How do supranational regulators keep companies in line? An analysis of the enforcement styles of EU agencies

MC (Rik) Joosen, AT (Asya) Zhelyazkova

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)
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Abstract

National governments have increasingly transferred enforcement powers to EU agencies that monitor and penalize non-compliance by private actors. How do EU agencies apply enforcement competences in practice? Based on the Eurolegalism thesis, pressures for deeper integration have led to the emergence of a more adversarial enforcement style in Europe. Consequently, supranational regulators are expected to employ formal and coercive enforcement instruments. Conversely, studies of EU enforcement suggest that EU agencies may be reluctant to antagonize national governments by prosecuting private actors. In this study, we analyze the enforcement practices of supranational agencies with direct enforcement powers: the EU Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA). We find that EU agencies apply a legalistic approach, but they vary in coerciveness of enforcement. Whereas EU agencies tend to apply more coercive measures against non-conform products, they are generally not adversarial toward non-compliant organizations.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)983-1000
Number of pages18
JournalJournal of Common Market Studies
Volume60
Issue number4
Early online date12 Dec 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We would like to thank Chistel Koop, Slobodan Tomic, Ido Sivan‐Sivilia, Markus Haverland and members of the European and Global Governance research group at Erasmus University Rotterdam for their valuable feedback. We are indebted to all interview respondents for taking the time to talk to us about their work. This work was supported by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) under grant 406.17.557.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies published by University Association for Contemporary European Studies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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