Abstract
In this chapter, I analyze implementation of European directives by focusing on the interplay between domestic political and administrative actors and the Commission as the “guardian” of European policy. Being unaware of the Commission’s true preferences, the domestic actors have to decide whether and to what extent they will adopt an implementing policy that deviates from the legislative policy as embedded in a directive. The model indicates that, in general, deviations only occur when both domestic actors and the Commission prefer so. In addition, uncertainty about the Commission’s preferences plays a limited role: only when the Commission wants a minor deviation from the European policy, the national actors may have difficulty in shaping a proposal that also accounts of what the Commission wants. Being too ambitious the domestic actors may overestimate the Commission’s true preferences and risk to be challenged.
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The dynamics of the enforcement process could be a further extension of the model presented here. The enforcement process is, for instance, modelled by Steunenberg (2010), using a different model in which the Commission has to decide whether or not to open its gates and accept that an enforcing player – the European Court of Justice, or a large number of member states – determines a new interpretation of the European policy.
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Although the model is specified for a one-dimensional outcome space, the main results may also apply to a multi-dimensional space. The only difference is that in a multi-dimensional outcome space more instances of compromising and accommodating Commission types exist, making a straightforward objection against a policy shift during implementation, as the guardian type does, less frequent. Because using a multi-dimensional space will make the presentation of the main argument more complex, I prefer the simpler presentation.
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See Schmidt (2000) for examples of how the Commission may present different interpretations of the status quo. Note that Schmidt’s analysis is about legislative decision making at the European level.
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Before the game begins, the other national players are also uncertain about the preferences of the Commission but know the views of the other domestic players including the national authority. The other players will make the same conjectures as the national authority and follow this player assessing the position of the Commission. Collecting information independently about the Commission preferences might be costly to these players because they are not well linked to existing formal or informal policy networks.
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More specifically, compromising Commission types have an ideal point between z and q, with z = P + 1 ∕ 2(q − P).
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If both types are guardian (combination I in Table 10.1), there will be no separation since the domestic players cannot distinguish between both types. In equilibrium, the Commission signals x = q, the national authority proposes y = q, which will not be vetoed (v = 0) or challenged (w = 0) leading to q as the outcome.
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For the combinations II and III in Table 10.1, there are equilibria in which national authority correctly identifies the Commission as guardian and one in which the Commission is identified as compromising (combination II) or accommodating (combination III).
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As indicated, a guardian type of Commission will not deviate from the status quo. So, given some interpretation x. ≠q, the Council knows that the Commission (weakly) prefers some outcome to the status quo and is at least of a compromising type. If C 1 is an accommodating type of Commission, then C 2 is an accommodating type too, since C 1 > C 2. The national authority can simply propose P, and the Commission will not challenge.
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Both Commission types can be compromising, C 1 > C 2, so that they are willing to accept c 1(q). The national authority is not able to distinguish both types. Consequently, it has to rely on its prior beliefs in making a decision, which, if it wrongly assumes that the Commission is type C 2, leads to a challenge. In other equilibria with compromising types the national authority makes the right guess about the Commission type.
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Interestingly, as Mastenbroek (2007: 142) shows, the implementation of the points system was set up in such a way that the responsible agency did not receive information from the courts on offences. As a consequence, the agency was not able to apply the system.
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Acknowledgements
I thank the participants of the conference “Reform processes and policy change: How do veto players determine decision making in modern democracies” (14–16 May 2009, Mannheim), and the 2009 Conference of the Dutch Political Science Association (28–29 May 2009, Berg en Dal), and particularly Daniel Finke, for helpful comments.
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Steunenberg, B. (2011). Domestic Veto Players, Commission Monitoring and the Implementation of European Policy. In: König, T., Debus, M., Tsebelis, G. (eds) Reform Processes and Policy Change. Studies in Public Choice, vol 16. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-5809-9_10
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