This paper inquires into the monitoring of the European Union internal market regulations. Through a survey-based study of a network tasked with identification and informal resolution of internal market misapplications, we explore the means through which member states’ administrations are shaped by monitoring practices. The implementation of internal market regulation continues to lag behind but rather than force compliance through the ECJ, various non-legislative mechanisms such as score boards, regulatory networks of national agencies and training programs for bureaucrats have been introduced. While significant attention has been devoted to the deployment of soft-law tools to achieve policy coordination, comparatively less interest has been directed towards soft tools focusing on monitoring implementation of hard law ex post. We investigate the work of SOLVIT, a distributed network of agencies for solving internal market misapplications set up in each of the member states and coordinated by the Commission. Citizens and companies turn to SOLVIT when a national public authority has violated internal market regulations. The network then functions as an informal dispute settlement mechanism. Our findings suggest that while SOLVIT is set up to function as an informal tool for pursuing compliance, SOLVITs conduct in practice align with judicial problem definitions and work methods. Also, changes in case mix indicates a possible shift towards more ex ante regulation of the internal market, rather than ex post identification and resolution. This means that SOLVIT becomes codified and rule bound, but in a way that is not immediately visible or publically sanctioned. The SOLVIT network could therefore be characterized as contributing to a “bottom-up” Europeanization which is difficult for national governments to control or even discover as EU-law experts at agency level shape politically salient issues into legal matters.
