European Governance Monitor – Measuring Administrative Capacity and Performance

In light of Brexit, purpose and performance of the EU are put into question. For the EU to be sustainable and integration to continue, we need to know more about national and subnational administrative capacity and performance when it comes to the implementation of EU policies. Making original empirical contributions to this field, the European Governance Monitor (EGM) maps and assesses the capacities and performance of core institutions and agencies in charge of managing EU policies across Europe. It has started by assessing how national institutions in charge of EU policy perform in the field of employment in four EU member states (Germany, the UK, Spain and Portugal). In the second phase, the EGM is being expanded to include the performance assessment at the interface of EU and national policy implementation. Further policy areas and countries will be added in future. This paper will present the empirical findings of these first two phases, which draws on statistical research, as well as policy documents analysis. The research project developed at the Hertie School of Governance over the past year also includes regular “fact-checking” with practitioners in the field, ensuring our dataset and methodology appropriately reflects practitioners’ experiences and insights in addition to the ‘hard facts’. We hope our findings will be value-added to practitioners and researchers of European integration alike and to identify research partners for future cooperation.