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Enforcement of the European System of Financial Supervision (ESFS) has undergone a three-step process over time, leading it to a current networked configuration of powers and tasks between the EU and the national competent authorities (NCAs). In light of this, this paper has a twofold aim. First, it analyses the actual configuration of enforcement mechanisms in the ESFS, arguing that different patterns emerge across the three branches (banks, securities markets and insurance): as governance becomes more complex in terms of number of actors and functions, verticalisation of enforcement increases. Second, by taking into account the three Italian competent authorities, it assesses the concrete changes occurred both in organisation and in perceived effectiveness, through quantitative data and qualitative surveys. It therefore argues that the more institutionalised and verticalised is the enforcement governance, the less reluctant will NCAs be to transfer shares of their enforcing powers to the EU level and to change their practices and organisational structures concretely, according to harmonisation requirements by the European supervisory authorities and the European Central Bank. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is one of the ever-increasing policy areas that have witnessed the creation of forms of "networked enforcement", meaning enforcement structures in which several national and EU authorities cooperate. Amongst those are a number of legal requirements and applications for sharing data on fisheries between national and European competent authorities. This form of networked enforcement casts some questions as regards the existence of corresponding accountability mechanisms, which serve to legitimate the enforcement activities in the CFP. The aim of this paper is to examine the networked enforcement mechanisms arising from the CFP, with a special focus on the data-sharing activities and the role of European Fisheries Control Agency as pivotal to the cooperation between national authorities, with a view to assessing the gaps of accountability arising from them, and analysing the possible alternative ways to provide the enforcement phase with legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to articles in the issue is presented on topics including a framework to investigate and understand the EU legislator's choice between EU legacy, EU network, and a national enforcement authority; the issue of when certain institutions can be selected to enforce EU laws and policies or not; and the spillover effect between the regulatory and enforcement powers.