Administrative Law and Policy of the European Union

The European Union is a union under the rule of law and accordingly all exercise of public authority needs to conform with the principle of legality. The legal framework of the EU is, however, as much as that of any state or international organization, subject to change over time. That part of this legal framework specifically governing EU administration has been particularly dynamic. The central reason for this dynamism is to be found in the evolving nature of European integration, and in the changing requirements and conditions for implementing EU policies. The legal framework of administration has been both the subject of, and a response to, change in the ambient political and institutional environment. The EU, having started as an organization of six Member States focused on economic integration, has evolved into a Union of twenty-seven Member States now touching almost all elements of the exercise of public power in a modern society. The evolutionary development of the constitutional basis of EU law, with its many phases of Treaty reforms and change induced by case-law, finds its parallel in EU administrative law. European administrative law has in this process grown, changed, and indeed matured over time, and has emerged as an important, yet sometimes not well understood, factor which materially shapes policy in the EU and its achievement in reality.
The rise of the importance of EU administrative law is itself attributable both to the specificities of European integration and to the general increase in the importance of administrative regulation in the past decades. On the one hand, the protection of the society against risks associated with private activity such as banking, food production, energy production and distribution, transport, or activities threatening to the environment, to name just a few, and the achievement of a balance between their benefits and dangers have become increasingly important subjects of attention. On the other hand, the provision of services and infrastructure necessary to ensure and protect basic standards of living such as pensions, health care, access to water, energy supply and telecommunications services have been the subject of mixed regimes, often still having a strong public service element, but increasingly left to private provision subject to various levels of market regulation. Both kinds of motivation for regulatory measures and their implementation by appropriate authorities have added to, and substantially changed, the broad character of public administration in Europe in recent decades. Such changes have occurred not just on a national, that is, Member State level, but also, pre-eminently, on the level of the European Community and now Union. Indeed, many of the changes have themselves been triggered on the European level as integral or at least adjuvant elements of the establishment of the European internal market. The role, then, of administrative law and administrative activity on the European level is extensive and important.
Rules and principles governing the exercise of administrative functions, the organization of the institutions and bodies exercising these functions, and applicable procedures are the essence of EU administrative law. These are the subject of this book. There are, it must be observed, many perspectives from which one can view, analyse and comprehend both administration and administrative law. Three models or perspectives appear to us to be particularly helpful: administration and administrative law may be usefully considered from functional, organizational, and procedural standpoints. The functional aspect of administration refers to the totality of the tasks of administration, no matter who undertakes them and how they are carried out. The organizational perspective emphasises the organization and structure of the institutions, bodies, and actors engaged in undertaking such tasks. Finally, a procedural understanding of administration observes the processes which link the various actors and authorities in the performance of administrative functions. None of these models standing alone provides a fully rounded understanding or conceptualisation of the subject matter of the book. A proper analysis of EU administrative law cannot view it from only one of these perspectives. Taken together, however, these three standpoints do offer a comprehensive perception, giving the subject a more multi-dimensional shape, and thus allowing a more tractable presentation of what is very complex material. For this reason, we offer a discussion of each of these three perspectives — the functional, organizational, and procedural aspects of European Union administration and the associated legal framework — by way of introduction. The three models are, of course, closely interlinked and in reality scarcely separable but, for analytical and presentational clarity, they are here addressed separately.