The Evolution of EU Regulatory Agencies: A Story of Empowerment?

The proliferation of EU regulatory agencies, known by the term “agencification” has been widely tackled by the literature on EU executive governance. In spite of the success in explaining the roots of agency creation, evidence is lacking about agencies’ development over time: have they been empowered through new resources, or have their capabilities remained the same? Which EU agencies grew the most, and why? Ultimately, is the role of EU agencies in EU governance changing, remaining stable or even decreasing? The paper aims to answer these questions through a comparative approach: by means of a cross-sectional time series analysis, it measures the evolution of all EU agencies in terms of budget, staff, tasks and mandate, and assesses the causes of such changes. The analysis covers the past three decades and explores for the first time the relative importance of agencies in the EU’s regulatory space.