ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the 'agency phenomenon' from a multitude of different perspectives. The European Environmental Agency (EEA) plays a central role in coordinating the European Environment Information and Observation Network (EIONET), which facilitates the data collection and processing of several hundred experts and national institutions. The Single European Act (SEA) and the Commission's White Paper on 'Completing the Single Market', adopted in 1985, envisaged entailed the adoption of a vast number of regulatory measures to accompany the internal market programme. In a recent study, Madalina Busuioc investigates one particular aspect of European Union (EU) agency's political accountability, by focusing on the accountability relationship between EU agencies and their management boards. Scholarship on EU agencies is increasingly zooming in on the implications of governance with agencies on the policy process and policy outcomes. European policy networks, the Commission and EU agencies compete and complement each other in the provision and implementation of EU regulatory policies.
