Abstract
A long-standing problem of policy making in multilevel systems is the structural gap between higher-level policy formulation and its lower-level implementation. Inside the European Union (EU), the problem is well known and has been subject to extensive research on compliance and the EU’s executive order. Although the Commission is responsible for the implementation of most European Community policies, it lacks the means for effective policy execution. The authorities of the member states, of ten at regional or local level, execute policies; and they act under the general principle of national administrative autonomy when implementing EU law. This creates a dilemma that is difficult to resolve: policy execution is controlled and ensured by the Commission, which lacks the material, personnel, and legal means to steer the bodies that actually carry out the execution, because these bodies remain formally integrated in their independent state hierarchies.
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© 2015 Eva G. Heidbreder
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Heidbreder, E.G. (2015). Horizontal Capacity Pooling: Direct, Decentralized, Joint Policy Execution. In: Bauer, M.W., Trondal, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of the European Administrative System. European Administrative Governance. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137339898_21
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137339898_21
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