ABSTRACT
During the last half-century, a transformation of governance has taken place in Europe. States, executives, and parliaments have empowered a growing number of so-called non-majoritarian institutions (NMIs)3 to make public policies. At the national level, many independent regulatory bodies have been established to make new rules or apply existing ones to new situations in many fields of utility regulation, such as telecommunications, antitrust and media pluralism (Weale 2011). At the national and supranational levels, central banks that set monetary policies are insulated from direct political control. In the EU, the
1. INTRODUCTION
After the establishment of the first two European Union agencies (EUAs) in the mid-1970s, many others have followed, especially since the second half of the 1990s. Now, in 2014, there are 35 EUAs at work (excluding EURATOM and executive agencies), with headquarters located all across Europe.1 This massive proliferation of EUAs, not only in number but also in scope and tasks, is attracting increasing academic attention. A particular focus is the question of their legitimacy and accountability. This question is mostly assessed with regard to relations between EUAs and other European Union (EU) institutions – e.g., the Council, European Parliament (EP), European Commission and European Court of Justice (ECJ). In contrast, adopting a ‘demoi-cratic’
just the EU institutions, must also be seen as principals in this delegation process. Adopting a principal-agent approach, this implies that no single chain of delegation exists at the European level from voters through a directly elected body, the EP, to EUAs. The EP can only be considered a co-principal at best (Geradin 2005), next to the Council of Ministers, the European Commission and the member states themselves (Curtin 2005, 2007). This complex structure has promoted a vibrant academic debate on the legiti-
macy of EUAs.4 Often it is argued that the agencies’ ‘output’ is their (main) source of legitimacy (e.g., Borras et al. 2007: 586). According to Majone (2002a), regulatory and efficiency-enhancing policies (in contrast to redistributive policies) do not require a strong normative foundation or strong (political) accountability mechanisms: ‘the substantive legitimacy provided by accountability-by-results is generally sufficient’ (Majone 2002a: 18).Other authors propose a complementary model of legitimacy for EUAs: procedural legitimacy (see Thatcher 2002). This more deliberative model emphasizes the process of decision-making by EUAs and compares them with the insular, often secretive deliberation in committees (e.g., comitology) in the EU. If the work and decision-making of EUAs are open and transparent, and the agencies are regularly communicating and publishing important information, this may enhance their legitimacy. Other authors, in turn, argue that the possible sources of input legitimacy should be kept inmind (see Follesdal 2011; Lindgren andPersson 2010). In their view, possible sources for EUAs’ input legitimacy could be the participation of the Council and the EP or the participation of civil society. However, there is still no consensus on the ‘right’ criteria for assessing EUAs’ legitimacy.Whatmost existing analyses share is a focus on the issue of legitimacy in terms of accountability relations between EUAs and other EU institutions (EP, Council of Ministers, European Commission and ECJ) (see, for example, Busuioc [2009]; Curtin [2005, 2007]; Krapohl [2004]; Shapiro [1997]; Vos [2000, 2005]) or their internal decision-making procedures (see, for example, Thatcher [2002]). They thus tend to neglect two crucial sources of legitimacy: the vertical relationship between EUAs and their national counterparts in the member states; and horizontal, transnational peer accountability among MB representatives. This is, as alreadymentioned, evenmore important, becausemany tasks and responsibilities that national bodies previously dealt with autonomously are now delegated to EUAs or are co-ordinated by EUAs. This vertical and transnational perspective is at the core of a new approach
designed to assess the democratic setup of multinational polities and the notion of demoi-cracy. The following section summarizes this notion and discusses its implications for a vertical and horizontal assessment of accountability relations between EUAs and member states’ institutions.
