Long description:

In recent years, the international engagement of the EU's decentralized agencies has continued to increase in the absence of a clear political and legal framework for their activities. This timely book addresses urgent questions about these agencies' external actions and their effects, how these should be conceptualized and assessed, and how they can and should be governed in the future.

Bringing together pioneering interdisciplinary work from European legal and political scholars, this book combines theory with empirical case studies to explore an underdeveloped field and identify a future research agenda. Chapters first comprehensively examine the relevant legal frameworks and the political aspects of these decentralized agencies' external activities, before exploring the questions this raises around their own and the EU's legitimacy and accountability, and the impact of agencies on countries outside the EU who have dealings with them.

Scholars in law, political science, economics and public administration will find this book invaluable, particularly those working on external relations, agencification or institutional innovation. It will also prove useful to policymakers at EU and national level, as well as other stakeholders such as non-EU countries and international organizations.

This timely book addresses urgent questions about the external actions of the EU?s decentralized agencies and their effects, such as how they should be conceptualized and assessed, and how these agencies can and should be governed in the future. Bringing together pioneering interdisciplinary work from European legal and political scholars, the book combines theory with empirical case studies to explore an underdeveloped field and identify a future research agenda.

'This book does pioneering work. It is, of course, common knowledge that our polities depend upon ever more finely tuned regulatory support. What this book makes us aware of is the transnational follow-up to this insight. Gaining control of globalization processes will require ever more co-operation. It is high time that we explore this irresistible development, and an important step has now been taken.'
--Christian Joerges, Hertie School of Governance, Germany

'The chapters in this book provide for a fuller understanding of the EU's international presence, and of the various venues and fora which contribute to the external diffusion of its acquis communautaire.'
--Sandra Lavenex, University of Geneva, Switzerland

Table of Contents:

Contents:

Introduction
Merijn Chamon, Ellen Vos and Herwig Hofmann

Part I: EU agencies? external action: the legal framework
1. Constitutional limits to the EU agencies? external relations
Merijn Chamon and Valerie Demedts

2. The cooperation between the European Border and Coast Guard Agency and third countries according to the new ?Frontex? Regulation: legal and practical implications
Florin Coman-Kund

3. Cooperation of Europol and Eurojust with external partners in the fight against crime: a legal appraisal
Chloé Bri?re

Part II: EU agencies? external action: a political science perspective
4. Normative power Frontex? Assessing agency cooperation with third countries
Helena Ekelund

5. EU agencies ? agents of policy diffusion beyond the EU
Sevasti Chatzopoulou

Part III: EU agencies? external action: legitimacy and accountability
6. Reinforcing EU financial bodies? participation in global networks: addressing legitimacy gaps?
Maurizia De Bellis

7. Accountability challenges for EU agencies in the context of third country equivalence assessments
Pieter Van Cleynenbreugel

8. EU Agencies? External Activities and the European Ombudsman
Marco Inglese

Part IV: EU agencies? external action: impact on third countries
9. Transferring the Acquis through EU Agencies: The Case of the European Neighbourhood Policy Countries
Dovile Rimkut? and Karina Shyrokykh

10. Third countries in EU agencies: Participation and Influence
Marja-Liisa Öberg

Index