Ideas, Interests, and Institutional Change: the European Commission Debates the Delegation Problem

The forthcoming Commission White Paper on Governance devotes a good deal of attention to the possibility of delegating rule-making powers to independent European agencies. The extensive debate stimulated by thepreparation of this document has revealed deep differences of opinion. The orthodox doctrine, stubbornlydefended by the Legal Service, holds that such delegation would upset the balance of power among ECinstitutions, reduce the Commission’s ability to fulfill its duties under the treaties, and ultimately undermine theconstitutional foundations of the Community. By contrast, the reformers maintain that the received view ondelegation is by now completely outdated, and that the principle of institutional balance should be interpreteddynamically. These officials work at the cutting edge of regulatory policy and hence are particularly concernedabout the loss of status and credibility of the Commission. A career in an independent European agency isviewed as a promising alternative. The discourse of both reformers and defenders of the status quo depends crucially on the concept ofinstitutional balance. I argue that this concept can be properly understood only in the context of the venerabletheory of mixed government. This suggests that the European Community is not so much sui generis as the latterdayversion of a pre-modern model of governance.