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The Causes and Consequences of the Collegial Implementation of E uropean Competition Law
Author(s) -
Karagiannis Yannis
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
european law journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.351
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1468-0386
pISSN - 1351-5993
DOI - 10.1111/eulj.12035
Subject(s) - collegiality , mistake , competition (biology) , product (mathematics) , institution , law and economics , law , competition law , sociology , business , political science , economics , market economy , ecology , geometry , mathematics , biology , monopoly
A major achievement of the new institutionalism is the formalisation of the idea that certain policies, such as competition law, are more efficient when administered by a politically independent organisation. Based on this insight, several practitioners and scholars criticise the E uropean C ommunity for relying too much on a multitask, collegial, and therefore politicised organisation, the E uropean C ommission. Defining collegiality as the involvement of non‐expert commissioners in the implementation of the EC competition law, this article offers the first interdisciplinary analysis of the causes and consequences of that peculiar E uropean institution. The central finding is that, far from being a mistake or the product of unanticipated consequences, collegiality was a necessary condition for the creation of supranational E uropean law.