Tradition and Innovation

In our view the question is not whether a common European executive order is emerging or not. ¹ We use the term ‘executive order’ to convey our focus on the changing nature of executive power in Europe and to capture both the political level (ministers and other political office holders) and the administrative level (bureaucracy) of the order in our analysis. Europe has in fact had an executive order for centuries. After the peace of Westphalia this order became increasingly sophisticated as regards its institutional characteristics. However, it was not until the advent of the European Union and its predecessors that Europe’s executive order started to transcend its basically intergovernmental pattern inherited from the past. We ascribe this phenomenon in particular to the consolidation of the European Commission (Commission) as a new and distinctive executive centre at the European level, outside of the intergovernmental locus, the Council of Ministers (Council). This institutional innovation triggers significant centrifugal forces within national governments due to the Commission’s strategy of establishing direct partnerships with national (regulatory) authorities (agencies and others) that might be crucial for the implementation and formulation of EU policies.