The picture of Brussels-based bureaucrats exercising wide-ranging, arbitrary executive powers with no accountability is one of the favorite images conjured by Eurosceptics across the political spectrum. What truth is there in the image? This book aims to bring the EU's executive powers out of the shadows by mapping the evolution and current form of the EU's various executive actors, their powers, and the mechanisms for holding them accountable. In doing so it provides a rich understanding of the way in which the EU's institutional and legal framework fits within national constitutional presumptions about how power should be controlled and accountability achieved. Covering both the political executive and the administrative executive at the EU institutional level, the book analyzes their relationship with national executive power, and traces the historical evolution of executive order in Europe from the Peace of Westphalia through classic inter-governmental organizations to the allegedly unique EU framework. The book's analysis covers both the formal legal structure of the Union and the evolution of the EU's living institutions in practice. The picture presented is of a fragmented, cluttered and complex European executive space, resistant to radical constitutional reform and in need of a more nuanced understanding of the different forms of executive power required by different political aims and modes of decision-making.

Deirdre Curtin is Professor of International and European Governance at the Utrecht School of Governance, University of Utrecht and Professor of European Law at the University of Amsterdam (since 2008). Previously she held the Chair of the Law of International Organisations at the Law Faculty in Utrecht (1992-2002) She is a member of the Royal Dutch Academy for Science (KNAW) and in 2007 was awarded the Spinoza Prize by the Dutch Academy of Science for "outstanding contribution to the development and promotion of international and European law and for her groundbreaking visions concerning the governance of international organisations such as the European Union." She has written extensively on issues relating to the constitutional and institutional development of the European Union and since 2003 has led a Research Group of political scientists and lawyers on "Enhancing Democracy in the EU" within the EU financed Network of Excellence, CONNEX.

List of Tables and Figures	p. xvi
Abbreviations	p. xvii
Table of Cases	p. xx
Table of Legislation	p. xxii
Table of Treaties and Conventions	p. xxvi
Topography And Layered Sediments
Geology of the European Union	p. 3
The Unseen and Many Layers	p. 3
The Evolving EU	p. 5
The Metaphor of 'Sedimentation'	p. 8
The Living Constitution	p. 10
Dark Matter	p. 11
A 'Big Bang' Constitution?	p. 13
The Phoenix Arises	p. 16
Mapping the Existing Literature	p. 18
Out of the Shadow	p. 20
The Book's Mission	p. 22
Structure of this Book	p. 25
Externalizing National Executive Power	p. 28
Locating Executive Power	p. 28
Executive Power External to the State	p. 29
The European Union as an International Organization	p. 32
Vertical Delegation of Powers	p. 35
Complementarity of Politics and Administration	p. 37
The EU as an Evolving 'Political System'	p. 40
Horizontal Delegation of Powers	p. 44
Beyond the Visible	p. 46
Balancing Executive Power	p. 48
The Impetuous 'Vortex' of Power	p. 48
The Separation of Powers	p. 49
A Residual Approach to Executive Power	p. 51
Checks and Balances	p. 54
The Balancing of Executive Power	p. 58
The Council of Ministers and the European Council	p. 58
The Commission	p. 61
Composite Executive Power	p. 65
Tides of Eu Reform
Political Executive Power	p. 69
The Political Top	p. 69
The 'European Council': The 'Queen Bee' Directs and Controls	p. 72
A hive of activity	p. 72
President of the European Council	p. 76
The 'Council of Ministers': An Institutional 'Chameleon'	p. 81
Institutional'chameleon'	p. 81
The 'presidency': A composite carousel	p. 83
Legislative and executive tasks: Blurring boundaries	p. 85
COREPER, Council, high-level committees, and working parries	p. 87
The European Commission: A 'normalized' executive	p. 91
The core executive	p. 91
