Why Noncompliance: The Politics of Law in the European Union

281 Pages·2021·4.69 MB·English

by  Tanja A. Börzel

WHY NONCOMPLIANCE

WHY
NONCOMPLIANCE
The Politics of Law
in the European Union
Tanja A. Börzel
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ITHACA AND LONDON
This book is available in open access form as the result of a grant from the Freie
Universität Berlin. Cornell University Press gratefully acknowledges this generous
funding that made it possible to open this publication to the world.
Copyright © 2021 by Cornell University
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First published 2021 by Cornell University Press
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Börzel, Tanja A., 1970– author.
Title: Why noncompliance : the politics of law in the European Union / Tanja A. Börzel.
Description: Ithaca [New York] : Cornell University Press, 2021. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020013043 (print) | LCCN 2020013044 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781501753398 (paperback) | ISBN 9781501753404 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781501753411 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Law—European Union countries. | Effectiveness and validity of
law—European Union countries. | European Union countries—Politics and
government—Philosophy. | Compliance.
Classification: LCC KJE5087. B67 2021 (print) | LCC KJE5087 (ebook) |
DDC 341.242/2—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020013043
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020013044
Contents
List of Figures and Tables vii
Preface and Acknowledgments xi
List of Abbreviations xv
Introduction: The Politics of Noncompliance 1
1. Infringement Data and Noncompliance 13
2. Power, Capacity, and Politicization 35
3. Why Some States Comply Less Than Others 61
4. Why There Is No Growing Noncompliance 96
5. Why Noncompliance Is Sector Specific 140
Conclusion: The Limits of Regulatory Governance 171
Appendix 1. Summary Statistics 193
Appendix 2. Correlation of Independent Variables 197
Appendix 3. Dependent and Independent Variables
and Their Operationalization 201
Appendix 4. Robustness Tests 209
Appendix 5. Interaction Effects 213
Notes 215
References 225
Index 257

Figures and Tables
Figures
1.1. Stages of the infringement proceedings and compliance
mechanisms 20
1.2. Number of infringements by stage, EU-28, 1978–2017 28
1.3. Average number of reasoned opinions per year and
member state, EU-28, 1978–2017 30
1.4. Reasoned opinions relative to violative
opportunities per year, EU-28, 1978–2017 31
1.5. Annual reasoned opinions against directives relative to
legislative production by policy sector, 1978–2012 33
3.1. Annual average of reasoned opinions by member
states, EU-15, 1978–2017 63
3.2. Annual reasoned opinions of new members compared
to old member states 67
3.3. Power, capacity, and noncompliance in the EU-15 82
3.4. Power, capacity, and noncompliance in the new
member states (EU-10 + 2) 90
4.1. Letters of formal notice and reasoned opinions,
absolute numbers, 1978–2017 97
4.2. Deepening, widening, and loosening 101
4.3. Legislation in force, 1978–2017; regulations and
directives compared 103
4.4. Reasoned opinions by directives and regulations,
1978–2017 105
4.5. Reasoned opinions according to types of violation and
relative to violative opportunities, 1978–2017 106
4.6. Adoption of amending directives versus new directives,
1978–2015 107
vii
viii Figures And TABles
4.7. Adoption of Commission directives compared to
other directives, 1978–2015 109
4.8. Official infringements for non-notification,
nonconformity, and improper application of
Internal Market directives, 1988–2012 114
4.9. Annual average number of preliminary rulings per
member state, 1978–2018 115
4.10. Assessment of one’s country’s membership in the EU
(EU population), 1973–2015 123
4.11. Adopted and infringed directives compared, 1978–2009 126
5.1. Total number of reasoned opinions per policy sector,
1978–2017 141
5.2. Percentage share of officially infringed directives in
relation to all directives adopted by policy sector,
1978–2012 144
C.1. The PCP model reassembled 174
A5.1. Voting power, bureaucratic quality, and Euroscepticism 213
Tables
1.1. Types of EU law violations 14
2.1. PCP in a two-level compliance game played across
two stages 56
3.1. Power, capacity, and politicization (EU-15, 1979–2012) 78
3.2. Power, capacity, and politicization (EU-25, 1979–2012) 93
4.1. Novelty, delegation, and noncompliance (EU-15,
1978–2009) 130
4.2. The 10 most infringed directives 134
5.1. Policy type, regulatory logic, and noncompliance
(EU-15, 1981–2012) 161
A1.1. Official infringements (reasoned opinions) against
directives by member states, 1978–2012 193
A1.2. Independent variables and their transformation (country) 194
A1.3. Official infringements (reasoned opinions) per
directives, 1978–2009 195
Figures And TABles ix
A1.4. Independent and control variables and their
transformation (issue) 195
A1.5. Official infringements (reasoned opinions) against
directives by policy sector, 1981–2012 195
A1.6. Independent and control variables (sector) 196
A2.1. Member states 198
A2.2. Time 199
A2.3. Policy sectors 200
A3.1. Member states 202
A3.2. Issue 204
A3.3. Sector: Dependent and independent variables and
their operationalization 206
A4.1. Power, capacity, and politicization (EU-15, 1979–2017) 209
A4.2. Power, capacity, and politicization (EU-27, 1979–2017),
with EU-15 dummy 210
A4.3. Novelty, delegation, and noncompliance (EU-28,
1978–2015) 211
A4.4. Policy type, regulatory logic, and noncompliance
(EU-28, 1981–2017) 211