaluated, how these differences might be explained. Especially if the variance is evoked by differences between particular EUAs (tasks, powers, size, age ...) or rather because of national factors (popular euroscepticism, popular trust in EU institutions, national administrative tradition…) or more by personal factors of the representatives’ themselves (age, education, career, ideology …).
