At first glance, a study of the administrative transformation in Europe seems to imply nothing new. There is an ever growing body of literature analysing the impact of global reform waves associated with what is known as New Public Management (NPM) on the structure and practice of public administration. There are a large number of country studies and a growing number of comparative studies on this subject (cf. Wright 1994; Pierre 1995; Flynn and Strehl 1996; Olsen and Peters 1996). However, this kind of public sector reform is not the central concern of this study. Here the analysis focuses on the Europeanisation of national administrations; i.e., the crucial question of how European integration affects domestic administrative practices and structures.

One could argue that the selection of this research focus does not necessarily make sense, as there is no European administrative policy per se which is explicitly concerned with the structure and practice of domestic administrations. Administrative policy, as a policy field in its own right, only exists in the national context, and it is still a very basic domain of the member states. This argument, however, overlooks one significant – although less spectacular – fact: the administrative impact of other European policies. Thus, for appropriate implementation, policy decisions to some extent always entail decisions on corresponding administrative arrangements. In other words, policy content and administrative implementation requirements are often closely related.