European governance and supranational institutions. Making states comply

Book abstract:

The European Commission has previously been seen as the driver of the political agenda for European integration, and has often appeared to engage in controversy with Member States who might have seen the role of the Commission as 'obedient servant' to be controlled by national governments. This relationship is not confined to the Commission as other EU supranational institutions such as European Court of Justice have developed to a similar pattern. So the question might be posed - 'Who governs?' This work examines the role of the European Commission and European Court of Justice in compliance politics.

The book is organised in seven chapters. Following the introductory chapter which gives the background to the debate, argument and methodology, chapter two looks at P-A analysis (principal-agent) and the P-S-A (principal-supervisor-agent) model developed specifically to explain strategic interaction in EU enforcement. The strains of the internal market and the need to strengthen compliance measures are the feature of chapter three. There then follow three case studies which examine the strategies adopted by the Commission and the ECJ to improve the enforcement measures of the EU: enhancing the capacity of existing means of supervision at the centralised EU level, inducing the delegation of new and more far-reaching enforcement powers at the 1991 and 1996-97 IGCs, and independently shifting EU supervision toward decentralised enforcement through national courts. The author draws together the main results of the study in the concluding chapter, plants some signposts as to the way forward, and closes with an endorsement of the process as it currently operates.

The work will interest scholars and students of European Union politics and governance theories.

Jonas Tallberg is Research Fellow at Lund University, Sweden and the Swedish Institute of International Affairs.