Introduction

The challenges involved in the governance of the European Union's (EU) internal market, as well as the need for closer collaboration between Member States, have seen EU policy-makers increasingly turn to executive or regulatory agencies outside the Commission structure. These agencies are entrusted to execute a wide range of tasks from simple information collection and dissemination, to the adoption of decisions that are binding on all Member States. Seen within the context of the need for reform of the Commission and the general striving of the Community institutions for better lawmaking based on principles of good governance, it is not surprising that, in the new millennium, the resort to European-level agencies is more popular than ever. Moreover, as the EU's competences in social affairs continue to develop, the Commission's use of agencies has further spread into health-related areas. We have thus witnessed a mushrooming of agencies such as the European Medicines Agency, the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, the European Food Safety Authority, the European Aviation Safety Agency, the European Maritime Agency, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and, most recently, the European Chemicals Agency. These agencies do not work to similar remits and do not exercise the same degrees of authority. But many have an impact on the way the Community protects the health of its citizens, and they shift the coordination of specialized, technical and scientific expertise to the European level.

More recently, agencies have been seen as a constitutive element within the so-called ‘new modes of governance’ (NMG) approach to the making and enforcing of rules at EU level.