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European Union governments have delegated executive and agenda‐setting powers to the Commission primarily to reduce the transaction costs of policy‐making, and they have designed complex control mechanisms to limit the discretion of the Commission in the policy process. Examines the record of delegation to the Commission throughout the EU's history, measuring the extent of delegation and Commission discretion across 35 different issue‐areas. Almost without exception, member states delegate to the Commission precisely the functions hypothesized by principal‐agent models, including most notably monitoring compliance, setting the legislative agenda and laying down expert and credible market regulations. Similarly, however, the Commission is closely monitored by member governments, which have adopted a carefully designed and calibrated system of appointment and censure mechanisms, ‘comitology’ or oversight committees and administrative law and judicial review by the European Court of Justice.

Provides basic data on comitology and introduces the normative concerns voiced by the EP. Responding to the inter‐institutional debate and the Commission's proposal concerning the reform of comitology, the chapter proceeds by discussing comitology in the context of supranational governance in general. It is argued that convincing normative justifications must take account of the distinctive nature of the European polity. One way of formulating such a justification is provided by the concept of deliberative supranationalism. This concept corresponds to theoretical interpretations emphasizing the sui generis nature of the EC. It assumes that the legitimation of governance within constitutional nation‐states remains inevitably one‐sided and parochial. Deliberative supranationalism, in this regard, respects the member states’ constitutional legitimacy, while at the same time clarifying and sanctioning the commitments arising from its interdependence with equally democratically legitimized states, and with the supranational prerogatives that the institutionalization of this interdependence requires.

This chapter discusses the delegation of implementing powers by the Council (or by the Council and the EP) to the Commission or to European agencies. While delegation to the Commission may involve wide discretionary powers, European agencies are denied the regulatory powers which national agencies normally have. The Commission uses the principle of institutional balance to impede institutional developments which would reduce its own role, but would enhance the credibility of European policies. The division of roles between the Commission and the agencies aggravates an already serious accountability problem.

Chapter 9 explores the role of EU committees in the emergent European Executive Order. EU committees are important laboratories for studying transformational change that transcends the territorial dynamics of Westphalia because they have institutionalized the bringing together of domestic and Community officials. This chapter explores the following EU committees: The Commission Expert Committees (ECs) that prepare decisions for the Commission, the Council Working Parties (CWPs) that prepare decisions for the Council of Ministers, and the so‐called Comitology Committees (CCs) that assist the Council in controlling delegated powers to the Commission. Comparative survey data reveals that the intergovernmental dynamic is weaker within the ECs than within the CWPs and CCs. Hence, the picture of one unified EU committee system has to be sacrificed for the model of a compound committee system balancing multiple behavioural dynamics. The data seriously challenges sweeping generalizations of administrative fusion and bureaucratic engrenage. This chapter also demonstrates that deliberative dynamics are not omnipotent within the CCs as asserted by Joerges and Neyer (1997).

The development of post‐national democracy in Europe depends not merely on rights but also on the emergence of an overarching communicative space that functions as a public sphere. But is this possible when there is no collective identity? Although the EU is not a state, nor a nation, its development as a new kind of polity is closely connected to the formation of a common communicative space. Cooperation and problem‐solving create public spaces but have not produced a single, non‐exclusive, general European public sphere. Rather, we find a layered public sphere containing several transnational, segmented publics evolving around policy networks, as well as legally institutionalized discourses—strong publics, such as the EP, Comitology, the ECJ, and conventions. The lack of a truly European public sphere can be seen as the consequence of the democratic deficit, the deeper causes of which may result from a weak European civic solidarity.

This chapter initiates the discussion of the legal-historical effort to translate elements of the postwar constitutional settlement into supranational form over the last half-century. The focus here is on the establishment of national executive leadership over the integration process. This development ran contrary to efforts by Jean Monnet to construct, purportedly on the New Deal model, a system of supranational technocratic autonomy in the High Authority of the European Coal and Steal Community. Monnet was ultimately curtailed significantly by the creation of the Council of Ministers in the Treaty of Paris of 1951. The institutional role of the Council of Ministers grew as a consequence of the Treaty of Rome of 1957, which established the European Economic Community. The crises of the 1960s further marginalized the Commission as an autonomous technocratic policy maker. But these crises also brought to the fore differing conceptions of national leadership that would play themselves out in the ‘empty chair’ crisis and the Luxembourg Compromise at mid-decade. France, under de Gaulle, favored control by particular national executives exercising a veto over supranational policy making; the remainder of the national executives favored shared oversight via consensus politics in the Council of Ministers. This later position prevailed, and found further expression in the creation of a dense bureaucracy of nationally dominated committees (COREPER, comitology). This process of national-executive ascendancy and shared oversight culminated in the creation of the European Council in 1974, which was to become the central institution of plebiscitary leadership in the process of European integration over the remainder of the century.

