How to Become an Independent Agency: The Creation of the German Federal Network Agency

Abstract

The German Federal Network Agency (FNA) was established in 2005 as multi-utilities regulator thereby creating Germany's first energy regulator. It maintains a quite exceptional position in the landscape of German agencies because of its far-reaching independence from political influence. This independence represents an empirical puzzle, because in Germany no comprehensive agencification of the federal administration can be observed and independent agencies are rather an exception than a rule. This article explores whether this puzzle can be plausibly solved by the approach of institutional isomorphism. It argues that the German government faced informal pressure from the European Commission and its endeavour to build a network of European energy regulators at the European level. Furthermore, independent regulatory agencies increasingly became a kind of guiding model in the utilities sector. Therefore, mechanisms of coercive and mimetic isomorphism can be seen as plausible explanations of the agency's independence.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr Eva Ruffing is a senior researcher at the University of Hannover, Department of Political Science. Her research focuses on the effects Europeanisation has on national administrative systems and the role of agencies in multi-level policy-making.

Notes

1. The competence for railway regulation was added in 2006.

2. For a discussion, see M. Döhler, ‘Vom Amt zur Agentur?’, in Werner Jann and Marian Döhler (eds.), Agencies in Westeuropa (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2007b), pp.12–47.

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4. P. DiMaggio and W. Powell, ‘The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields’, in Walter Powell and Paul DiMaggio (eds.), The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).

5. Gilardi, ‘Interdependent Delegation’; Henisz et al., ‘The Worldwide Diffusion of Market-Oriented Infrastructure Reform’.

6. C. Meseguer, ‘Learning and Economic Policy Choices’, European Journal of Political Economy 22/1 (2006), pp.156–78.

7. Ten of the 15 EU member states had an independent regulatory agency at the time.

8. See e.g. F. Gilardi, ‘The Institutional Foundations of Regulatory Capitalism: The Diffusion of Independent Regulatory Agencies in Western Europe’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 598/1 (2005), pp.84–101; C. Radaelli, ‘Policy Transfer in the European Union: Institutional Isomorphism as a Source of Legitimacy’, Governance 13/1 (2000), pp.25–43.

9. DiMaggio and Powell, ‘The Iron Cage Revisited’.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.

12. S. Fink, ‘A Contagious Concept: Explaining the Spread of Privatization in the Telecommunications Sector’, Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions 24/1 (2011), pp.111–39.

13. J.W. Meyer, J. Boli, G.M. Thomas and F.O. Ramirez, ‘World Society and the Nation-State’, Amercian Journal of Sociology 103/1 (1997), pp.144–81.

14. DiMaggio and Powell, ‘The Iron Cage Revisited’.

15. Radaelli, ‘Policy Transfer in the European Union’.

16. DiMaggio and Powell, ‘The Iron Cage Revisited’.

17. Radaelli, ‘Policy Transfer in the European Union’.

18. R. Eising, ‘Policy Learning in Embedded Negotiations: Explaining EU Electricitiy Liberalization’, International Organization 56/1 (2003), p.18.

19. DiMaggio and Powell, ‘The Iron Cage Revisited’.

20. Ibid.

21. Fink, ‘A Contagious Concept’.

22. Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony. Cooperation and Discord in World Political Economy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), p.81.

23. Ibid., p.81.

24. Fink, ‘A Contagious Concept’; F. Gilardi, ‘Who Learns from what in Policy Diffusion Processes?’, American Journal of Political Science 54/3 (2010), pp.650–66; Meseguer, ‘Learning and Economic Policy Choices’.

25. B. Eberlein, ‘Institutional Change and Continuity in German Infrastructure Management: The Case of Electricity Reform’, German Politics 9/3 (2000), pp.81–104; K. Kleinwächter, ‘Das “Eiserne Pentagramm” – Strommarktregulierung in Deutschland’, in Lutz Kleinwächter (ed.), Deutsche Energiepolitik (Potsdam: Brandenburgische Zentrale für Politische Bildung, 2006), pp.65–79.

