Ellen Mastenbroek

EU compliance: Still a ‘black hole’?

Abstract This paper assesses whether EU compliance is still a ‘black hole’, reviewing two decades of research on this topic. It is argued that the first wave of scholarship was rather eclectic in nature, suggesting numerous legal and politico-administrative explanations. The second wave focused on the goodness of fit hypothesis. As the empirical support for this hypothesis has been rather disappointing, the consensus now seems to be that domestic politics needs to enter the equation in a more explicit fashion. The current challenge is to theorize and research the exact role and effects of domestic politics on processes of compliance. In doing so, scholars are advised to pay more attention to methodological issues, such as case selection. Finally, scholarship on compliance should shed more light on the actual size of the implementation deficit, especially when it comes to application and enforcement.

Surviving the deadline: The transposition of EU directives in the Netherlands

By focusing on the speed of transposition of European directives in the Netherlands, this article evaluates the claim made by various researchers and EU politicians that there is an EU implementation deficit. It has the twofold objective of assessing the timeliness of transposition and explaining delays, using the technique of survival analysis. The main finding is that almost 60 percent of the directives are transposed late, i.e. after the deadline specified by the directive. There hence exists an implementation deficit in the Netherlands. Various legal and political variables combine to explain the time needed for transposition, the most important of which are the legal instrument used, the responsible ministry and the EU decision-making procedure.

Closing the regulatory cycle? A meta evaluation of ex-post legislative evaluations by the European Commission

ABSTRACT Theoretically, ex-post legislative (EPL) evaluations play an important role in the European regulatory cycle. By critically assessing the administration, compliance or outcomes of legislation, they may allow for learning and inform enforcement. At the same time, the European Commission may have incentives not to evaluate, as EPL evaluations may lead to undesired policy change or repeal. Furthermore, the development of systematic, high-quality EPL evaluations is threatened by more technical problems in the sphere of evaluability. Hence, the odds are against the systematic production of high-quality evaluations in the European Union (EU). This article assesses this argument by conducting a meta evaluation of the coverage and quality of ex-post legislative evaluations by the European Commission, using two novel datasets. The main findings are that EPL evaluation coverage indeed is patchy, with no clear upward trend in recent years. EPL evaluation is primarily a matter of legislative obligation instead of own initiative. There is great scope, finally, for enhancing the quality of EPL evaluations, by improving methodological quality, stakeholder involvement and transparency.

Clawing Back Lost Powers? Parliamentary Scrutiny of the Transposition of EU Social Policy Directives in the Netherlands

For quite some time parliaments were seen as the losers of European integration. As a reaction, several parliaments have sought to exert more control over the executive branch in EU decision-making. An alternative venue for ‘clawing back’ these lost powers is by influencing the domestic transposition of EU policies. Surprisingly, this opportunity for greater parliamentary involvement has not received much scholarly attention. Under what conditions do the parties in parliament engage in ex post scrutiny over transposition? To shed light on this question, this article provides a detailed study of scrutiny by the Dutch parliament over the transposition of two social policy directives, investigating four hypotheses regarding vote-seeking, policy-seeking and office-seeking incentives for parliamentary oversight. The analysis shows that the ex post scrutiny that takes place can mostly be summarised as low-profile scrutiny aimed at information-gathering and position-taking, especially by opposition parties.

Ex post legislative evaluation in the European Union: questioning the usage of evaluations as instruments for accountability

Evaluations may perform a key role in political systems as they provide a basis for parliaments to hold their executives accountable. This is equally the case in the European Union. Yet, several factors may work against the usage of European Union evaluations for accountability purposes. Members of the European Parliament work under great time pressure and executives may have little incentives to produce high-quality evaluations. This article therefore addresses the question of to what extent and when Members of the European Parliament use ex post legislative evaluations. We present an analysis of 220 evaluations, studying how many were referred to in parliamentary questions. Our main finding is that 16% of the evaluations are followed up through questions. However, the parliamentary questions hardly serve accountability aims. Members of the European Parliament mostly use evaluations for agenda-setting purposes. The main variable explaining differences in the usage of evaluations is the level of conflict between the European Parliament and Commission during the legislative process. Points for practitioners This article studies the usage of ex post evaluations of European Union legislation by Members of the European Parliament for accountability purposes by analysing European Parliament questions. It shows that MEPs ask different types of questions, referring to ex post evaluations. Most of the questions reveal forward-looking rather than backward-looking motives, aimed at agenda-setting and policy change instead of accountability. It concludes that variance in parliamentary questions about the follow-up of evaluation outcomes can be explained by the level of conflict between the European Parliament and Commission during the legislative stage.

