Delegation without legitimation? An experimental study of the European Medicines Agency’s legitimacy in health security risk regulation

Agencification in the EU stretches the confines of the European regulatory state to the maximum by swelling to policy domains, such as health security, that were formerly the exclusive terrain of national institutions. While the challenge to legitimize EU-level non-majoritarian institutions is widely acknowledged, rigorous empirical studies on the conditions under which EU-level authority prevails or fails are scarce. To fill this gap, we provide a very first empirical test of the well-established claims about the non-majoritarian versus derived legitimation sources on which EU agencies can be regarded as rightful regulators. We draw on a survey experiment with 812 Dutch local politicians on their legitimacy perceptions about the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and its mandate to authorize vaccines in view of cross-border health security risks. The results suggest that the EMA is perceived as an exceedingly legitimate agency, and the non-majoritarian sources are sufficient to legitimize the EMA’s authority to approve vaccines for the use in The Netherlands.