The European Union (EU) has a compliance problem: there are persistent failures in the implementation of EU rules and policies by the member states. This book examines how policy implementation may be improved. It explains the nature of policy mistakes, proceeds to consider how individual public authorities and organizations can avoid making policy mistakes and then, in the light of its findings, derives how the EU may induce its member states and their public authorities to improve their compliance with EU rules and policies.

1 Introduction: The main issues 2 Problem defined: Policy errors 3 A bit of a theory 4 Anatomy of errors 5 Avoidable errors 6 Can organizations make mistakes? 7 Developing organizational capacity for error avoidance 8 Rules and norms in policy implementation 9 Incentives for error avoidance 10 Capacity for policy implementation 11 Obligations of EU membership 12 Synthesis and recommendations: Policy experimentation and 'nudging' public administrations 13 Concluding remarks