The Constitution Unit, University College, london, Regional Government In England
| Published date | 01 September 1998 |
| Author | Dylan Griffiths |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9299.00125 |
| Date | 01 September 1998 |
REVIEWS 597
REGIONAL GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND
The Constitution Unit
University College London, 1996. 120 pp. £10
This report is one of three reports published simultaneously by the Constitution Unit in 1996
on devolution in Scotland, Wales, and, in this case, Regional Government in England. Indica-
tive of the comparatively weak debate on devolution within England to date this is the briefest
of the three reports and much of the discussion is deliberately tentative and even exploratory.
Basic questions such as the boundaries of regions, the powers of regions, whether regional
representatives should be directly or indirectly elected are raised, outlined but not fully answ-
ered (though that is not the aim of this report it has to be said). The report’s approach to
several questions, even the most fundamental ones at the heart of the Constitution Unit’s
work, namely how can progress towards devolution to the English regions be best achieved
by a progressive government is answered by suggesting several different models and dis-
cussing the merits and demerits of each. This report poses many of the questions that need
to be asked about devolution in England but does not provide the answers. Having said that,
especially in its chapter on regional government in Europe it provides much information that
should improve the quality of debate on what regional assemblies can do, what powers they
should have and what relationships they ought to have with central governments. The final
point it makes on devolution to the English regions is perhaps the most pertinent of all.
Whether the English devolution debate will take place, whether it will take place at a high
level intellectually and what will be the outcome of that debate if it takes place is a matter of
political will and needs a powerful political champion to push it forward. It is too early to
say if John Prescott can play that role within the Labour government.
Dylan Griffiths
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
PEOPLE WHO RUN EUROPE
E.C. Page
Clarendon Press, 1997. 178 pp. £30
This book is based on an Economic and Social Research Council funded study of European
Union (EU) employees, and more particularly senior EU officials. Most attention is inevitably
focused on European Commission officials. There are two reasons why this is inevitable. First,
most people who work for the EU work for the Commission – of 28,035 declared EU employees
in 1995, 19,803 were attached to the Commission. Second, the Commission bureaucracy is at
the very heart of the EU system of governance by virtue of the strong treaty powers which
are given to the Commission in respect of both policy initiation and policy implementation.
In respect of policy initiation, the Commission has the exclusive right to formally propose
policies under pillar one of the Maastricht Treaty (that is, the European Community pillar),
and the non-exclusive right to propose policies under pillar two (Common Foreign and Secur-
ity Policy) and pillar three (Justice and Home Affairs). In respect of policy implementation, it
directly implements what in some ways is the EU’s most important and most high profile
policy – competition policy – and it is charged with exercising a wide range of supervisory
powers over the different agencies in the member states which undertake most front-line
implementation of EU policies.
Previously published work on the Commission has focused on many different aspects of
its nature and functioning and has approached it from several different angles. Amongst the
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1998
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