Le agenzie decentrate dell’Unione europea

The book, written in Italian, aims to provide a comprehensive overview of EU decentralised agencies as a coherent form of institutional actor, to define their role in the EU executive sphere and to highlight the “dynamic unbalances” underpinning the EU agencification process. The book explores the major challenges related to this process and the main “constitutional divides” which will shape the future of EU agencies system. First, it offers an in-depth analysis of the distinguish features of EU agencies’ model and examines their legality with regard to the Treaties and the general principles of EU law. Second, the book considers the rationale and governance of EU agencies, in the light of the balance between Member States representation and agencies’ institutional and functional autonomy. Third, the book investigates the powers conferred to EU agencies, the forms of judicial, administrative, financial and political control on their exercise and the functional, procedural and democratic factors of agencies’ legitimacy. The book underlines the contribution of EU agencies to the European integration process, thanks to their hybrid nature and to the “intergovernmental philosophy” which inspires their governance and decision-making. At the same time, however, the book emphasizes the risks posed by the dynamic and atypical character of the agencification process to the coherence and “constitutional credentials” of the EU legal order. The conclusions therefore call for the establishment of a common constitutional framework for conferring executive powers to agencies, delimiting the material scope of such a conferral and defining an adequate system of control and accountability, comparable to the one applicable to the Commission.