How to characterize the relationship between member governments and the European Commission has long been a matter of controversy among EU scholars. Although most now agree that traditional theoretical frameworks -intergovernmentalism and supranationalism -are inadequate to understand the complexities of EU governance, few viable alternatives have emerged. In this article, I provide a prospective look into a promising approach. The analytical framework is built on insights adapted from the new economics of organization (NEO). Specifically, I fuse the theoretical notion of incomplete contracting with principal-agent analytics to explain both the form and content of supranational delegation. The framework promises to offer scholars the means to get away from asking whether or not member governments dominate supranational institutions, to an inquiry wherein one can distinguish the conditions under which governments control supranational institutions from those where these institutions operate with a degree of autonomy.

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This articles surveys EU efforts to promote competition rules and practices to countries of the developing world. Two modalities stand out. First, the EU uses bilateral and regional agreements as vehicles to promote the observance of rule frameworks that mirror closely core EU treaty competition provisions. The objective is to encourage closer alignment of foreign rules and practices with those of the EU. Second, EU authorities promote competition policy through enforcement cooperation agreements. Though not addressing directly the composition of rules, the agreements seek to more closely align enforcement expectations to reduce the risk of, and costs associated with, interjurisdictional conflict. In addition to highlighting policy promotion efforts, the article notes the varying degrees to which the EU has been able to shape foreign rules and practices. The article concludes by examining two factors that account for this variationthe scope of political-legal integration and the degree of market dependence.

"Council Regulation 4064/89 on the Control of Concentration between Undertakings"- more commonly known as the Merger Regulation - was a watershed development in the evolution of the EU's competition policy regime. In this article we seek to cast new analytical light on what, in many respects, is an established narrative. To do this we draw on insights from the new institutional economics (NIE). Specifically, we draw on the complementary concepts of incomplete contracting and delegation. We demonstrate how the Commission utilized the discretion attendant to its delegated authority to interpret and apply the indeterminate language of treaty competition articles so as to alter the economic, political and legal environment as it pertained to merger activity. It did so to such an extent that Member States, long resistant to Commission proposals for a merger control regulation, came to regard legislative action as preferable to the uncertainty represented by the evolving status quo. Copyright (c) 2009 The Author(s). Journal compilation (c) 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.