European Regulatory Aspects of the Organizational Law of Public Administration

the state. This paper goes beyond the traditional approach to public administration to reveal the interrelationships that today limit the organizational autonomy of individual states. Following an examination of the basic theoretical issues of organizational law, the paper addresses the relationship between administrative organization and sovereignty. In doing so, it examines international law and European Union (EU) norms containing rules directly or indirectly affecting administrative organization. The study particularly highlights the function of international organizations in making best practices available to states. EU primary and secondary legislation appears to respect EU Member States’ autonomy, but there are also various rules that oblige EU Member States to shape their administrative organization. There is also a focus on EU agencies, European Groupings of Territorial Cooperation, and other bodies linked to national administrations as specialised EU administrative structures. Overall, the study contributes to an examination of the extent to which EU Member States’ autonomy is limited today and by what means.

KEYWORDS public administration, organization, structure, sovereignty, autonomy, agency, Council of Europe, European Union, secondary legislation, soft law