Determinants of infringements in the implementation process of European Union legislation at the sub-national level

Clinton, Peter; Arregui, Javier

Determinants of infringements in the implementation process of European Union legislation at the sub-national level

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Citation

Clinton, P, Arregui, J. Determinants of infringements in the implementation process of European Union legislation at the sub-national level. 2022. handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10230/52847

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Abstract

This paper systematically investigates variations in infringements of EU rules by sub-state authorities (SSA). This has been understudied in EU compliance literature. The paper tests two different types of variables. On the one hand, we test structural factors in terms of the autonomy that SSA hold. We expect increasing autonomy of SSA to increase the transaction costs of implementing EU rules. On the other hand, we test individual level factors that might influence the implementation process across SSA. These factors are related to the preferences that SSA hold, their administrative capacity or their public opinion on the EU. We report, for the first time, the number of infringements for which SSA were responsible in 9 Member States. The results indicate that SSA with increased autonomy and the desire to exercise this autonomy is correlated with higher numbers of infringements. This suggests that transaction costs associated with multi-level policy implementation are important determinants of SSA infringements. The paper also reports that lower administrative capacities of SSA leads to higher levels of SSA infringements.