An element of the theme of the VNG 2018 ‘Across boundaries’ annual conference in Maastricht is the necessity for Dutch politicians and administrators to push existing boundaries. In many cases this will involve a national border, which is closer in the region than in the national administrative center in The Hague. More than half of the twelve Dutch provinces have national borders, so cross-border cooperation is a regular phenomenon. National or EU regulations and subsidies may help to realize policy goals that are found important at a regional or local level, but when policy crosses national borders in practice it is also confronted with other ‘European’ boundaries. If there are incomprehensible, impracticable or conflicting rules, there is tension between common European policy and Dutch decentralization. Therefore this essay focuses on the control that the European Union has as an administrative challenge. It first discusses the shaky European consciousness and then the actions taken to break this vicious circle.

National officials play an important role in all phases of the EU policy process and are often assumed to be more euro-enthusiastic than other citizens. Yet, thus far systematic knowledge on their views on EU integration is lacking. This study fills this gap through recently collected survey data among Dutch officials (N = 3509). We find first that at least for officials, hard and soft euroscepticism are no gradations on the same scale, but separate dimensions. Second, both sociological and rational choice institutionalism help explain bureaucratic euroscepticism, where the latter seems to have a somewhat stronger explanatory power. Third, officials are on average indeed more euro-enthusiastic than other citizens. However, (a) relatively fewer officials are strongly euro-enthusiastic compared to the general population; (b) the total share of eurosceptics among officials is practically the same as the general population, and (c) significantly more officials report to be ‘strongly eurosceptic’ than among the wider population.

This article looks at national political institutions and euroscepticism. Over a timespan of 25 years, I compare values for majoritarian vs consensus democracy for 14 European democracies, with measures for euroscepticism at the levels of party systems, elections and public opinion. Consistent with the thesis that consensus democracy generates more system-opposition at the national level, this regime type is also more sensitive to euroscepticism. This is not the case, however, for France and the UK, two very eurosceptic majoritarian democracies. The study also shows that a context of socio-economic crisis (2008-2014) turns this relationship around, as increased conflict within society demands for more consensus at the elite level. The study essentially argues that euroscepticism still is ‘a touchstone of dissent’ for national politics. However, the extent to which national democracies generate this dissent, and especially, whether it is channelled by eurosceptic parties, depends on the dominance of consensus in the domestic institutional context.

Regulatory supervision and inspection have become key features of public governance, some authors even talk about the ‘audit society’ or the age of ‘regulatory capitalism’. Despite international research showing the importance of trust in supervisory relations, there is still a fierce debate about the role of trust in Dutch supervisory relations. Several inspectorates have incorporated trust as a central theme in their supervisory policy. This article describes the role of trust within the policy of the Dutch Healthcare Inspectorate (IGZ). This research addresses four themes in dealing with the concept of trust in supervisory relations: from transparency to accountability, from output performance to performance and risk management, from trust or control to trust and control, and, finally, a special regime for reliable inspectees. The empirical analysis in this paper contributes to the knowledge about the role of trust in supervision (policy) and to the debate about the role of trust in regulatory supervision policy.

This article tries to analyse and improve the individual-level approaches to the study of public Euroscepticism in Belgium. In recent literature, three approaches focusing on instrumental, cultural and political cues can be distinguished. First, the utilitarian approach associates Euroscepticism with economic interests. Second, the cultural approach draws on cultural attitudes and affective identities. Third, the political approach associates support for European integration with political effi cacy and institutional trust. Drawing upon Belgian data from the IntUne Project 2007, the results show that negative evaluations of the benefits of European membership, social distrust in European fellow citizens and institutional distrust in the EU are the most important determinants of Euroscepticism, while education, national attachment, exclusive identity and political powerlessness have a minor impact.