This Special Issue aims at interrogating the judicial and extra-judicial challenges that arise from the EU complex administrative framework, which can be characterized as both multi-level—arising from the vertical cooperation between EU and national authorities—and cross-level—arising from horizontal cooperation between national authorities themselves. It starts from the premise that there may be decisions affecting natural and legal persons which cannot be easily reviewed judicially, whereas in extra-judicial cooperation, the lack of common standards or practices across Member States may undermine the effectiveness of EU policies and objectives. This Special Issue focuses on various mechanisms of horizontal and vertical cooperation, such as regulatory patterns giving rise to transnational administrative acts and mutual recognition systems, case studies of composite procedures in the field of the genetically modified organisms regime and information sharing in asylum policy, as well as multi-level inspection activities for the enforcement of EU law. It further complements the analysis on the judicial challenges arising from those cooperative structures with an examination of extra-judicial avenues of control in the EU administrative framework, namely the “EU queries” process and the cooperation of ombud offices, as well as the audit of the EU budget. This Special Issue reflects on ways to overcome the current challenges of, and seeks to prompt further research on, the multi-layered EU system of administrative cooperation.

This Article deals with the issues related to the judicial review of transnational acts which are adopted particularly within the context of the European integration process. The European Union is a privileged playground for the development of administrative acts of this type, primarily because of the existence of various and diverse administrative cooperation mechanisms. Transnational administrative acts are, either because of their adoption process or because of their conditions of enforcement, governed by at least two national legal orders. The question of the availability of judicial review in the context of transnational administrative acts is a complex one, because the presence of one exogeneous element may disrupt the straightforward path toward the right of access to courts—as both the determination of the competent court and the scope of the review carried out by the court seized become uncertain. This Article first draws up a typology of transnational administrative acts. Second, on the basis of this typology, this Article analyzes the solutions developed by the case law of the Court of Justice and assesses them in the light of the principles of territoriality of administrative law and the right to effective judicial protection.

The right to effective judicial protection is driving to a significant evolution of EU administrative law, especially in view of the multijurisdictional nature of the European administrative structure. This Article focuses on gaps in judicial protection arising from mutual recognition in transnational interactions between the administrative authorities of the EU’s Member States. It first sets the ground by examining the ingredients of the equation: The fundamental right to effective judicial protection, the concept and forms of mutual recognition, and the notion of European administrative space. Next, this Article assesses the judicial protection that private parties can obtain from national courts in these transnational scenarios. Procedure, substance, and deference are separately explored here, in order to draw out blind spots and deficiencies, as well as to suggest possible solutions to address at least some of them. This Article ends with a brief summary of the main findings.

The European Union has a comprehensive legal framework in place for the authorization, traceability, and labelling of genetically modified organisms, the aim of which is to create a unified market while simultaneously ensuring that the placing on the market of the products concerned will not pose a risk to human or animal health or to the environment. This framework sets out complex, multi-level procedures which entail the cooperation and sharing of information between various national and European authorities. Filling a gap in the literature, this contribution focuses on the challenges to the system of judicial accountability that emerge in this particular system of multi-level administration. This Article shows that the problems posed by composite procedures in terms of access to justice and effective judicial protection can possibly be solved in light of the current rules concerning the division of labor between national and European courts and the applicable case law of the Court of Justice. As this Article will show, many more unsolved issues arise instead with respect to the compliance with the requirements of access to justice provided by the Aarhus Convention.

In most EU policy areas, procedural cooperation between national administrations takes place through the shared implementation of “composite” decision-making procedures, facilitated by the operation of multijurisdictional networks or horizontal or vertical information exchange. In the context of asylum policy, such administrative cooperation has been necessary in the distribution of asylum seekers—in accordance with the Dublin III Regulation, which allocates responsibility among Member States to examine an asylum application. In addition to rules in the Regulation itself—Article 34—information sharing also takes place through Eurodac, an EU-wide centralized information system. This Article examines whether the Dublin system ensures effective judicial and administrative remedies in the operationalization of multijurisdictional information networks. It analyzes the relevant Eurodac and Dublin-related legislation, national implementation, and national case law through the lens of administrative cooperation. The assumption that the data exchanged has been acquired and processed lawfully, due to interstate trust, and the extent to which that assumption is rebuttable, are central themes throughout this Article. It is argued that administrative cooperation through information sharing takes precedence over the right to an effective remedy, and that, in practice, judicial and extrajudicial remedies are insufficient to protect asylum seekers.

In the last decades, an increasing number of EU institutions and agencies have been given the power to conduct administrative inspections. While the legal literature has traditionally focused on the Commission’s inspection powers in competition proceedings, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), the European Central Bank (ECB), the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), and the European Fisheries Control Agency (EFCA) are also entrusted with such powers. The Commission has also been granted inspection powers in the field of Food Safety. Inspection powers can have a crucial impact on the fundamental right of the inviolability of the home, recognized by the Court of Justice as a general principle of EU law, and protected under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) and Article 7 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (ECFR). This Article argues that the current remedies do not fulfill all the criteria set forth by the Strasbourg Court for ex post judicial control vis-à vis inspections to be full and effective, in particular when these powers are used in the context of composite procedures, and suggests remedies to improve the system of review, in order to effectively protect fundamental rights.

This Article represents the first comprehensive study of the EU query process, a form of flexible extra-judicial cooperation between the European Ombudsman and the national ombud offices on the interpretation and application of EU law across member states. The way this cooperation is constructed brings imminently to mind the preliminary reference procedure: A national office submits a query within the scope of EU law to the European Ombudsman who, after consultation with the Commission—in the vast majority of cases—provides a reply. Upon closer examination, however, this Article illustrates key differences between the two procedures, while pointing out the added value of the EU query procedure compared to the preliminary reference. More specifically, while the interpretation that is provided is not authoritative or legally binding (among other differences), thanks to the flexibility of this instrument, interpretative guidance is provided at an early stage in case a problem in the interpretation and application of EU law arises, and thus litigation may be avoided. Furthermore, the EU query procedure serves as a reliable source of information for both the European and the national sides. However, this Article also identifies a number of challenges in relation to the transparency of the scheme, its effective functioning, as well as its interplay with other instruments, such as the infringement procedure.

EU spending—more than €1.800 billion for the next seven years—is spread over a large number of programs and financial mechanisms. Implemented under the Commission’s responsibility, its day-to-day management is mostly ensured by a plurality of actors, in particular by member states’ nominated bodies. This unique context places the responsibility to undertake influential audit work that could support the EU achieving longterm benefits on the European Court of Auditors (ECA). In this respect, this Article highlights a number of issues. First, this Article discusses the annual audit opinion, to which the ECA devotes at least 40% of its audit capacity—about 400 auditors—despite the limited assurance it provides. This Article argues that the audit opinion should focus on the operation of the Commission’s internal control framework and enlarge its scope to “value for money,” thus fostering responsibility at management level and sustaining the emergence of a performance culture. Furthermore, to fully capture the synergies, the risks of double funding and competition between different programs pursuing similar objectives—for example, through cohesion, transport, energy, and research spending—the ECA should undertake a scrutiny across its audit chambers’ thematic responsibilities. The ECA should also consider increasing the number of member states covered by its performance reports. Moreover, the ECA’s recommendations would benefit from an indication about their importance, and their followup should be extended at member states’ level. Finally, this Article welcomes the ECA’s intention to assess the added value of EU spending as compared to national spending alone, hence opening up the prospect of an ECA performance “assurance” assessment.