26. Eberlein, ‘Institutional Change and Continuity in German Infrastructure Management’.

27. For a discussion of the Electricity Directive, see P. Becker, Aufstieg und Krise der deutschen Stromkonzerne. Zugleich ein Beitrag zur Entwicklung des Energierechts (Bochum: Ponte Press, 2010).

28. Kleinwächter, ‘Das “Eiserne Pentagramm”’.

29. K. Lobo, ‘Die Elektrizitätspolitik und ihre Akteure von 1998 bis 2009 –Eine strategische Politikfeldanalyse’, FU Berlin, available from http://www.diss.fu-berlin.de/diss/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/FUDISS_derivate_000000010280/Dissertation_Kai_Lobo_final_111106.pdf?hosts=.

30. K. Gassner, ‘Contrasts in Germany: Decentralization, Self-regulation, and Sector-specific Regulators’, in Claude Henry, Michel Matheu and Alain Jeunemaitre (eds.), Regulation of Network Utilities. The European Experience (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp.230–52.

31. See e.g. Süddeutsche Zeitung No.117 (2002), p.25: ‘Kanzler fordert mehr Konkurrenz bei Strom und Gas’; Süddeutsche Zeitung No.54 (2003), p.20: ‘Strom-Poker am Kabinettstisch’.

32. M. Döhler, Die politische Steuerung der Verwaltung. Eine empirische Studie über politisch-administrative Interaktionen auf der Bundesebene (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2007).

33. For a discussion, see T. Contzen, Die Rolle der Politik in den Entscheidungen der Bundesnetzagentur. Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Verfahrens- und Organisationsstruktur (Hamburg: Verlag Dr. Kovač, 2011).

34. M. Ludwigs, ‘Das veränderte Machgefüge der Institutionen nach dem Dritten EU – Binnenmarktpaket’, Deutsches Verwaltungsblat 126/2 (2011), pp.61–124; J. Masing, Unabhängige Regulierungsbehörden: organisationsrechtliche Herausforderungn in Frankreich und Deutschland (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010); J. Oster, Normative Ermächtigung im Regulierungsrecht: eine vergleichende Untersuchung behördlicher Entscheidungsspielräume in der deutschen und amerikanischen Netzinfrastrukturregulierung (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2010).

35. See Döhler, Die politische Steuerung der Verwaltung.

36. See e.g. Ludwigs, ‘Die Bundesnetzagentur’.

37. Döhler, Die politische Steuerung der Verwaltung.

38. Oster, Normative Ermächtigung im Regulierungsrecht.

39. See Ibid.

40. N. Jabko, Playing the Market. A Political Strategy for Uniting Europe, 1985–2005 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006), p.97; M. Egan, Constructing a European Market: Standards, Regulation, and Governance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

41. B. Eberlein, ‘The Making of the European Energy Market: The Interplay of Governance and Government’, Journal of Public Policy 28/1 (2008), pp.73–92.

42. Ibid., p.77; emphasis original.

43. See http://www.energy-regulators.eu/portal/page/portal/EER_HOME/EER_ABOUT (accessed 26 Sept. 2011).

44. CEER Annual Report 2002, p.1; available from http://www.energy-regulators.eu/portal/page/portal/EER_HOME/EER_PUBLICATIONS/ANNUAL%20REPORTS/2002/CEER_ANNUAL_REPORT_2002.pdf (accessed 26 Sept. 2011).

45. Ibid.

46. A. Larsen, L. Holm Pedersen, E. Moll Sørensen and O. Jess Olsen, ‘Independent Regulatory Authorities in European Electricity Markets’, Energy Policy, 34/17 (2006), pp.2858–70.

47. Ibid.

48. Ibid.

49. B. Eberlein and A.L. Newman, ‘Escaping the International Governance Dilemma? Incorporated Transgovernmental Networks in the European Union’, Governance 21/1 (2008), pp.25–52.

