The Pitfalls of the EU Integrated Administration. An American perspective. (Lunch Talk with Ieva Hūna)

The Harvard European Law Association is pleased to host Ieva Hūna for a lunch talk on Friday, November 14, from 12:30 to 1:15 p.m. in WCC 3038. Ieva is a PhD researcher at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy and a visiting researcher at Fordham University under the Fulbright-Schuman Program. She holds an LL.M. in European law from Leiden University and has worked with the Representation of the Latvian government to the Court of Justice of the EU.

The European Union has outgrown the principles of executive federalism originally envisaged by its architects. Its expanding regulatory and enforcement ambitions, coupled with a limited executive capacity, have led to the emergence of a new model for implementing EU law.  Contrary to the strict separation of national and supranational administrations presupposed by executive federalism, the EU and national authorities now increasingly operate as a single, integrated administration. While this arrangement represents a necessary political compromise and a pragmatic solution to institutional constraints, it obscures lines of accountability and risks leaving executive power insufficiently checked. The European experience thus stands in sharp contrast to the American federal model, reflecting divergent understandings of sovereignty in the face of a centralised executive authority. These different perceptions led the American federal structure to anticipate and avoid the pitfalls of the integrated administration confronting the EU today.

Lunch will be served.