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3 REALaw, Review of European Administrative Law 1 (2010)

handle is hein.journals/realaw2010 and id is 1 raw text is: REVIEW OF EUROPEAN ADMINISTRATIVE LAW; VOL. 3, NR. I, I-2, EUROPA LAW PUBLISHING © 2010 From the Editors This issue of REALaw shows, once again, that it is ben- eficial to our understanding of administrative law to consider the mutual (top-down and bottom-up) relation between EU and national administrative law. As was announced in the editorial for the second issue of REALaw in 2009, which doubled as a monograph in the European Administrative Law Series (nr. 3), the first two articles in the issue lying before you are a result of the First REALaw Research Forum that took place in Groningen on 3 June 2009. The first contribution is by the hand of Sacha Prechal. 'Competence Creep and General Principles of Law' is concerned with the extension of EU competences by applying general principles of law. Competence creep is defined in rather broad terms. Both positive intervention by the EU insti- tutions and negative limits to Member State's action fall within the idea of competence creep since both could be perceived as a loss of sovereign powers by Member States. Prechal discusses the circumstances under which general principles of law apply to Member State's actions, the effect of these principles on the procedural autonomy of the Member States, the creation of positive obligations through general principles of law, and the review of national measures in the light of these principles. Although Member States have in the past explicitly confirmed competence creep in some cases, the possibility of creeping competences through the EU Charter of Fundamen- tal Rights was controversial. In any case Prechal emphasises the need for a clear, predictable and (for the outside world) comprehensible 'doctrine' of what the scope of EU law actually means and when a matter actually falls within this scope. The second article, which was also presented at the First REALaw Research Forum, is 'The Costanzo Obligation and the Principle of National Institutional Autonomy: Supervision as a Bridge to Close the Gap?' by Maartje Verhoeven. The starting point of this article is a paradox that consists of the obligation for all public authorities to solve conflicts between Euro- pean and National law in favour of European law (the 'Costanzo obligation') and the principle that implies that European law is not concerned with the internal organizational structure of the Member States (the principle of institutional autonomy). The Question is whether the Member States can use and have used the possibilities of supervision by the central government to solve the aforementioned paradox. In comparing the national administra- tive law of The Netherlands, France and Germany on this issue, Verhoeven's research is a good example of the advantages of a comparative approach. Fran~oise Comte's contribution on European agencies, titled '2oo8 Commission Communication European Agencies - the Way Forward: What is the Follow-Up Since Then?', deals with the significant role agencies play in European Union governance today. Agencies have become part of

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