The president (and the commissioners)	p. 92
Number of commissioners	p. 95
A normalized executive	p. 98
Double-hatted 'Minister for Foreign Affairs'	p. 100
EU Plate Tectonics	p. 103
Administrative Executive Power	p. 105
Tides of 'Eurocrats'	p. 105
The EU Administrative Executive	p. 106
'Core' Eurocrats	p. 106
Seconded national experts	p. 107
National civil servants and (scientific) experts	p. 109
Executive Rule-making and Autonomy	p. 113
The Commission's evolution as an autonomous actor	p. 113
The evolving role of the Commission Secretariat General	p. 114
The Commission and rule-making with comitology committees	p. 117
The Commission and 'delegated legislation' post-Lisbon	p. 121
Executive tasks and the Council General Secretariat's internal structures	p. 125
Integration by Stealth?	p. 134
Satellite Executive Power	p. 135
The Unseen Hands	p. 135
The 'Independent' European Bank	p. 136
The Commission Sheds Layers	p. 140
Delegation to private actors	p. 140
Internal delegation to executive agencies	p. 143
The Commission and the 'auxiliary'agencies	p. 144
Institutionalization of (Quasi-)Independent 'Agencies'	p. 146
The internal acceleration of agency construction	p. 146
The European Parliament struggles for voice	p. 150
EU agencies on a leash?	p. 155
Internal agencies with external powers	p. 158
What's in a name? 'European regulatory agencies'	p. 160
Powers of European regulatory agencies	p. 163
Full speed ahead	p. 165
Satellite Networks of Actors	p. 166
Shared administration with 'double-hatted' national partners	p. 166
EU networks of actors	p. 169
The Shadow of Hierarchy	p. 172
A Living EU Constitution
Unitary Executive Power	p. 177
Framing the Living Executive	p. 177
The Court of Justice Uncovers Normative Unity	p. 179
Depolarization through judicial review	p. 179
The evolving nature of EU legal instruments	p. 184
The Court of Justice as Constitutional Geologist	p. 187
Judicial tunnels	p. 187
Defending internal constitutionalism from external challenges	p. 194
Internal and External Autonomy	p. 201
Transparent Executive Power	p. 204
Lifting the Veil of Secrecy	p. 204
Conceptualizing the EU Principle of 'Transparency': Legal constitutionalism	p. 205
The veil of secrecy	p. 205
The general legal principle of reasoned administration	p. 206
Proactive litigants and courts	p. 209
Union legislation consolidates	p. 210
The legal-constitutional approach	p. 213
Comparing apples and oranges	p. 215
Operationalizing the EU Principle of 'Transparency': Institutional politics	p. 218
The role of the Internet	p. 218
Digital registers and core executive institutions	p. 220
Commission register(s) of documents disappoints	p. 222
Council register evolves	p. 228
The Inter-institutional Strategy	p. 233
Inter-institutional dialogue	p. 233
European Parliament and the European Central Bank	p. 235
Shifting Fault Lines	p. 237
Open meetings of the Council of Ministers	p. 237
Closed 'trialogue' meetings with the European Parliament	p. 239
Information in EU databases	p. 241
Authoritarian Temptation	p. 244
Accountable Executive Power	p. 246
Conceptualizing Accountability	p. 246
Understanding 'Public Accountability' in the EU Political System	p. 248
'Control' ex ante	p. 248
'Public accountability' expose	p. 252
The Provision of Information	p. 256
Debate and Deliberation	p. 258
Public deliberation	p. 258
The European Parliament deliberates	p. 260
The role of the courts	p. 265
The role of the Court of Auditors and the Ombudsman	p. 270
Sanction and/or Consequences	p. 271
An Organizing Principle, not a Meta-norm	p. 274
Making Visible the Invisible	p. 277
The 'Invisible' Constitution	p. 277
Dark Matter: Invisible layers	p. 279
Inter-institutional Engineering	p. 281
Executive Power and Fostering 'Legitimacy'	p. 283
Formal and social legitimacy	p. 283
Input and output legitimacy	p. 285
Throughput legitimacy	p. 287
From participation to procedures	p. 289
EU Executive Power and Alleviating the 'Democratic Deficit'	p. 291
The 'democratic deficit'	p. 291
Policy without politics?	p. 292
Politics without policy?	p. 294
From Active Responsibility to Active Accountability	p. 298
The End of the Beginning	p. 300
Bibliography	p. 305
Index	p. 339
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