Avoiding blame? Analysis of member states' implementation of EU policies

The increasing politicization of EU issues has allegedly triggered national conflicts about compliance with EU policies. This paper analyzes the different strategies that governing parties use in the implementation of EU legislation that are politically and societally contested. Studies of compliance predict that member state governments will fail to comply with contested EU policies. Conversely, there is limited empirical support for the relevance of political and societal contestation on member states’ implementation performance. I argue that this is because member states employ different strategies to manage the transparency of national responses to EU policies due varying sensitivity towards domestic and external demands. For example, national authorities could avoid blame for domestically unpopular policies by obfuscating actual policy outcomes through ambiguous implementation. Moreover, national governments could also limit the visibility of compliance to external audiences by shifting responsibilities to lower-level administrative actors. I analyze member states’ blame-avoidance strategies using a unique dataset on the national implementation of environmental, immigration and social policies adopted by the EU.