ABSTRACT
The term ‘European administrative space’ has been used to describe an increasing convergence of administrations and administrative practices at the EU level and various member states’ administrations to a ‘common European model’ (Olsen 2003: 506) and the Europeanisation of the member states’ administrative structures (Page and Wouters 1995). It has also been used to describe the phenomenon of the coordinated implementation of EU law and the Europeanisation of national administrative law (OECD-PUMA 1998; Kadelbach 2002). Whilst the former definition of the European administrative space as an object of research is so broad that it is difficult to define sufficiently precise parameters for analysis (Olsen 2003: 507), the latter definition of the European administrative space is too narrow. Cooperation amongst administrations in the EU/EC goes beyond forms of cooperation for implementation of EU law by Community institutions and member states’ agencies. It is marked by a high degree of close administrative cooperation between all levels of member states’ administrations with the European institutions and bodies in various policy phases. The existing rules and procedures governing administrative cooperation have not been constant and have developed over time. They affect the very nature of the EU’s system of shared sovereignty as well as the conditions for its accountability and legitimacy. The supranational legal and political order, established by the EU/E(E)C member states, has grown accordingly. Thus far, the reality of the European administrative space is closely related to, and its importance has grown with, the expansion over time of the aquis communautaire. Mapping the European administrative space is therefore a fundamental task which will be attempted in this article by means of a brief reconstruction of the development of supranational law and its relation to the notion of the territorially bound exercise of public policies. The article will thus explore the European administrative space mainly in the context of legal and legal-historic developments. This will lay the foundation for analysing the roles of the main actors – national, European and mixed – in exercising public authority in the administrative space, their main forms of interaction and the joint structures they have created.
