ABSTRACT
In this chapter, which is written for a multidisciplinary readership rather than for specialised European Union (EU) law scholars, the author mainly questions the idea that agencification is a result of EU Membership. It addresses the legal issues of agencification in European Union law, which are at basis of the quotation. In order to understand the complexity of legal issues relating to agencification, it is important to realise that most Western European systems of government were built in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, based on patterns that were similar enough to be considered as a “European standard model of administration,” which is totally different from the Swedish and US models of government. The British system of administration has been based for more than century on delegation of the implementation of most government policies to local government. Different forms of organisational structures are available, as well as different ways of running them, which implies more or less autonomy in various aspects.
