Toward a better understanding of implementation performance in the EU multilevel system

Abstract

The results of this collection allow for preliminary conclusions about the nuanced interplay between Europeanization and domestication forces in EU implementation, which await testing in different contexts. Some policies lend themselves more to a strategy allowing for extensive domestication than others; but to be effective, decentralized implementing actors need both power and capabilities. Europeanization dynamics strongly influence the direction of domestication of EU policy, but if EU requirements are incompatible with national political preferences domestication trumps Europeanization. Domestication equally prevails if the relationship between EU and national policy is ambiguous and frontline implementers have high discretion. The trend toward the Europeanization of direct EU enforcement challenges its legitimacy. This has implications for EU researchers and practitioners, and suggests methodological challenges and future research trajectories for a performance perspective on EU implementation. More comparative research is needed about the trade-offs between conformance, diversity, and performance in EU multilevel governance.

The role of water quality for local environmental policy implementation

“…Our results for income are in line with findings in Grafton and Knowles (2004), who studied the role of social and economic factors for countries' performance with respect to a water quality index, and Elofsson and von Br€ omssen (2017), where income is shown to positively affect the likelihood of having goals defined for agricultural measures that reduce nutrient loads. It is argued that a strongly decentralized and, hence, non-uniform policy can perform well if local governments have a strong autonomy (Oates 2001;Thomann and Sager 2017), such as is claimed to be the case in Sweden (J€ orby 2002;Hysing 2009). However, our results suggest that such autonomy is not sufficient to secure fair outcomes or maximization of welfare on the national level.…”

Towards a Decent Labour Market for Low Waged Migrant Workers

“…foreign workers situated at the building sites of the European Central Bank in Germany and the 'Eemshaven' in the Netherlands, as well as in workplaces in the meat sector and the supermarket distribution centres, clearly show exploitative practices in combination with the fact that cross-border mobile workers concerned, most often, do not even know their legal status. 63 strategy for the single market, at the service of Europe's economy and society, Retrieved from: http//:ec.europa.eu/bepa/pdf/monti_report_final_10_05_2010_en.pdf. 62 It is interesting to note that these findings about the 'real' situation of lowwaged mobile workers within the EU, indicate that the effective application and enforcement of workers' rights under the narrative on free movement of workers, is also far from guaranteed.…”

“…In 2009, the Swedish blue-collar trade union confederation LO decided that the Swedish Municipal Workers Trade Union (Kommunal) should be allocated responsibility for the berry pickers. 63 They had previously organised seasonal workers working in the agricultural and forest sectors.…”

“…In our case file research, we encountered 19 incidences of this strategy being used by possibly illegally staying TCNs to avoid being identified as workers by labour inspectors. 63 It is also possible that an employer may have already successfully prevented TCNs from finding employment prior to a labour inspection meant to ferret out illegally employed and illegally staying migrants, but the extent to which employer diligence contributes to stemming the flow of irregular migration into the EU is unknown. Moreover, when TCNs are detained, this does not inevitably mean they will also be forced to leave the EU.…”

Politics or management? Analysing differences in local implementation performance of the EU Ambient Air Quality directive

“…Yet, the EU compliance literature has paid little systematic attention to the local implementation of EU policies (Treib, 2014;Versluis, 2007). This lack of systematic attention is surprising as analysis of local implementation is instrumental to understanding how member states make EU policies work (Thomann and Sager, 2017).…”