ACCOUNTABILITY DEFICIT: HORIZONTAL OR VERTICAL? THE CASE OF THE DIRECTORATE FOR COMPETITION POLICY IN THE EUROPEAN UNION
ACCOUNTABILITY DEFICIT: HORIZONTAL OR VERTICAL? THE CASE OF THE DIRECTORATE FOR COMPETITION POLICY IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Summary/Abstract: The paper explores the competition policy in the European Union. In a domain in which the European Union is considered most successful it is extremely hard to find accountability tools. Comments amount towards the European Union directorate that is not transparent and that decisions are not sufficiently supported by arguments. There fore the paper discusses the reason behind the lack of accountability criticisms by looking at two models of accountability. One that considers that there should be a vertical relationship between the accountability holder and accountability holdee with delegation involved, and the second, that views horizontal linkages between agents equal in power as efficient mechanisms. The directorate general on competition suffers from the “democratically deficient” stigma because it is too far from the citizens on the vertical relationship and much too close to its horizontal counterparts that are the European Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance and European Commission.

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