Better regulation in the European Union: Lost in Translation or Full Steam Ahead? The transportation of EU transport directives across member states. (LUP Dissertaties)

241 Pages·2007·1 MB·English

by  Michael Kaeding

Better regulation in the European Union:
Lost in Translation or Full Steam Ahead?
The transposition of EU transport directives across member states
The dissertation was made possible by the financial support of the Netherlands
Organization for Scientific Research under grant NWO-403-01-505.
Editing: Ann and Maureen Weller, Chicago
Lay-out: AlphaZet prepress, Waddinxveen
Leiden University Press is an imprint of Amsterdam University Press
© 2007 M. Kaeding, Leiden/Leiden University Press, 2007
ISBN 978 90 8728 026 0
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Better regulation in the European Union:
Lost in Translation or Full Steam Ahead?
The transposition of EU transport directives
across member states
PROEFSCHRIFT
ter verkrijging van
de graad van Doctor aan de Universiteit Leiden,
op gezag van de Rector Magnificus, prof. dr. P.F. van der Heijden,
volgens besluit van het College voor Promoties
te verdedigen op donderdag 25 oktober 2007
klokke 15 uur
door
Michael Kaeding
geboren te Wuppertal (Duitsland) in 1977
Promotiecommissie:
Promotor: Prof. Dr. Bernard Steunenberg
Referent: Dr. Fabio Franchino (University College London)
Overige leden: Prof. Dr. Adrienne Héritier (European University Institute)
Prof. Dr. David Lowery
Prof. Dr. B. Frans van Waarden (Universiteit Utrecht)
Dr. Antoaneta Dimitrova
Preface
This Ph.D. research was a privileged time of learning due to many circum-
stances. First, I would like to thank the Fachbereich der Politik- und Verwal-
tungswissenschaften of the University of Konstanz for its excellent prepara-
tory academic formation; the Department of Public Administration of Leiden
University for its generously admitted academic freedom and its first-class
research facilities; and colleagues for their support, their interest shown in my
research and their constructive criticism. My special thanks here go to Frank
Häge, Dimiter Toshkov, Caspar v. d. Berg, Mark Rhinard, Andreas Mom, Ingo
Rohlfing, Karen Anderson, Coen van der Giessen, Martijn Groenleer, Rutger
Hagen, Markus Haverland, Sanneke Kuipers, Michael Lewis-Beck, Brooke
Luetgert, Ellen Mastenbroek, Alexandro Martínez-Godin, Wim van Noort,
Fred Pampel, Gerald Schneider, Torsten Selck, Semin Suvarierol and Amy
Verdun.
Furthermore, I am thankful to the Centre for European Policy Studies
(CEPS) team and the Transport Unit at the General Secretariat of the Council
of the European Union, with special attention to Louise van Schaik, Christian
Egenhofer, Elisabeth Alteköster, Aris Tekelenburg, Nicholas Platten, Peter
Asanger and Luc Lapère. In addition, I enjoyed the four-year company of the
research group associated with the ‘Analyzing EU Policies: The Transposition
of Directives’ program. Obviously, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to all of the
European and national administrators, politicians and their assistants who
took time to answer all my questions about the perfidies of EU legislation and
national domestic arenas from the very first moment.
From a logistical point of view, I would like to mention Ann and Maureen
Weller who edited the entire manuscript skillfully and creatively. Financial
assistance is gratefully acknowledged from a number of institutions: the
Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), the Leiden Uni-
versity Fund (LUF), the Netherlands Institute for Government (NIG), the
Meijers Instituut of Leiden University, the European Consortium for Politi-
cal Research (ECPR), the University Association for Contemporary Euro-
pean Studies (UACES), the European Union Studies Association (EUSA), the
French-German Talks in Law and Economics, the LSE Hellenic Observatory
PhD Symposia, the European Research Colloquium of the Netherlands Insti-
tute of Government and CONNEX, the UVic EU Initiative at the University of
Victoria, the Dutch Political Science Association (NKWP), the Dutch Ministry
of Justice, the UK Department of International Development (DFID) and the
European Commission.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my family, partner and close friends
who have always supported me in every way possible. I dedicate this book to
my grandmother.
Danke, bedankt, grazie, thanks, mersi and merci.
These have been the best years of my life so far.
Contents in brief
Preface
Contents in detail
List of figures and tables
1. Introduction
2. Literature review
3. Economic integration in transport services
4. A theoretical framework for apt transposition
5. EU 1995-2004 transport transposition data set
6. Transposition deficit – statistical illusion or reality?
7. Determinants of transposition delay
8. Case selection of on- and off-liners
9. Tracing the process of four national transposition cases
10. ‘Four wins’- Assessing the relative importance of necessity and
sufficiency for timely transposition
11. Summary of findings, conclusion and outlook
Samenvatting
Appendices
References
List of interview respondents
Author and subject index
Curriculum Vitae
Contents in detail

