2008 Commission Communication 'European Agencies – the Way Forward': What is the Follow-Up Since Then?

Abstract

On 17th February 2010, the Heads of the European Union agencies met with the European Commission President, Barroso. President Barroso stressed in his speech that European agencies play a significant role in European Union governance today and recalled the necessity of European Union institutions addressing important issues raised by these agencies, as had been stressed in the Commission’s 2008 Communication to the European Parliament and the Council entitled ‘European Agencies - The Way Forward’. This article is aimed at assessing the follow-up given to this 2008 Communication, by first of all describing the genesis of the 2008 Commission’s Communication, then by studying which type of decentralized organization - ‘European regulatory agency’ - the Commission has concentrated on in its Communication and, finally, by analyzing on which bases the Commission has intended to relaunch the inter-institutional debate in order to assess whether an effective follow-up was given to it. More than two years have elapsed since the Commission adopted the Communication. The Commission had at that time announced that the first results could be envisaged for the end of 2009.