THE GOVERNANCE OF COMPLIANCE
Edoardo Chiti
Programme
Compliance is often associated to means of enforcement such as recourse to courts. Yet,
compliance by the addressees of EU law and policies increasingly involves steering
instruments seeking to accommodate behaviours of national public powers and private
parties with existing EU law and policy targets. The course will be devoted to identify and
discuss the governing and steering instruments that specifically concern the policy phase
of implementation. Four main questions will be tackled. i) What steering instruments have
emerged and consolidated in the last two decades in order to manage the legal and
political processes underlying the implementation of EU law and policies? ii) Do these
instruments represent «new modes of governance» or do they rather combine new forms
of action with traditional command and control techniques? iii) How can we evaluate the
emerging «governance of compliance» and what problems does it raise? In particular, are
these steering instruments successful in ensuring compliance with EU law and policies?
And what normative patterns of European ordering do they encapsulate and directly or
indirectly promote? iv) Finally, what are the perspectives of development of such
«governance of compliance»?
Outline
1. Purpose
Delimitation of the field and preliminary clarifications (compliance, implementation,
enforcement, governance)
The questions of the course and their relevance
2. The Emergence and Consolidation of Steering Instruments in the Policy Phase of
Implementation
a. Variables
• Public actors involved
• Involvement of private parties
• Steering modes
• Implementation capacity of the different steering modes
b. The combination of the various elements in a number of main regulatory frameworks
c. Legal limits to the provision of steering instruments
3. New, Renovated or Traditional Modes of Governance?
The mix between institutional novelties and old techniques in the existing steering
instruments
4. Assessing the emerging «governance of compliance»
a. A functional evaluation: lights and shadows of existing steering instruments in ensuring
compliance with EU law and policies
b. A normative evaluation: an ambivalent machinery
5. Perspectives
a. Towards a stricter interconnection between European and global steering instruments?
b. The «governance of compliance» beyond the Commission’s sphere of influence?
Readings
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Council Regulation (EEC) No 1210/90 of 7 May 1990 on the establishment of the
European Environment Agency and the European environment information and
observation network
Medium Term Programme 2008-2009 for Co-operation between Directors-General
Responsible for Public Administration in the EU Member States, prepared by the
Portuguese Presidency and submitted to the Troika (Finland, Germany, Slovenia
and France) for approval at the 49th DG meeting of 10-11 December 2007 in
Lisbon (excerpts: pp. 1-10)
COM (2008) 135 final, The European Agencies – The Way Forward
Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council
establishing the European Electronic Communications Market Authority, COM
(2007) 699 final (excerpts: pp. 1-13)
De Larosière Report, Brief Summary, 25 February 2009 (the full report is available
at: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/finances/docs/de_larosiere_report_en.pdf)
E. Chiti, The Administrative Implementation of European Union Law. A Taxonomy
and its Implications, in H.C.H. Hofmann and A.H. Türk (eds), Legal Challenges in
EU Administrative Law, Edward Elgar (Cheltenham, forthcoming, 2009)
Short Electronic Bibliography
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68,
Number
1,
pp.
21-36,
available
at
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F. Bignami, Three Generations of Participation Rights Before the European Commission,
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Experimentalist Governance in the European Union, European Governance Papers, No.
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S. Smismans, New Modes of Governance and the Participatory Myth, European
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Deliberation and the Quest for Democratisation, Arena Report No. 02/2003, available at
http://www.arena.uio.no/cidel/Workshop_Firenze/Florence_Report_PartI.pdf
C. Joerges, Sozialstaatlichkeit in Europe? A Conflict of Laws Approach to the Law of
the EU and the Proceduralisation of Constitutionalisation, in 10 German Law Journal No.
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Short Paper Bibliography
J.-B. Auby and J. Dutheil de la Rochère (Eds.), Droit Administratif Européen, under the
direction of J.-B. Auby and J. Dutheil de la Rochère, Bruxelles, Bruylant, 2007
D. Chalmers and A. Tomkins, European Union Public Law. Text and Materials,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007
E. Nieto-Garrido and I. Martín Delgado, European Administrative Law in the
Constitutional Treaty, Oxford and Portland, Oregon, Hart Publishing, 2007
H.C.H. Hofmann and A.H. Türk (eds.), EU Administrative Governance, Cheltenham,
Edward Elgar, 2006
P. Craig, EU Administrative Law, Oxford, Oxord University Press, 2006
J. Schwarze, European Administrative Law, II ed., London, Sweet & Maxwell, 2006
D. Gerardin, R. Muñoz and N.Petit (Eds.), Regulation through Agencies in the EU. A New
Paradigm of European Governance, Cheltenham, UK, Northampton, MA, USA, Edward
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E. Chiti, L’integrazione amministrativa europea, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2003
C. Joerges and R. Dehousse, Good Governance in Europe’s Integrated Market, Oxford,
Oxford University Press, 2002