Part I – Introduction and background
1. Introduction 3
1.1 Two big pieces of a puzzle 5
The empirical puzzle: ‘Cannot see the forest
for the numbers’ 5
The theoretical puzzle: ‘Plenty of room for
improvement’ 11
1.2 Research question 13
1.3 The theoretical argument 14
1.4 The research design 17
1.5 Outline of the book 19
2. Literature review 23
2.1 Introduction 23
2.2 European integration and Europeanization 24
2.3 Literature on EU implementation 26
Recent and ad-hoc explanations with little
explanatory power 26
Myopic 28
Methodological divide 29
Statistical data of first and second rounds 29
Bias in selection of member states and policy areas 31
2.4 Conclusion 33
3. Economic integration in transport services 35
3.1 Introduction 35
3.2 Literature on EU transport 36
3.3 Driving and constraining forces of EU transport
policy-making 40
Basic attitudes among member states 40
European institutional setting 41
Transport specific crises 42
Summary 42
3.4 The paths of EU transport policy: Recent, gradual,
uneven and complex 43
30 years of deadlock (Phase I: 1957-1984) 43
Watershed (Phase II: 1985-1991) 46
Enlarged set of objectives (Phase III: 1992-2000) 47
Consolidation (Phase IV: 2001-2006) 51
3.5 Results 55
VIII Table of contents
Part II – The timing of transposition
4. A theoretical framework for apt transposition 65
4.1 Introduction 65
4.2 War of attrition games – The basic model 66
4.3 The timing of transposition – What makes national
transposition processes timley? 70
4.4 Hypotheses 78
4.5 Summary of predictions 81
4.6 Conclusion 83
Part III – Analysis within a combined research design
5. EU transport transposition data set (1995-2004) 87
5.1 Introduction 87
5.2 Policy field selection 87
5.3 EU transport transposition data set 1995-2004 88
Selection of member states 88
Time period: 1995-2004 89
Sources of information 90
Missing data 91
Recording the first national transposing instrument 91
Data set 92
6. Transposition deficit – statistical illusion or reality? 93
6.1 Introduction 93
6.2 The European transposition deficit further specified 93
Mean/median discrepancy 94
Variation across member states and policy areas 95
6.3 Conclusion 96
7. Determinants of transposition delay 97
7.1 Introduction 97
7.2 Operationalization Of Theoretical Framework 97
EU directive specific features 97
National level specific features 98
Transport related accidents 102
Summary of descriptives 102
7.3 Method 102
7.4 Results 104
7.5 Discussion and summary 104
7.6 Limitations and conclusion 108
8. Case selection of on- and off-liners 109
8.1 Introduction 109
8.2 Case selection criteria: 110
Model-testing and improving 110
Table of contents IX
8.3 Assessing the model’s fit 112
8.4 Selection of two on- and off-liners for timely transposition
of EU directives 113
8.5 Summary 115
9. Tracing the process of four national transposition cases 117
9.1 Introduction 117
9.2 On-The-Line Case Studies 119
Case 1 – 1998/55/EC
‘Minimum requirements for vessels carrying dangerous
goods’ 119
European level characteristics 120
National level transposition process 121
Transport related accidents 123
Preliminary findings 123
Case 2 – 2001/14/EC
‘Allocation of railway infrastructure capacity’ 124
European level characteristics 125
National level transposition process 126
Transport related accidents 130
Preliminary findings 130
9.3 Off-the-line case studies 132
Case 3 – 2002/59/EC
‘Community vessel traffic monitoring and information
system’ 132
European level characteristics 132
National transposition process 134
Transport related accidents 137
Preliminary findings 138
Case 4 – 2001/53/EC
‘Marine equipement’ 139
European level characteristics 139
National transposition process 141
Transport related accidents 143
Preliminary findings 143
9.4 Conclusion 145
10. Assessing the relative importance of necessity and
sufficiency for timely transposition 149
10.1 Introduction 149
10.2 The fuzzy set technique 150
Advantages of the fuzzy set technique 152
The fuzzy set technique- How does it work? 153
10.3 Constructing degrees of membership of causal factors
for transposition delay 154
Data set 154
Calibration 158