DFG Research Grant: The Law of Administrative Organisation of the EU – A Comparative Study

The project proposed aims at developing a law of administrative organisation for the EU following a comparative study of the US administration. The growing differentiation of the administration of the EU is one of the most pertinent developments in the European integration process. The ongoing agencification is most visible, but there are other important features such as the structural change of the Commission, the establishment of an administrative framework of the Council or the transferral of administrative tasks to the European Central Bank. The analysis of this development is far advanced in terms of description and scrutiny of single matters such as judicial review, liability and legitimacy. There is however no comprehensive conceptualisation. In many Member States' administrative jurisdictions a field of the law of administrative organisation can be discerned. Nonetheless, the relevant law of the EU cannot be considered as a synthesis of these jurisdictions. It is expected that new insights can be gained from a comparison with the legal structure of administration in the US, given that it represents an administration comparable in size and with structural parallels such as the existence of independent agencies, the problem of oversight, the construction of interagency relationship and the issue of administrative federalism. In terms of methods, the project does not aim at a schematic transfer of institutions and models from one legal system to the other, but at the advancement of EU law mirrored in an analysis of the US law of administrative organisation. The results of the two-and-a-half year project shall be presented in a monograph in English; summary elements shall be published in a paper in German.