With each legislative issue, legislators have to decide whether to delegate decision-making to the executive and/or to expert bodies in order to flesh out the details of this legislation, or, alternatively, to spell out all aspects of this decision in legislation proper. The reasons why to delegate have been of prime interest to political science. The debate has concentrated on principal-agent theory to explain why politicians delegate decision-making to bureaucrats, to independent regulatory agencies, and to others actors and how to control these agents. By contrast, Changing Rules of Delegation focuses on these questions: Which actors are empowered by delegation? Are executive actors empowered over legislative actors? How do legislative actors react to the loss of power? What opportunities are there to change the institutional rules governing delegation in order to (re)gain institutional power and, with it influence over policy outcomes? The authors analyze the conditions and processes of change of the rules that delegate decision-making power to the Commission's implementing powers under comitology. Focusing on the role of the European Parliament the authors explain why the Commission, the Council, and increasingly the Parliament, delegated decision-making to the Commission. If they chose delegation, they still have to determine under which institutional rule comitology should operate. These rules, too, distribute power unequally among actors and therefore raise the question of how they came about in the first place and whether and how the "losers" of a rule change seek to alter the rules at a later point in time.

In almost all fields of cooperation that are covered by the EC Treaty, the formal competence to adopt legislation has been assigned to the Council (which must normally collaborate with the European Parliament), and in order to separate powers, the formal competence to prepare the necessary proposals (the right to initiate legislation), has been assigned to the European Commission. Over the years, however, it has become clear that the reality is far more complex. This book examines the fact that the Council is now passing an increasing part of the responsibility for adopting legislation to the Commission, subject to the requirement that it has to collaborate with a vast number of committees that consist of representatives of the various national administrations. This is known as comitology. Comitology provides the Council and the national governments with a mechanism for controlling the Commission, and so comitology is often thought to manifest a conflict of interests. Bergstroem argues that, despite much support in principle for this assumption; in practice, comitology does not give rise to the kinds of conflicts many expect or fear. He contends that in fact it appears to be a fruitful cooperation between the national administrations and the Commission. Against this background, Bergstroem explains how and why comitology has developed, explores the nature of comitology and examines its present and future place in the legal order of the European Union.

The proper functioning of the EU financial market is protected by public actors - both national and supranational - responsible for rulemaking and supervision of investment firms and other private actors. At the same time the effectiveness of the EU legal system requires vigilance from private actors such as investment firms but also their clients, invoking their rights before national authorities and courts. This means that investment firms have a dual role within the system, turning them into subjects of control and enforcement but also agents in the maintenance of the rule of law. Legal Accountability in EU Markets for Financial Instruments brings together a group of scholars with expertise from different legal disciplines but a shared interest for the EU internal market and the way it develops. It integrates a modern study of the form and function of EU rulemaking in the internal market after the financial crisis. The book includes an evaluation of core aspects of rulemaking in the financial market and that way provides a cross-cutting treatment of EU law. The focus of the book is set on the regulatory framework in MiFIDII and MiFIR and thematic questions around legal mechanisms for accountability and the role of investment firms in the operation of those mechanisms. It further discusses the implications for EU law and the EU legal system and gives readers a thorough understanding of the concept of accountability through its own findings.