COMPLIANCE WITH EU DIRECTIVES - INSIGHTS FROM INTERNATIONAL-RELATIONSAND COMPARATIVE POLITICS

The European Union (EU) has issued hundreds if not thousands of direct ives and decisions over the last twenty-five years. Yet questions of c ompliance - to what extent do states comply, which states are likely t o comply what patterns of compliance exist within and across areas of regulation! - have not been extensively investigated and remain poorly understood. This article argues that compliance is a matter of state choice, and reviews current theoretical writings in international rela tions and comparative politics in order to better identify reasons for states' choices to comply with EU directives.