Guardians of EU law? Analysing roles and behaviour of Dutch legislative drafters involved in EU compliance

ABSTRACT By drafting statutes and delegated acts, national legislative drafters play a crucial role in European Union (EU) compliance. Given their extensive legal training, they can be expected to operate as ‘guardians of EU law’ and thus correct national non-compliant tendencies. Yet, they also have a role as politically loyal civil servants, responsive to national political demands. This conntribution answers the question of to what extent Dutch legislative drafters fulfil a role of ‘guardian of EU law’. Using in-depth interviews, the paper analyses legislative drafters’ role conceptions and their strategies in case national political demands prove incompatible with EU legal requirements. It finds that most Dutch legislative drafters try to reconcile EU law with their ministers’ political demands, if necessary by reinterpreting EU law. When this proves unfeasible, most respondents prioritize political loyalty over EU legality. Ultimately, therefore, legislative drafters do not form an insurmountable normative factor in EU compliance.

National Parliaments and Transposition of EU Law: A Matter of Coalition Conflict?

This article analyses to what extent the mechanism of the coalition conflict model of executive-legislative relations can account for the extent and policy direction of parliamentary control over domestic transposition, focusing on EU migration law. Our empirical approach is based on an in-depth cross-country comparison of the transposition of the Returns Directive in Austria, Germany, France, and the Netherlands. We find that in all four countries the legislatures left their marks on the final laws, and the policy direction of amendments was largely in line with the predictions of the model. Yet, the policy adjustments were not always triggered by coalition partners correcting ministerial drift, but also by factions within the ministerial party, and by opposition parties.

Filling the gap in the European administrative space: The role of administrative networks in EU implementation and enforcement

ABSTRACT European administrative networks (EANs) are a key building block of the European Administrative Space (EAS). Crucially, they are to fill the gap between the EU’s policy ambitions and its limited administrative capacities. Whereas ample research has been done on policy preparation networks, the role of implementing EANs has received less attention in the EAS literature. This article fills this gap by providing a systematic review of relevant insights in four adjacent literatures: EU governance; international relations; public administration; and EU compliance. Employing a systematic literature review, it reports divergent findings on EAN establishment, functioning and impact, as well as variant normative evaluations. These variant findings partly relate to a lack of comparative research, selective policy coverage and predominant focus on North-western states. We conclude by suggesting a number of lines for future research on these four important themes, arguing that the crucial question will be which impact these EANs have on the national implementation and enforcement of EU law.

Accountability in the post-Lisbon European Union1

This special issue takes stock of recent post-Lisbon additions to the European Union’s accountability toolkit. It provides indications that older decision-making tools tend to be more accountable than newer ones, and that, in some areas, decision-making is shifting towards less accountable arenas. This introductory article reviews the debate on the gradual evolution of the European Union’s accountability system and introduces key aspects of the post-Lisbon era that can be expected to affect accountability in the European Union, and that have been overlooked by the literature thus far: delegated acts, economic governance and regulatory evaluations. The contributions to this special issue address each of these domains in detail and highlight the degree to which accountability has been enhanced. A final contribution shows how these arrangements fit into the wider landscape of already-existing European Union accountabilities and how this landscape has developed over time. Points for practitioners There is an apparent link between the relative novelty of the institutional setting in which a governance system is embedded and its accountability. Settings that include a strong role for the European Commission tend to be the most accountable ones, while those that rely mostly on intergovernmental logics, including those that have been created outside the Treaty framework, come with significant gaps.

Europeanization of Policies and Administration

This chapter assesses the state of play in Europeanization research, focusing on the impact of European integration on national policies and administrations. After dissecting the concept of Europeanization, it sketches this literature’s guiding question: how to account for differential domestic impacts of European integration. It then describes how much Europeanization research has shifted away from a top-down focus on institutional misfits to creative strategic use of EU inputs by domestic stakeholders. Furthermore, it establishes a marked pluralization of policy-oriented research, which now encompasses a great variety of policy sectors, (member) states and EU inputs. In the realm of administrative adaptation, similarly, Europeanization research has clearly gone beyond the initial focus on national coordination systems, to encompass EU-induced changes in administrative structures and individual attitudes.