The EU's Schizophrenic Constitutional Debate: Vertical and Horizontal Decentralism in European Governance

Normative discourses on the European institutional set-up have paid attention to both vertical and horizontal decentralism. Decentralism refers to the respect of the autonomy of lower or smaller decision-making levels, the procedures privileging these decision-making levels (subsidiarity), and the involvement of these decision-making units in the case that policy-making is (partially) defined (and implemented) at a more central level. Vertical decentralism indicates these processes with regard to territorial decision-making levels and actors. Horizontal decentralism consists in these processes with regard to functional levels and actors, in particular civil society organisations and private organisations.This paper argues that the vertical and horizontal dimension of decentralism have always been dealt with separately within the European constitutional debate. For long, the debate has focused on issues of territorial representation, and as far as it has paid attention to decentralism this has been interpreted in vertical terms. It is only by the end of the 1990s that the normative discourse on the European construction starts also to pay attention to horizontal decentralism. However, normative arguments on vertical decentralism meet hardly ever with those on horizontal decentralism, as can still be illustrated by the current constitutional debate, with the Convention-Constitutional Treaty debate on the one hand, and the (follow-up to the) White Paper on European Governance on the other hand. Institutional interests may explain this separation of discourses. However, in practice European governance is characterised by interactions between public and private actors at multiple territorial levels. Therefore, the vertical and the horizontal dimensions of decentralism are intertwined. As a consequence, the normative debate on the future of the European polity should not deal with these issues in complete isolation from one another.governance; constitution building; decentralisation

Policy evaluation in the EU: The challenges of linking ex ante and ex post appraisal.

The EU’s new approach to policy evaluation is characterised by a focus on closing the policy cycle (linking ex ante and ex post appraisal) and by applying evaluation to all types of policy intervention, whether expenditure or regulatory policy. This article analyses the main features and challenges of this new approach. It first studies the conceptual and interdisciplinary challenge of such an encompassing approach to evaluation. It then assesses the new approach in the light of four key objectives of ex ante and ex post appraisal; ensuring evidence and learning; accountability, transparency and participation; policy coherence; and reducing the regulatory burden

The politicization of ex post policy evaluation in the EU

The European Commission’s 2015 Better Regulation package has placed ex post evaluation at the centre of European governance. This strengthens a trend of gradual politicization of evaluation in European policymaking. This article analyses how the European Commission’s approach to ex post policy evaluation has changed over the last decade. It shows how evaluation has developed from a rather technical process to a more politicized process, which is clearly linked to political priority setting, subject to centralized control, and involving a wider set of actors. At the same time, it argues that the Commission avoids a profound debate on the merits and objectives of the process of evaluation itself and concludes on the merits and risks of evaluation at times of rising populism

Functional Participation in EU Delegation Regulation: Lessons from the United States and the EU\u27s Constitutional Moment:

Back to Government?: The Pluralistic Deficit in the Decisionmaking Processes and Before the Courts, Symposium. University of Trento, Italy, June 11-12, 2004

Protecting EU citizens in the UK from a Brexit ‘windrush on steroids’: a legislative proposal for a declaratory registration system

Three years after the Brexit referendum, the more than 3 million EU citizens residing in the UK still have no clarity what their legal status will be after Brexit. It is uncertain whether the Withdrawal Agreement will ever be adopted, while national measures adopted by the UK Government do not provide proper protection. The ‘EU Settlement Scheme’ has been adopted through secondary legis-lation, which can be easily changed over time, thus providing limited security. Moreover, the Scheme introduces an application system which will turn legally residing EU citizens into illegal immigrants if they do not apply successfully by the deadline, leading to scenario’s similar to those seen with the Windrush scandal. It is high time that the UK legislator takes appropriate action. This paper presents a full legislative proposal to turn the EU Settlement Scheme into a declaratory registration scheme that will ensure that EU citizens receive a document proving their status, while avoiding turning them into illegal immigrants. It equally provides a proposal to define the rights of these citizens into primary legisla-tion so they cannot be easily undermined

Functional Participation in EU Delegation Regulation: Lessons from the United States and the EU\u27s Constitutional Moment:

Back to Government?: The Pluralistic Deficit in the Decisionmaking Processes and Before the Courts, Symposium. University of Trento, Italy, June 11-12, 2004

Ring-fencing citizens’ rights in the Brexit negotiations: legal framework and political dynamics

As the Withdrawal Agreement got massively defeated in the House of Commons the risks of a no deal are now higher than ever. More than 3 million EU citizens in the UK and more than a million British citizens in the EU remain in extreme uncertainty about their status. This paper explains why the UK and the EU have so far failed to ring-fence citizens’ rights and ensure they are protected even in case of no deal. It shows how unilateral national solutions (by the UK and the 27 EU Member States) do not provide sufficient protection, and sets out the legal and political strategy through which a citizens’ rights agreement under Article 50 may still be adopted

Long read: EU citizens in the UK are in a particularly weak position and need an independent authority to monitor their rights

The Brexit Withdrawal Agreement has been unveiled, and there are serious limitations to the future protections of EU citizens living in Britain after Brexit. As things stand now, EU citizens risk falling into an implementation gap created by the limitations to bottom-up enforcement, and the limits of international dispute settlement. In this blog, Stijn Smismans (Cardiff University) argues that EU citizens in the UK need a proper independent authority to monitor their rights

more inclusive european governance through impact assessments

In this article, we present an overall picture of the inclusiveness of IA, based on data on over 800 IAs carried out by all DGs of the European Commission from 2003 to 2013. According to official guidelines, IAs can deliver a variety of goals, and we posit that each goal can be linked to a different inclusion strategy. Specifically, we consider that the goal of coordination requires the inclusion of Commission actors, the goal of collecting neutral expertise requires the involvement of working and expert groups, while pursuing input-legitimacy requires a large number of stakeholders as well as online consultation open to the general public to be part of the procedure. Our findings reveal that DGs tend to prioritise coordination over collection of expertise and input legitimacy and that experience in carrying out IAs favours a more participatory approach, meaning that the more DGs make use of IA the more they will tend to include stakeholders and to launch public consultation. On the whole, the analysis highlights the importance of learning to fully develop the potential of the ambitious EU IA regime