Supranational Activism as an Assertion Process? The Case of Europol

Abstract

The European Police Office has been the object of impressive developments since its creation in 1995, with notably some supranational trends like its transformation into a European agency in 2010. This dynamic raises questions on the influence of Europol itself in this process which tends to favour its expansion and confer it broader resources. This leads therefore to the question to what degree Europol displays supranational activism. To this end, this article uses some principal-agent considerations while considering that Europol has two specific features which could potentially contribute to the specific institutional trajectory of the Office: multiple principals and an agenda-setting function. Consequently, Europol’s principals’ heterogeneous preferences and its capability of defining problems, notably through its Directors, have enabled Europol to act as a policy entrepreneur to project its preferences and its representations for to strengthen itself. However, Europol can be conceived as a supranationalist opportunist as it punctually aspires for supranationalisation, taking care not to antagonize the Member States which remain its main contributors.

Pushing the Boundaries. New Research on the Activism of EU Supranational Institutions

“…Clearly, combined activism is frequent, notably between the European Parliament and the Commission. Furthermore, as Piquet (2017) demonstrates in her study of Europol, the activism of one institution (Europol) can contribute to the activism of other bodies, here the EP, which extended its policy making role in some areas of Justice and Home Affairs in connection to the increased role of Europol, not least in order to increase its control over the agency. Roos (2017) argues that the EP supported the Commission's aims to increase its scope of influence, notably in terms of initiative: every new policy area for which the Commission could draw up proposals potentially gave the EP the opportunity to influence legislation.…”

“…Łacny (2017) analyses the difficult role of the ECJ manoeuvring between Commission and member state interests on financial corrections, leading to the result that at some times the ECJ favoured supranational preferences, while at others it accommodated member state preferences, not least in terms of setting clear principles that the Commission has needed to observe. Furthermore, the potential for conflict between the Commission and its numerous agencies is real (Everson et al 2014;Piquet 2017). Activism by the Court of Auditors -notably through critical performance and financial audits of all the other EU bodies -created the potential for conflict with and among these bodies (Stephenson 2017).…”

“…A version of rational choice institutionalism is the Principal-Agent approach. In the EU context, the principal is normally the member states acting collectively, through the Council, to delegate policymaking powers to a supranational agent -as outlined for instance by Piquet (2017) with regard to the activism of Europol in relation to the member states. 'Through delegation to an agent, the principal(s) hope to manage externalities through the centralisation of expertise, facilitate collective decision-making, resolve disputes, enhance credibility, and/or lock in commitments.…”