ABSTRACT
In the beginning was a conflict between the Swiss parliament and a federal ministry. In the end, an institution, a federal agency was evalu ated. At the very beginning, the question was whether the merging of two federal agencies would mean the creation of a higher organizational unit, for which parliamentary approval would have been necessary, or whether it was simply a question of merging the two agencies to form the Federal Office for Environmental Protection (FOEP). In the end, this new federal agency was the subject of an evaluative study which is discussed here.
