Research project AM/10/014 (Research action AM)
Specialists in law and political science still rarely take an interest in the national aspects of European integration. However, the federative process at work in Europe is modifying gradually public actors’ behaviour and the rules governing their conduct at State level. The repercussions of the Community’s founding treaties within domestic orders are not confined, for example, to recognising European citizenship, establishing a European judicial area or making allowance for regional realities. The national public authorities are feeling their interdependence more and more each day and are becoming aware of the part they play in the European Union’s integration process.
The perception held by theoretically sovereign States of their mutual dependency, their common heritage and their collective identity calls for scientific reflection on the way in which these States live within the European structure. This is the reason why the two teams, who joined forces for the execution of this project, began researching the field at the end of the 1990s.
The joint project financed by the OSTC comes in two distinct parts.
I. Continuation, within a comparative perspective, of the study of the domestic transposition of Union decisions, which it is impossible to disassociate from analysis of the role of the Member States in defining and interpreting the European Union’s policies. This aspect will be handled by the team at Antwerp university (see AM/06/012).
II. Part two of the study is being entrusted to the team at Louvain catholic university (UCL) and is essentially the subject of this contract. Independent of the problems with regulatory transposition, the actual enforcement of the European Union’s policies in the Member States, particularly in Belgium, needs to be analysed. It is a matter of verifying how the political and administrative authorities as well as social partners are ensuring that the Union’s policies, in extending the actions of the Community authorities, are effective in concrete terms.
OBJECTIVES
Overall research will centre on the implementation, in both regulatory as well as practical terms, of European standards in Belgium.
For objectives concerning the "Transposition of European policies in Belgium ", please refer to contract AM/06/012.
At UCL, ‘GEDAIE’ (‘Study Group on the Administrative Law of European Integration’) will set out to study in substantive terms the application of European policies and how their application is being controlled in Belgium as well as in the other Member States. The study will examine therefore the conditions for the application of the Union’s policies by the public authorities and social partners as part of extending the actions of the Community institutions. The problem will also lead to questions being raised about controlling and sanctioning techniques. These should make it possible to ensure that domestic implementation comes about and achieves the expected results.
The study will focus on certain precise topics chosen on a sample basis.
1. From the point of view of the application of Community policies in Belgium, the study will address relations between central as well as local administrators and the bodies set up to perform the actual tasks. Concrete conditions will be investigated that will be able to ensure respect for Community obligations by Belgium "on the ground" in the most effective way.
There will be an evaluation, concentrating on clearly-defined problems, of whether it is necessary or justified to reshuffle ministerial departments, create new bodies, and reorganise or introduce new forms of co-ordination:
- between all interested departments;
- within the Community and regional administrative departments themselves;
- between the Federal Government, the Communities and the Regions ;
- horizontally between Belgian Communities or Regions.
During political-scientific analysis of the practical data compiled, the team at UCL will be able to benefit from the assistance of political scientists from the UIA.
2. The study will also address the role of the political and administrative authorities (parliamentary assemblies, inter-departmental co-ordination bodies, relations between the Belgian and European public services...), of the citizens themselves (complaints) and, where necessary, of the courts in controlling the correct application of Community rules.
3. Proceedings and sanctions in the event of violations of Community law will also be examined. It will be necessary to analyse the content and effectiveness of existing sanctions at the national level (penal and administrative sanctions). Therefore, questions will be asked about limits in terms of the controlling and sanctioning powers of the Belgian authorities as well as the responsibility of the State towards its European partners and citizens.
4. Thanks to its foreign correspondents, ‘GEDAIE’ has already had the chance to address the situation in various Member States of the European Union. This information will need to be supplemented. Efforts will be pursued to draw lessons from these international comparisons in terms of the allocation of tasks and collaboration between the political authority and civil service and with regard to human resources management.
L'application et le contrôle de l'application du droit communautaire par les administration belges : résumé
Bruxelles : Politique scientifique, 2004 (SP1371)
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