What works to make EU law work?
What works to make EU law work? Or, how can we ensure that EU law is implemented effectively in the member states? I have researched[1] this question by studying the usefulness of instruments that are meant to support national administrations in the application of EU law or that may otherwise be expected to have a supportive effect (‘compliance instruments’). The instruments that are included are monitoring and sanctioning tools and post-legislative guidance (supranational instruments); networks that allow for cross-border cooperation (transnational instruments); and civil society and case law (national instruments).
The usefulness of these instruments is studied using perspectives and methods pertaining to both legal and political science, and using a case-study methodology involving three member states that demonstrate different implementation patterns – the Netherlands, Poland, and Portugal – and three EU directives, namely those on general product safety, integrated pollution prevention and control, and safety assessment of foreign aircraft. Important to the analysis are qualitative interviews with actors who are involved in the application of EU law ‘on the ground’, since it is the perceptions of these actors that play an important mediating role in the way in which compliance instruments are used and in the impact that they have.
The empirical findings suggest that a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to compliance is ineffective for making EU law work across the board. This is because the usefulness of compliance instruments varies across countries and policy domains. Not all mechanisms exist in all member states and when they do exist, national officials have different perceptions of the usefulness of these mechanisms. Moreover, perceptions of the conditions that are important to make compliance instruments work vary across member states. Cross-policy variation exists as well; compliance instruments do not exist in all policy areas, and they appear to work better in some areas than in others.
These findings lead to the recommendation that the European Commission should take a flexible approach to compliance management when possible, and a uniform approach when legally required. The findings also suggest that there is a lot to be gained when it comes to the functioning of existing instruments, and recommendations as to how such improvements could look like are provided. These recommendations could be useful not only for the Commission as ‘guardian of the treaties’, but also for the member states as the ‘target group’ of compliance instruments and as those responsible for the application of EU rules on the ground.
[1] Josine Polak, What works to make EU law work? An analysis of the usefulness of national, transnational, and supranational compliance instruments, PhD Maastricht University 16 October 2015