50. See Green Paper of the European Commission ‘For a European Energy Policy’, Com (95) 659.

51. B. Eberlein and E. Grande, ‘Re-Constituting Political Authority in Europe: Transnational Regulatory Networks and the Informalization of Governance in the EU’, in E. Grande and L.W. Pauly (eds.), Complex Sovereignty. Reconstituting Political Authority in the 21st Century (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2005), pp.146–67.

52. See Drucksache des Bundestages 15/2126, p.5, available from http://dipbt.bundestag.de/doc/btd/15/021/1502126.pdf (accessed 27 Apr. 2012).

53. Döhler, Die politische Steuerung der Verwaltung; Larsen et al., ‘Independent Regulatory Authorities in European Electricity Markets’.

54. See Schmidt, ‘Neustrukturierung der Bundesnetzagentur - verfassungs- und verwaltungsrechtliche Probleme’, Neue Zeitschrift für Verwaltungsrecht 25/8 (2006), pp.907–9; R. Eising and N. Jabko, ‘Moving Targets. National Interests and Electricity. Liberalization in the European Union’, Comparative Political Studies 34/7 (2001), pp.742–67.

55. Eberlein, ‘Institutional Change and Continuity in German Infrastructure Management’.

56. Eising and Jabko, ‘Moving Targets’, p.748.

57. Eising, ‘Policy Learning in Embedded Negotiations’, p.100.

58. Interview FNA, 7 March 2012.

59. See Plenarprotokoll des Bundestages 15/135 (28 Oct. 2004), p.12402, available from http://dip21.bundestag.de/doc/btp/15/15135.pdf (accessed 27 Apr. 2012).

60. Larsen et al., ‘Independent Regulatory Authorities in European Electricity Markets’.

61. E.g. Drucksache des Bundesrates 1019/97, available from http://www.gesmat.bundesgerichtshof.de/gesetzesmaterialien/15_wp/EnergiewirtschG/BBD1019_97_0N_1-5_o.pdf (accessed 27 Apr. 2012).

62. Monopolkommission, Hauptgutachten 2000/2001, Netzwettbewerb durch Regulierung (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2003).

63. Commission of the European Communities, First Benchmarking Report on the Implementation of the Internal Electricity and Gas Market (Brussels, 2001).

64. Ibid.

65. Beschluss des Oberlandesgerichts Düsseldorf, VI-Kart 18/03 (V) (17 July 2003).

66. Handelsblatt 2003 No.10, p.11: ‘Clement lehnt Energie-Regulierer ab’, Süddeutsche Zeitung No.117 (2002), p.25: ‘Kanzler fordert mehr Konkurrenz bei Strom und Gas’.

67. Lobo, ‘Die Elektrizitätspolitik und ihre Akteure von 1998 bis 2009'.

68. Bericht des Bundesministeriums für Wirtschaft und Arbeit an den Deutschen Bundestag über die energiewirtschaftlichen Wirkungen der Verbändevereinbarungen, 31 Aug. 2003.

69. See Plenarprotokoll des Bundestages 15/135 (28 Oct. 2004), pp.12408 and 12410.

70. Plenarprotokoll des Bundestages 15/170 (15 April 2005), p.15931, available from http://dip21.bundestag.de/dip21/btp/15/15170.pdf (accessed 27 Apr. 2012); own translation.

71. See Plenarprotokoll des Bundestages 15/135 (28 Oct. 2004), p.12402.

72. See http://www.energy-regulators.eu/portal/page/portal/EER_HOME/EER_ABOUT/MEMBERS (accessed 20 Oct. 2011).

73. Fink, ‘A Contagious Concept’.

74. For this argument in general, see S. Wilks, ‘Agencies, Networks, Discourses and the Trajectory of European Competition Enforcement’, European Competition Journal 3/2 (2007), pp.437–64.

75. For a discussion of such constellations, see K. Yesilkagit, ‘Institutional Compliance, European Networks of Regulation and the Bureaucratic Autonomy of National Regulatory Authorities’, Journal of European Public Policy 18/7 (2011), pp.962–79.