The setup and design of administrative authorities has long remained the exclusive competence of the State. As a result, each State has relied on its own, highly diverse, administrative designs. Over the past two to three decades, however, European Union legislation increasingly started to impose more or less detailed institutional design obligations on Member States’ authorities. Against that background, the actual composition, decision-making procedures and judicial control over administrative decision-making have become increasingly ‘Europeanised’. The field of data protection law constitutes a prime example of this tendency.
Despite the increasing influence of European Union law on the organisation and design of State authorities, the scope and format of such influence has not received systematic attention across different policy fields. That is all the more remarkable since EU legislation has the potential significantly to reduce Member States’ institutional autonomy, a principle recognised by the Court of Justice of the European Union. In order better to understand the scope, limits and contours of that principle, it is therefore necessary to study and map the scope of EU legislative interventions in this field and to uncover the role EU law really plays in the design of administrative authorities.
This project identifies and compares the institutional design obligations imposed by EU legislation in 18 policy fields. That comparison allows better to frame the similarities and differences between different types of EU legislative intervention.
In addition to comparing legislation in place, the project also seeks to uncover whether EU law is indeed a (decisive) factor in the structuring or setup of national administrative authorities. To do so, it relies on and develops a qualitative research design grounded in Actor-Network Theory but tailored to the specifics of EU law. On the basis of case studies and questionnaires using that research design, the role of EU law can be contextualised in a broader and novel framework of understanding.
The results of the legal comparison and case studies/questionnaires will be used to determine the contours and limits of the principle of national institutional autonomy in the framework of administrative design and to formulate recommendations to EU and national legislators on how to proceed with future initiatives in this context.
