Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T07:41:12.369Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Supranational Governance and Networked Accountability Structures: Member State Oversight of EU Agencies*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Johannes Saurer
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The most remarkable recent development in EU administrative law is the widespread establishment of European agencies. Beginning in the early 1990s, EU agencies emerged as significant actors in a number of areas, including trademark law, pharmaceutical licensing and aviation safety. EU agencies are best understood, however, not as autonomous regulators at the federal level, but as the most recent expression of European governance through administrative networks. The regulatory intertwining of supranational and national authorities in the EU is significantly different from the division of authority between federal and state bureaucracies in the United States federal system Hence, the accountability of European agencies to the EU and to Member States has unique features that can be traced to the dynamics of European integration. Accountability is largely a function of networked institutional relations that link European administrative entities to both supranational and national forums of accountability This article concentrates on the second form of accountability through an in-depth exploration of the way Member States oversee EU agencies. Oversight, here, covers monitoring, hearings, budgetary reviews or judicial actions, as well as procedural constraints.

Type
Articles
Information
European Journal of Risk Regulation , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , March 2011 , pp. 51 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

** Dr. iur., LL.M. (Yale), University of Bayreuth, Germany.
*

This article was first published in Comparative Administrative Law, ed. Susan Rose-Ackerman and Peter L. Lindseth (Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar, 2011). Permission to reprint courtesy of Edward Elgar Publishing.

References

1 Brainard Guy Peters, Federalism and public administration: The United States and the European Union, in: Comparative Federalism: The European Union and the United States in a Comparative Perspective (Anand Menon & Martin A. Schain eds.), 2006, p. 177 ff.

2 Herwig C.H. Hofmann, Mapping the European Administrative Space, West European Politics 31 (2008), p. 662, 671; Ellen Vos, Independence, Accountability and Transparency of European Regulatory Agencies, in: Regulation through Agencies in the EU (Damien Geradin, Rodolphe Muñoz & Nicolas Petit eds.), 2005, p. 120, 125 ff.

3 For a similar inclusive concept of “oversight” see de Wet, Erika, “Holding International Institutions Accountable”, 9 German Law Journal (2008), pp. 1987, 1991 et sqq Google Scholar.; Lindseth, Peter L., Aman, Alfred C. and Raul, Alan Charles, “Oversight”, in Bermann, George A. et al. (eds), Administrative Law of the European Union (ABA Publishers, 2008), pp. 7 et sqq Google Scholar.; for a distinction of “oversight” and “accountability” Carol Harlow, Accountability in the European Union (2002), p. 146.

4 Möllers, Christoph, “European Governance: Meaning and Value of a Concept”, 43 Common Market Law Review (2006), pp. 313 et sqq Google Scholar.

5 Mehdi, Rostane, “L’autonomie institutionnelle et procédurale et le droit administratif”, in Auby, Jean-Bernard and de La Rochère, Jacqueline Dutheil (eds), Droit administratif européen (2007), pp. 685 et sqq Google Scholar.

6 Cases 9/56 and 10/56, Meroni & Co., Industrie Metallurgiche, SpA, v. High Auth. of the European Coal & Steel Cmty., 1958 ECR 11, 53.

7 Schneider, Jens-Peter, “A Common Framework for Decentralized EU Agencies and the Meroni Doctrine”, 61 Administrative Law Review (2009), pp. 29, 34 et sqq Google Scholar.

8 Weiß, Wolfgang, “Agencies versus Networks: From Divide to Convergence in the Administrative Governance in the EU”, 61 Administrative Law Review (2009), pp. 45 et sqq Google Scholar., 69; Ruffert, Matthias, “The transformation of administrative law as a transnational methodological project”, in Ruffert, Matthias (ed.), The transformation of administrative law in Europe (2007), pp. 3 et sqq Google Scholar.

