Free European Union Regulation Challenges Essay Sample
The European Union regulation has become complex for the last three decades; as a result, the national governments have resolved to delegate the regulatory duty to other levels of government. Various governments have established independent authorities to assist in the regulatory function. These delegations have led to the necessity of facilitating cooperation between the authorities and the central government. There are two levels of a regulatory system that need proper coordination in order to attain a smooth regulatory system. These levels include European Commission and the regulatory authorities at the national level.
Strategies must be established to reduce the conflicting demand of various government ministries that can bring dilemma in the process of regulation. In the process of the implementation of the European Union legislation, there are four applicable methods. These methods are direct, indirect, networked and multi-governmental integration. These methods face various challenges, which can be reduced by the use of two main regulatory strategies. These strategies include the centralization of regulatory authority, and to immunize the controller against political interest.
The European Union adopted a legislation process based on the community method. This concept assigns the key role to the supranational institutions, such as the European Commission and the European Parliament. The national governments play the role of implementation of the legislation, while the commissions play the monitoring role. The national practices differ from one nation to the other and hence, undermine the achievement of a common legislation among the nations.
Policy implementation in the European Union is a multilevel system, which can either be direct, indirect, networked or compound. The implementation at the national level takes the indirect way in the adoption of rules and standards developed at the international government organization level. In the European Union, the implementation, transposition and application enjoyed by each state as sovereign states are different. Executives’ politics shapes the indirect implementation making the process vulnerable to distortion. The research has indicated that national governments expose the policies into different rules and traditions as practiced in their nation. As a result, the end results of the regulation may be different from one state to the other. In an attempt to reduce this valuation, there are regulations set up to guide the implementation. These regulations lie on principals of friendly relationship and mutual benefit among the member states.
The European Union has an executive, known as the Commission, which is separate from the national governments` departments of the member states. This commission can implement the policies in a different system than the Council of ministers. This independent implementation takes place through the European Union executive body or its agencies. The control of these agencies is a duty of the executive body to ensure that there is a proper implementation and that the achievement of expected results. The executive body also assists the agencies with technical support, where necessary. The implementation of the policies through the system of the European agencies is more uniform than the use of national governments, but, it is less uniform than, when implemented by the European Union commission.
When the European Union commission does not have national agencies in a member state, the commission adopts a national agency in the process of preparing and implementing policies. In this case, the national agencies act in a double –hated manner, in a multilevel union, and as a part of the national administration. As the national administration, the agency officials serve in the ministerial department as the bridge between the European legislation and council working committees. When dealing with the European Union legislation, the agencies act as for the directives of the commission, but not the ministerial guidelines. In this perspective, the agencies face challenges of two conflicting interests of the European Union and the ministerial expectation and hence they may end up in a dilemma. The conflicting interest may capture the attention of the governments’ executives, where there are the possibilities of the conflict to cut across to the international arena.
Thirdly, the European Union can apply a networked system of implementation it legislation. This system involves a vertical relationship between national agencies, ministerial departments, and European Union agencies. It also involves horizontal relationships, where vertical relationships in different countries relate and work together in a network. The agencies in this system exchange information and consult across the network with minimal consideration of the superior bodies in the process of implementation. A strong network in this case can challenge the interference of national authority and the ministerial departments as well as the European Union commission (Morten & Trondal 2009, p. 782). This may not be realized in a case, where the government operates in a hierarchical tradition, where the ministerial departments control the activities of the network from time to time. The European Union executive has successfully taken over coordination of the existing networks in order to control and strengthen their functioning.
Lastly, the European Union regulation and legislation implementation can be achieved through the combination and coordination of different modes of government as practiced by the member states. Public administrations among member states face complex issues, such as problems, solutions, and decision making challenges. The process of implementation of the European Union legislation can be enhanced by the combination of indirect, direct and networked systems.
The idea of combining different modes of governance depends on the possibility of combining competing, inconsistent and contradicting principles and balancing the conflicting interest. The modes of government are fairly dynamic in nature, and hence implementation of this idea requires the European Union commission to adjust to the new competing government models simultaneously. The combination of the modes of government led to the multidimensional order, which overcomes most of the external shorts. This mode is, therefore, more preferred than the one-dimensional mode of regulation. Despite the strength of this method of regulation, most of the governments’ modes may not be easy to integrate with others. There are various aspects, which cannot be, integrated while the governments undertaking such practices may not be willing to undergo them.
In conclusion, the regulatory, competition and cooperation in the European Union is complex in nature. There are many benefits, which can be, accrued by the member states in the European Union and hence efforts are immensely essential to ensure that there is the required integration among the member states. In order to integrate the regulation of the union, there are various strategies put in place by the union regulators. This regulation can be done by the union commissions, which can delegation regulation into its agencies or to government departments. When regulation takes place through the delegation of duties, uniform regulation can not be realized. The ministerial department can be influenced by its interest and the policies put in place by the government. On the other hand, ministerial departments can influence the agencies to act for the sake of their own interests.
The European Union can use two main methods to ensure there is uniform cooperation and independence of regulation. The first method is to establish centralized regulatory system; at the union level and the national level of each member. This gives the regulatory body the strength to withstand local influences and facilitate coordination between the member states and the union commission. Secondly, the regulator should be immunized against political interferences. This can be assured by ensuring that the regulators are not working under any political or government department.