European administration: Centralisation and fragmentation as means of polity-building?

Abstract

The creation of a unified administrative space is part and parcel of all polity-building processes. We hold that the accelerating agencification in the European Union has created a complex administrative space characterised by simultaneous centralisation and fragmentation. Due to the fact that the finalité of integration is open-ended, this complexity is not just a passing occurrence but a defining moment of the EU. Administrative cooperation within and outside primary law, the establishment of a growing number of agencies with divergent powers, scope, and depth support this claim. Hence, we witness a development which impacts considerably on the democratic quality of the Union. The area of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters serves as a case in point. This article discusses potential problems which might arise from the creation of regulatory agencies in light of classical theories of representative democracy and their constitutional frameworks governing the member states as well as the Union.

Notes

1. The Meroni-doctrine no longer being regarded as an obstacle (see Dehousse 2002; Everson 1995).

2. See also the OECD report (2002).

3. See also Kreher (1997), who holds that agencies were not created to avoid control by one political party or to make administration more efficient but to improve collaboration between the member states.

4. It should be added that the FBI had not been built in one day either and that throughout its history it has had to cope with 50 different criminal law systems and state police organisations.

5. To give but one example: the European arrest warrant had been on the agenda since the Tampere European Council in 1999. It encountered massive opposition from the Italian government protracting negotiations until 2001 when the Council of Laeken could finally conclude the relevant framework decision (Knelangen 2006: 146). However, it took another three years for implementation as Italy only in April 2005 transposed the arrest warrant into national legislation (European Commission 2006: Chapter IV). Yet in spite of the fact that until February 2005 some 2600 such warrants had been issued, the European Commission still had to notify that in nine Member States implementation was not in line with European norms.

6. In October 2007 the EP budget committee has voted to double the FRONTEX budget but nevertheless decided to vote in favour of freezing one-third of the agency's administrative budget until it has improved efficiency, which largely depends on states' participation in missions and the means implemented by these states as part of the policies concerned. This development is an instance of the ambiguity about centralisation and fragmentation which characterises the process of agencification in AFSJ.

7. With regard to accountability in terms of efficient control and sanctions, see Bovens (2006) and Puntscher Riekmann (2007).

8. In particular if we consider such duplication and rivalry between the various agencies in the USA which created remarkable problems in the combat on terrorism (Ellermann 2006).

9. There is a clear resemblance between our term ‘compounded administration’ and the concept of federalism as in Tuschhoff (1999).