9 Sabel, Charles F. and Zeitlin, Jonathan, “Learning from Difference: The New Architecture of Experimentalist Governance in the EU”, 14 European Law Journal (2008), pp. 271, 278–292CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Szapiro, Manuel, “Comitology: The ongoing reform”, in Hofmann, Herwig C. and Türk, Alexander (eds), Legal challenges in EU administrative law (2009), pp. 89 et sqq Google Scholar.

11 European Agencies – The Way Forward, at pp. 5 et sqq., COM (2008) 135 final.

12 For a complete register of the existing EU agencies see <http://europa.eu/agencies/index_en.htm> (last accessed on 27 August 2009); on the reforms through the Treaty of Lisbon infra at III.2.a).

13 Paul Craig, EU Administrative Law (2006), pp. 148 et sqq.; Saurer, Johannes, “The Accountability of Supranational Administration: The Case of European Union Agencies”, 24 American University International Law Review (2009), pp. 429, 440 et sqq Google Scholar.

14 Harlow, Carol and Rawlings, Richard, “Promoting accountability in multilevel governance: A network Approach”, 14 European Law Journal (2007), pp. 542 et sqq CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Dehousse, Renaud, “Delegation of Powers in the European Union: The Need for a Multi-principals Model”, 31 West European Politics (2008), pp. 789 et sqq CrossRefGoogle Scholar.; Weiler, J.H.H., “The Transformation of Europe”, 100 Yale Law Journal (1991), pp. 2403, 2413–2431CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 See, e.g., Interinstitutional Agreement Between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission on Budgetary Discipline and Sound Financial Management, 2006 O.J. (C 139) 1 (EC).

17 European Court of Editors, Special Report No 5/2008: The European Union's Agencies: Getting results; EU Ombudsman, Annual Report 2005, p. 160; id., Annual Report 2006, p. 74.

18 Council Regulation (EC) No 40/94, art. 63 (1) (OHIM); Parliament & Council Regulation 216/2008, Art. 50 (2) (EASA); Parliament & Council Regulation 1907/2006 (EU), Art. 94 (ECHA).

19 Case T-326/99, Nancy Fern Olivieri v. Commission, 2000 E.C.R. II-1985.

20 Alemanno, Alberto and Mahieu, Stéphanie, “The European Food Safety Authority before European Courts”, 5 European Food and Feed Law Review (2008), pp. 320 et sqq Google Scholar.

21 Case T-74/00, Artegodan GmbH v. Commission, 2002 E.C.R. II- 494, at paras. 197–200.

22 Infra III.2.a).

23 The terminology varies: for examples of “management boards” see the following paragraphs, the term “administrative board” is used, e.g., at the Community Fisheries Control Agency and the European Maritime Safety Agency.

24 See Parliament & Council Regulation 216/2008, reason (23).

25 Daniel Kelemen, R., “The Politics of Eurocracy: Building a New European State?”, in Jabko, Nicolas and Parsons, Craig (eds), With US or against US?: European trends in American perspective (2005), pp. 173 et sqq CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 See “The Operating Framework for the European Regulatory Agencies”, at p. 9, COM (2002) 718 final; see also Draft Interinstitutional Agreement on the Operating Framework for the European Regulatory Agencies, Art. 11(5), COM (2005) 59 final.

27 Dehousse, Renaud, “Delegation of Powers in the European Union: The Need for a Multi-principals Model”, 31 West European Politics (2008), pp. 789, 798CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council.

29 The four committees deal with medicinal products for human use (CHMP), medicinal products for veterinary use (CVMP), orphan medicinal products (COMP) and herbal medicinal products (HMPC).

30 Charles F. Sabel and Jonathan Zeitlin, “Learning from Difference: The New Architecture of Experimentalist Governance in the EU”, supra note 9, pp. 271, 284.

31 Chiti, Mario P., “Forms of European Administrative Action”, 68 Law & Contemporary Problems (2004), pp. 37, 45Google Scholar; Paul Craig, EU Administrative Law, supra note 13, p. 178.

