Explaining EU agencies‘ formal independence

In the last four decades, the European Union created 38 agencies. In many instances, these bodies were created or reinforced after crisis events such as the BSE- or the financial crisis. EU agencies enjoy different levels of discretion in their tasks: Some EU agencies are legally very independent from EU legislators, while others operate with little formal independence. What explains these differences in formal independence among EU agencies? We test explanations for the formal, de jure independence of EU agencies with a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) utilising a dataset that captures EU agencies’ formal independence over time. We test two functional explanations for EU agencies’ independence, namely whether more decision-making competences and more complexity of their tasks positively impact their formal independence. We, further, test two political explanations for EU agencies’ independence, namely whether a stronger contestation of the decision to create an agency negatively and its establishment during a crisis positively impacts their formal independence. Finally, we test a bureaucratic politics hypothesis, namely whether a higher degree of agencification in member states positively impacts EU agencies’ formal independence as such agencies domestically lobby for an independent agency. The paper makes a twofold contribution. First, the QCA offers explanatory paths for individual EU agencies’ independence, allowing us to make sense of the diverse EU agency landscape. Second, our findings inform the ongoing debate how administrative reforms after crisis in the EU change its polity.