Europäische Implementierungsforschung im XXI. Jahrhundert La recherche sur la mise en oeuvre du droit de l’Union européenne au XXIème Siècle

Abstract

The paper addresses the issue of implementation research in the XXIst Century. Research on the implementation of EU law and policies remains mainly centred upon the rather simplistic issue of the transposition of directives and framework decisions, taking as a point of departure the different types of ‘scoreboards’ published by the European Commission. Development of this kind of research is however essential in order to better understand EU policy making, to assess the real impact of enlargement and to contribute to legislative impact assessment. Implementation research should further improve its quantitative methodology but also developing qualitative methodologies. Amongst available information, which is probably not being used enough, the European Commission’s Register of complaints which is being managed by the General Secretariat, as well as the databases of the European Ombudsman should be far more used. ECJ case law could also be analysed in a different perspective, i.e. not only as a source of EU law, but also as an indicator of compliance issues.