32 Art. 263 TFEU; for earlier acknowledgements Case 131/86, United Kingdom v. Council, 1988 E.C.R. 905, at para. 6; Case 41/83, Italy/Commission, 1985 E.C.R. 873, at para. 30.

33 Art. 263 (1) TFEU reads: “The Court of Justice (…) shall also review the legality of acts of bodies, offices or agencies of the Union intended to produce legal effects vis-à-vis third parties.”

34 Case 294/83, Parti Ecologiste ‘Les Verts’, 1986 E.C.R. 1339, at paras. 21, 23–25.

35 Case T-411/06, Sogelma v. European Agency for Reconstruction, 2008 E.C.R. II-2771, at para. 37.

36 Case C-160/03, Spain v. Eurojust, 2005 E.C.R. I-2077.

37 Id., at paras. 32–34.

38 Id., Opinion of AG Poiares Maduro, at paras. 11–25.

39 Id., at para. 38.

40 Carol Harlow and Richard Rawlings, “Promoting accountability in multilevel governance”, supra note 14, pp. 542, 545.

41 Paul Craig, EU Administrative Law, supra note 13, p. 153.

42 Deutscher Bundestag, Beschlussempfehlung und Bericht des Ausschusses für die Angelegenheiten der Europäischen Union, Drucksache 16/9695 (2008), p. 3. For judicial discussions of subsidiarity see, e.g., ECJ, C-377/98, 2001 E.C.R. I-7079, at paras. 30–33 and – from the (German) Member State perspective – Bundesverfassungsgericht, Judgment of 30 June 2009, 2 BvE 2/08 et. al., at paras. 240, 251, 304 et sqq. (on the Treaty of Lisbon); English translation available on the Internet at <http://www.bverfg.de>.

43 Deutscher Bundestag, Beschlussempfehlung und Bericht des Ausschusses für die Angelegenheiten der Europäischen Union, supra note 42, p. 3.

44 Bundesrat, BR-Drs. 228/08 (B) (2008) pp. 4–5; for a corresponding earlier statement see BR-Drs. 168/05 (2005).

45 Bundesrat, BR-Drs. 228/08 (B) (2008) p. 7 and earlier BR-Drs. 134/08 (B).

46 Assemblée Nationale, Rapport D’Information N° 3069 déposé par la Délégation de l’Assemblée Nationale pour l’Union Européenne sur les agences européennes par M. Christian Philip, Député, 2006, available on the Internet at <http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/12/europe/rap-info/i3069.asp> (last accessed on 10 January 2011).

47 Id., at p. 85.

48 House of Commons, European Scrutiny Committee, Twenty-Second Report of Session 2007-2008, HC 16-xx, published on 14 May 2008, pp. 7–10.

49 House of Commons Transport Committee, The Work of the Civil Aviation Authority, 2005–06, HC 809, published on 8 November 2006. pp. 13–22.

50 Id., p. 17.

51 Id., p. 17.

52 Id., p. 15.

53 Id., p. 16.

54 Id., p. 16.

55 House of Commons Transport Committee, The Work of the Civil Aviation Authority: Government Response to the Committee's Thirteenth Report of Session 2005–06, Fifth Special Report of Session 2006–07, HC 371, published on 13 March 2007, p. 3.

56 Id., p. 5.

57 Id., p. 5.

58 Peters, Brainard Guy, “Federalism and public administration: The United States and the European Union”, in Menon, Anand and Schain, Martin A. (eds), Comparative Federalism: The European Union and the United States in a Comparative Perspective (2006), pp. 177 et sqq Google Scholar.; Halberstam, Daniel and Hills, Roderick M. JR., “State Autonomy in Germany and the United States”, 574 The Annals of the American Academy of Politics and Social Science (2001), pp. 173 et sqq CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59 Geradin, Damien, “The Development of European Regulatory Agencies: Lessons from the American Experience”, in Geradin, Damien, Muñoz, Rodolphe and Petit, Nicolas (eds), Regulation through Agencies in the EU (2005), pp. 215, 236 et sqq Google Scholar.

