Accountability and Managerial Needs within the Commission

Abstract

The longer a EU public policy runs, the greater the supranational responsibility in policy-making, and the greater the need for the Commission to become involved in domestic policy implementation. In accordance with the ‘inseparability hypothesis’ of the implementation management model, the Commission is expected to become increasingly concerned with national policy implementation in order to produce adequate policy proposals, and because the Commission risks being made accountable for policy failures in the execution of a common policy. The Commission has, however, only developed very weak formal links with policy implementation. It is dependent on the national authorities for the execution of, and information about the execution of, European programmes. Therefore, the Commission was expected to offset its disadvantaged position in the multi-level system by adapting its services to the emergence of new informational and managerial needs. In other words, the Commission has to prove the value of European policies and of its own performance to its political principals, i.e. to the Council, and also to other EU institutions such as the Parliament and the Court of Auditors. This makes information on, and links to, policy implementation crucial, and the longer the EU engages in a particular public policy the greater the demand for information at the supranational level about the effects and efficiency of European policies. As regards the collection and feedback of relevant information into the European arena, the particular conditions of the EU polity make the Commission, according to the ‘inseparability hypothesis’, dependent upon relatively autonomous national actors. In order to lessen this dependency one expects the Commission to try to acquire a steady (and independent) supply of information on policy implementation.