Negotiating Intermediaries in EU Legislation

Regulatory intermediaries—actors that act as middle-men between the regulator and the regulated to aid enforcement and the effective operation of policy—play an increasingly important role in the European Union. As EU legislation increasingly targets enterprises and individuals further removed from the EU regulator than the member states traditionally targeted by directives, and the Commission scales back its enforcement of EU law through the infringement procedure, these regulatory intermediaries play an increasingly important role in the everyday application of EU policy. The increasing reliance on regulatory intermediaries such as EU agencies and national competent authorities is observed in the increasingly frequent assignment of formalized roles to these actors in EU directives and regulations. These intermediaries can aid the Commission in the enforcement of complex laws, but depending on their position they can also weaken the power of the Commission vis-a-vis member states in its rule enforcement. Member states on their side might benefit from the effective operation of EU law, but be unwilling to take the cost of operating regulatory intermediaries. In this contribution we ask how regulatory intermediaries appear through the negotiation of EU law. By comparing legislative proposals to the finished EU directives and regulations, we observe the types of intermediaries that appear in the proposal by the Commission, and how this differs from the finished legislation following deliberations in the European Parliament and Council. Comparing these stages of the legislative process allows us to better understand the preferences of different actors in the negotiation of regulatory intermediaries, thereby unpacking the mechanisms behind the turn towards increasingly privatized enforcement of EU law.