60 Kagan, Elena, “Presidential Administration”, 114 Harvard Law Review (2001), pp. 2245 et sqq CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 Elena Kagan, “Presidential Administration”, supra note 60, pp. 2245, 2277 et sqq., 2285 et sqq.; Damien Geradin, “The Development of European Regulatory Agencies”, supra note 59, pp. 215, 237 et sqq.

62 See, e.g., the list of policy positions of the NGA-Natural Resources Committee available on the Internet at <http://www.nga.org> (last accessed on 26 August 2009), that includes statements related to the EPA's policy, for example under the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act.

63 U.S. Supreme Court, Massachusetts v. E.P.A., 127 S.Ct. 1438, 1451 (2007).

64 Id., 127 S. Ct. at para. 1454.

65 J. Scalia (Opinion of the Court), 504 U.S. 555, 560–61 (1992).

66 For bilateral comparisons of German and US federalism see Daniel Halberstam and Roderick M. Hills, JR., “State Autonomy in Germany and the United States”, supra note 58, pp. 173 et sqq.; Susan Rose-Ackerman, Umweltrecht und -politik in den Vereinigten Staaten und der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (1994), pp. 85 et sqq.

67 The agency operates essentially on the basis of the Act Against Restraints of Competition (Gesetz gegen unlautere Wettbewerbsbeschränkungen, GWB) of 1958.

68 For an organization chart see <http://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/media/archive/10837.pdf> (last accessed on 2 April 2009).

69 § 117 TKG (Federal Telecommunication Act); the instructions have to be published in the federal gazette.

70 See Bundesverfassungsgericht, BverfGE 119, 331, 365 et sqq. (2007), Hartz IV-Arbeitsgemeinschaften; BVerfGE 108, 169, 182 (2003), Zugangsberechtigungssysteme im TKG.

71 On the inherent challenge to the Meroni-Doctrine Dehousse, Renaud, “Delegation of Powers in the European Union: The Need for a Multi-principals Model”, 31 West European Politics 31 (2008), pp. 789, 793CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72 Riedel, Daniel, Die Gemeinschaftszulassung für Luftfahrtgerät (2006), pp. 50 et sqq Google Scholar.

73 Renaud Dehousse, “Delegation of Powers in the European Union”, supra note 71, pp. 789, 793; Martin Lorenz, Das gemeinschaftliche Arzneimittelzulassungsrecht (2006), pp. 41 et sqq.

74 Dann, Philipp, “The Political Institutions”, in Bogdandy, A. v. (ed.), Principles of European Constitutional Law (2007), pp. 229 et sqq Google Scholar.

75 Hofmann, Herwig C.H., “Mapping the European Administrative Space”, 31 West European Politics (2008), pp. 662, 664–668CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

76 On accountability features involving both supra II.1. and 2.

77 Vos, Ellen, “Independence, Accountability and Transparency of European Regulatory Agencies”, in Geradin, Damien, Muñoz, Rodolphe and Petit, Nicolas (eds), Regulation through Agencies in the EU (2005), pp. 120, 126 et sqq Google Scholar. The increase of powers at the EP relates to the claims of various national actors, see supra III.2.b) for the example of the German federal legislature.

78 Mashaw, Jerry L., “Reasoned Administration: The European Union, the United States, and the Project of Democratic Governance”, 76 George Washington Law Review (2007), pp. 99 et sqq Google Scholar.; Shipley, David E., “Due Process Rights before EU Agencies: The Rights of Defense”, 37 Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law (2008), pp. 1 et sqq Google Scholar.

