ABSTRACT

The creation of autonomous administrative structures is one of the most interesting developments of the past 15 years in European public administration. While only two semi-autonomous agencies had been created prior to the 1990s, their number had reached 28 at the end of 2007. This figure includes the various organisations established under the label of ‘decentralised agencies’, as well as the ‘Union agencies’ set up in the second and third pillars, such as the Institute for Security Studies, EUROPOL or EUROJUST. A few others are currently in the process of being established. Although this decentralisation is no longer new, it seems to have accelerated in recent years. Eight autonomous agencies were established during the Delors years, while another ten were created by the Prodi Commission. During the same period (2001–2005), five agencies were created in the second and third pillars of the EU. According to the 2007 budget, 3,588 administrative posts are assigned to these bodies – a significant number when compared to the overall size of the EU Commission (19,370 agents in 2007). Moreover, if one compares the cumulative figure for agencies staff to the number of posts created within the Commission since 1992 (5,886), we see that over a third of the executive positions created during that period have been assigned to regulatory agencies. The cumulative budget of EU agencies for 2007 amounted to over €1 billion. Several of the most recent structures enjoy powers that were explicitly denied to their predecessors. The European Agency for Reconstruction (EAR) has been entrusted with the task of distributing EU money in the former Yugoslavia, while the Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) enjoys, in practice if not in law, a degree of regulatory autonomy, as we shall see. As noted in a 2005 report by the French Senate, more autonomous organs had been created by the EU in the previous 50 months than in the preceding 50 years (Sénat 2005).