"Subsidiarity, Accountability and the Management of EU Programmes"

Levy, Roger. (1995) "Subsidiarity, Accountability and the Management of EU Programmes". In: UNSPECIFIED, Charleston, South Carolina. (Unpublished)

Preview

PDF Download (75Kb) | Preview

Abstract

The Maastricht Treaty on Political Union (TEU) confirmed the principle of subsidiarity by which the implementation of Union policies should be allocated to the most appropriate level of administration authority. This has been widely interpreted as a means of reining in the power of the European Commission in favour of national governments and their agents. This raises a number of important issues concerning the management of Union programmes. Already under stress from what Metcalfe (1992, 1994) has termed the management deficit, the subsidiarity principle will arguably exacerbate existing weakness in the management process by allocating both day-to-day management and review and evaluation functions to beneficiary agencies in the member states. The objective of this paper is to analyse the implications of the devolved management of Union programmes for the desire for greater accountability expressed by the European Parliament, the Court of Auditors and the member state governments themselves. The paper focuses particularly on audit, and the management of the Structural Funds as a case study area.

Actions (login required)