79 Johannes Saurer, “Individualrechtsschutz gegen das Handeln der Europäischen Agenturen”, 45 Europarecht (EuR) (2010), pp. 51, 60–61; Alberto Alemanno and Stéphanie Mahieu, “The European Food Safety Authority before European Courts”, supra note 20, pp. 320 et sqq.; Case T-411/06, Sogelma v. European Agency for Reconstruction, 2008 E.C.R. II-2771.

80 Gerstenberg, Oliver, “Expanding the Constitution Beyond the Court: The Case of Euro-Constitutionalism”, 8 European Law Journal (2002), pp. 172, 183CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Everson, Michelle and Joerges, Christian, “Re-conceptualizing Europeanization as a public law of collisions: comitology, agencies and an interactive public adjudication”, in Hofmann, Herwig C. and Türk, Alexander (eds), EU Administrative Governance (2006), pp. 512, 528 et sqq Google Scholar.

81 Joerges, Christian, “‘Deliberative Political Processes’ Revisited: What Have we Learnt about the Legitimacy of Supranational Decision- Making”, 44 Journal of Common Market Studies (2006), pp. 779, 781CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

82 Christian Joerges, “‘Deliberative Political Processes’” Revisited”, supra note 81, pp. 779, 795; Neyer, Jürgen, “Discourse and Order in the EU: A Deliberative Approach to Multi-Level Governance”, 41 Journal of Common Market Studies (2003), pp. 687 et sqq CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

83 Charles F. Sabel and Jonathan Zeitlin, “Learning from Difference”, supra note 9, pp. 271, 272.

84 Ibid., pp. 271, 284.

85 Ibid., pp. 271, 276.

86 Ibid., pp. 271, 279–280.

87 Ibid., pp. 271, 280.

88 Dehousse, Renaud, “Comitology: Who Watches the Watchmen?”, 10 Journal of European Public Policy (2003), pp. 798 et sqq CrossRefGoogle Scholar.; Weiler, J.H.H., “Epilogue: ‘Comitology’ as Revolution – Infranationalism, Constitutionalism and Democracy, in Joerges, Christian and Vos, Ellen (eds), EU Committees: Social Regulation, Law and Politics (1999), pp. 339, 347–349Google Scholar.

89 For example, the EASA publishes a list of the members of the consulting Committees on its homepage as well as the minutes of the regular meetings, see <http://www.easa.europa.eu/ws_prod/r/r_cb_sscc.php> and <http://www.easa.europa.eu/ws_prod/r/r_cb_agna.php> (last accessed on 4 April 2009).

90 Smismans, Stijn, “New Modes of Governance and the Participatory Myth”, 31 West European Politics (2008), pp. 874 et sqq CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

91 Jürgen Habermas (W. Rehg, translator), Between Facts and Norms (1997), pp. 304, 306 et sqq.

92 Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, supra note 91, p. 306; for the term Habermas (ibid.) refers to the distinction of “strong” and “weak” publics by Fraser, Nancy, “Rethinking the Public Sphere”, in Calhoun, Craig (ed.), Habermas and the Public Sphere (1992), pp. 109 et sqq Google Scholar.

93 Supra IV.2.

94 Manuel Szapiro, “Comitology: The ongoing reform”, supra note 10, pp. 89, 93 et sqq.

95 Instead of many, Fritz W. Scharpf, Governing in Europe: Effective and Democratic? (1999), pp. 6 et sqq.; Dahl, Robert A., “Can international organizations be democratic?”, in Shapiro, Ian and Hacker-Corón, Casiano (eds), Democracy's Edges (1999), pp. 19 et sqq CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

96 Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, supra note 91, p. 300.

97 Giandomenico Majone, Regulating Europe (1996), pp. 15 et sqq.; id., “Delegation of Regulatory Powers in a Mixed Policy”, 8 European Law Journal (2002), pp. 319, 331–336.

98 Paul Craig, EU Administrative Law, supra note 13, p. 188.