Autonomy and Accountability of European Union Agencies in the System of European Administrative Governance

Abstract

The autonomy and accountability of the European Union agencies are key elements of their administrative and legal status and important prerequisites for the effectiveness of European administrative governance. EU agencies perform specialized expert, coordination, regulatory and operational functions, which necessitates their functional independence. At the same time, the expansion of the agencies' powers raises the issue of democratic legitimacy, transparency, judicial control and responsibility for their activities.

The aim of the article is to study the content of the autonomy and accountability of the European Union agencies, determine their correlation in the system of European administrative governance and clarify the role of these categories in ensuring the legitimacy of the activities of EU agencies.

The paper uses the methods of legal analysis, systemic interpretation of EU law, comparative legal research, formal legal method, as well as an analysis of doctrinal approaches of Ukrainian and foreign authors to the legal nature of the European Union agencies.

The study showed that the autonomy of EU agencies has organizational, functional and expert dimensions, but is not absolute, as it is limited by the constituent acts, the principle of conferred powers, institutional balance, procedural guarantees and judicial control. It was established that the accountability of EU agencies covers political, administrative, financial, judicial and procedural control mechanisms. It was found that the practice of the Court of Justice of the EU in the Meroni, Romano and ESMA cases formed key approaches to determining the limits of delegation of powers to EU agencies. It was substantiated that autonomy and accountability are not mutually exclusive categories, but constitute interrelated elements of the administrative and legal status of EU agencies.

To ensure the effectiveness and legitimacy of the activities of European Union agencies, it is necessary not to narrow their autonomy, but to properly structurize it legally through a clear definition of competence, transparent procedures, parliamentary and financial control, administrative supervision and the possibility of judicial review. It is the balance between functional independence and multi-level accountability that ensures the proper place of EU agencies in the system of European administrative governance.