It is by now almost commonplace to observe that the governance model used for the implementation of EU law has departed from the traditional dichotomy between direct and indirect administration. While not entirely a new phenomenon, as of today, in virtually all EU policy fields, ranging from marketing authorisations to the management of EU funds to the area of Freedom, Security and Justice, banking supervision, or administrative cooperation in the field of taxation, there is increasing recourse to cooperative modes of operation between national and EU authorities, as well as between national authorities themselves. These cooperative structures and procedures take various shapes and are used for various ends, from authorising products on the market or industrial installations to be set up, to exchanging information, and to monitoring and sanctioning violations of EU law.

While lacking a general legislative framework in EU law, the phenomenon of administrative cooperation has been given various labels, and has been studied from various perspectives, which have included some attempts at providing taxonomies. Though not fully encapsulating the whole phenomenon of administrative cooperation, much research has been devoted to the understanding of the so-called “composite procedures” (see, for example, Brito Bastos and Eliantonio). This term refers to administrative decision-making procedures which foresee the involvement of administrative authorities belonging to more than one legal system at various stages of the procedures and with different intensities.

Furthermore, some authors have focused on the procedural rights during composite decision-making processes (Eckes and Mendes), the question of access to justice (see e.g., Hofmann), or the regulatory mechanisms provided to solve disputes in cooperative structures (De Lucia). Other authors have considered composite procedures in specific policy fields (such as risk regulation: Eliantonio and Röttger-Wirtz ; Lanceiro and Eliantonio), or involving specific EU administrative players (such as EU agencies: Scholten and Brenninkmeijer; Luchtman and Scholten), or specific types of cooperative mechanisms, such as inspections (De Bellis) or exchange of information procedures (Galetta, Hofmann and Schneider).

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), in turn, has had the chance to rule on various issues linked to composite procedures, such as the right to be heard (T-346/94, France Aviation v. Commission, EU:T:1995:187) and the duty to give reasons (T-347/03, Eugénio Branco Ldª v Commission, EU:T:2005:265).

Despite this increase in academic and case law attention, a comprehensive and horizontal analysis of the phenomenon of administrative cooperation, extending beyond decision-making procedures, in the European Union is currently lacking.

The aim of the book “Administrative Cooperation in the European Space” is to add to the growing knowledge of this pervasive phenomenon of European administrative law by mapping the modes and structures of administrative cooperation in the European administrative space following a policy approach.

While the phenomenon of administrative cooperation is not new in the context of the process of European integration (and it exists beyond the EU regulatory space as well), it has developed in a piecemeal fashion, with ad hoc arrangements and little systematicity. This book seeks to provide a comprehensive overview of the mechanisms of administrative cooperation in order to identify common patterns, notable differences and shared trends. The book also allows the identification of the main difficulties encountered in terms of administrative cooperation in the policy areas examined, as well as the lessons learned from these cases.

In order to achieve its aim, and because of the almost complete absence of horizontal rules, the book has been structured through a sectorial approach, where each chapter maps the actors, modes and types of mechanisms of administrative cooperation. The selected sectors represent a mix of ‘old’ and more recent policies, with cooperation mechanisms set up for very different regulatory purposes, including a diversity of EU and national administrative actors, and operating within regulatory field where the EU has rather diverse competences. The aim in this context was to attempt to provide a landscape of administrative cooperation mechanisms which would be as representative as possible of the variety of actors, mechanisms, procedures and outcomes which come into play in the different policy fields. In turn, this approach serves to allow us to identify – horizontally – possible common trends and noticeable differences.

The authors of the chapters were asked to consider a number of questions. The questions revolve, in essence, around three main axes, which have been considered essential to understand the ‘administrative cooperation ecosystem’ peculiar to each policy field. In particular, the authors were asked, first of all, to map the relevant legislative and regulatory framework of each policy field, setting out the cooperation mechanisms, as well as the actors involved in cooperative structure and the compulsory or voluntary nature of the cooperation and the margin of discretion afforded to the administrative authorities therein. Secondly, the authors have examined the types of cooperative mechanisms (i.e., whether or not they involve the European administrative level), the mechanisms of cooperation (namely, what the cooperative actions entail concretely) as well as the products of the cooperation, in terms of their concrete outputs. Thirdly, the authors addressed the role of the principles of administrative law in the cooperative structures they have identified, in order to understand which principles play a role and how they have emerged, and the question of the availability of judicial review.

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Posted by Emilie Chevalier (Limoges), Mariolina Eliantonio (Maastricht) and Rui T. Lanceiro (Lisbon).