The first chapter offers background information on the Commission’s implementing powers. The comitology system dates from the 1960s, when the Council, overburdened with the implementation of the common agricultural policy, decided to delegate some implementing powers to the Commission. However, a majority of member states still wanted to retain some control over the Commission; hence committees of member states were set up to supervise the Commission - the so-called ‘comitology committees’. These committees have been engaged in two functions in delegated legislation: cooperation and coordination at a preparatory stage; and the control at the stage of formal decision-making. This control takes on various forms in different committee types. While in former times the Parliament did not play a role in comitology, over time it acquired a certain influence until, under the Lisbon Treaty, it became an equal partner to the Council under delegated acts (Art. 290).

This chapter covers the period 1985 to 2000 and the development of the committee system during the years that saw the old Community transform into a European Union. The exact nature of the new Union was far from clear but was something which had to be discussed and specified after it had come into existence. No one fought harder than the European Parliament. Once it was given what it had always asked for — a real right to participate in the legislative process — it immediately used that right to get more, and soon the European Union was ravaged by an inter-institutional battle. A breeding ground for this battle was found in the so-called Comitology Decision and the ‘constitutional’ arrangement for exercise of implementing powers that had resulted from the 1985 reform of the Treaty.

This chapter discusses the organizational forms central to European administrative governance. It sets out the central features of these forms, their rationale(s) and, wherever possible, offers an assessment of the issues which they raise in terms of legitimacy and accountability. Specifically, it considers comitology, European agencies, various forms of European networks for administrative governance, the Open Method of Coordination, and organizational forms in which private parties play a dominant role.

This chapter examines how changes of powers in the interinstitutional balance have affected the willingness of the Commission and the Council to delegate legislative power to comitology committees. For the areas of agricultural policy and taxation, it investigates the effects of the introduction of the 1999 comitology decision, which increased the competences of the Commission in the comitology procedure. We show that the Commission has proposed delegation to management and regulatory committees more extensively since the adoption of this decision. Surprisingly, the Council – which saw its own competences reduced by the decision - did not put up significant resistance to the more frequent use of delegation.

This chapter focuses on the relationship between European law and the functional needs of market integration of market governance. It begins by highlighting the main transformations occurring in European Union governance. It then demonstrates the growing gap between new patterns of governance and traditional legal analyses. This is done by focusing on three sets of issues: comitology; the powers that can be conferred on specialized European agencies and other bodies whose existence was not contemplated by the EC Treaty; and the role of scientific expertise. Finally, the chapter considers the discrepancy between legal perceptions and functional realities.

The book is divided into two main parts: a first part where the general development of the committee system is outlined and those aspects identified which must be considered to have been decisive; and a second part where the conclusions are drawn that shall answer the questions how and why. Although the first part is rather descriptive in character, it is based on a careful analysis. This is manifested in the selection and presentation of facts but also in the choice of direction: the problems, arguments, ideas, and sources which were reflected upon before the decision about how to proceed was taken.

This chapter offers a rather extensive summary. It hopes that it makes it possible to see a pattern with respect to the development of the committee system: the rather surprising consistency with which the actors involved have taken their positions. Importantly, it will also show which actors and positions have dominated the development and, indeed, the crucial moments of change, when prior positions have been reconsidered or even abandoned. Even if some conclusions presented deal with the more general aspects of the development of the committee system, the focus is on the actors and their positions. This chapter discusses overall conclusions the context of some recent events which are likely to have implications for the future of comitology and, indeed, the legal order which it is a part of.

Chapter 3 begins the book’s empirical analysis. It focuses on the pre-Lisbon situation and investigates how delegation and control evolved from the early 1960s until the Lisbon Treaty came into force. The argument is that the Council of Ministers installed the comitology system as a way to delegate without losing control. Since this control regime provides the member states with privileged control positions, it was immediately contested by the European Parliament, which, due to its weak institutional position, found it difficult to change the situation. However, the gradual empowerment of the European Parliament over the last twenty-five years has made it increasingly difficult for the Council to keep the member states’ privileged position in the comitology system. It is therefore the gradual empowerment of the European Parliament that is the key to understanding the evolution of the pre-Lisbon control regime over time.