FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: Welcome to Europa Felix. My guest today is Päivi Leino-Sandberg, professor of transnational European law at the University of Helsinki and author of ‘The Politics of Legal Expertise in EU Policy-Making’. Her book takes us behind the scenes of the EU institutions to uncover the role of legal advisors in shaping EU decisions and policies.
That’s a reality I know well. In my day job—when I’m not interviewing guests for this podcast—I am one of those legal advisors. So for me, Päivi’s work isn’t just about an abstract group of professionals; it’s about people like me. Her book offered me a mirror, a way to see my own profession through someone else’s eyes. It’s a critical, sociological study of what we do, how we think, and how we influence the European project. How objective are we, really? How much of what we call ‘legal advice’ is shaped by political agendas? And what does that mean for the democratic legitimacy of the EU?
In this conversation, we explore those questions together. We talk about the Legal Services of the Council, the Commission, and the Parliament; about the tension between technical expertise and political influence; and about how transparency—or the lack of it—around legal advice impacts trust in EU decision-making and its institutions.
If you’re new to the world of legal advice in EU policy-making, this episode will offer a rare insight into its inner workings. And if you’re part of this world, then this conversation is as much about understanding yourself as it is about understanding the EU.
Here is Päivi Leino-Sandberg.
Päivi, welcome to the show.

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: Thank you.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: Your book focuses on legal advisors in the EU institutions, particularly those working in the Legal Services. Could you explain what we mean by legal services in this context and what their role is within the institutional framework? 

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: Legal services are important because they have a specific task in the institutional hierarchy. You know, they are there to settle how the law is to be read in that institution. So there is one established position which comes from a Legal Service. This is something I had only seen previously working with the Commission the Parliament and the Council that they had legal services but of course even agencies have legal services the European Central Bank has a huge Legal Service so you have them everywhere.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: You mentioned the Council, the Commission, and the European Parliament—these are the three institutions whose legal services you examine in your book. You also alluded to your own experiences and exchanges with them. Was it those experiences that inspired you to write the book?

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: Absolutely. I worked for almost 10 years for the Finnish government in Helsinki, but also traveling to Brussels quite a lot. I've done two presidencies, Finnish presidencies, so that of course meant I was in Brussels a lot. I also did the intergovernmental conference on the Treaty of Lisbon, which was primarily actually negotiated by lawyers in a Legal Advisors Group. So in that sense, I had seen a world that intrigued me and which sort of very little actually had been written about. And primarily, actually, what had been written about these legal services was written by people working in these legal services, like, for example, you.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: Guilty as charged—I did write a piece about the Commission’s Legal Service, though I didn’t expect anyone to actually read it. But you clearly did your research. So, what was it about the Legal Services and their role that intrigued you so much?

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: Well, of course, the main thing is that when you start working for a national government and you are sent to negotiations in Brussels, you sort of immediately saw the incredible power that the Council Legal Service had in the Council. I was dealing, for example, with the Fundamental Rights Agency in the early days. That was a really difficult file because basically it had no legal basis in the Treaties. I mean, no explicit legal basis. And then the Commission and the Council legal services disagreed 100% on what the legal basis could be. And there were a lot of member states who hated the file. You know, they didn't want to have a fundamental rights agency. Some for reasons of money. Others said, you know, we don't have to have an agency that will scrutinize what we do in the field of fundamental rights. But, you know, you cannot, for political reasons, you cannot say we don't want to have more fundamental rights scrutiny. So you can translate that into the legal language and basically say we have a problem with the legal basis.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: Just to clarify: the legal basis is about two fundamental questions. First, does the EU even have the power to act in this area—can it do it at all? And second, if it does have the power, the legal basis determines the procedure to follow: who needs to be involved in the decision-making process, what voting procedures apply, and so on. So it’s a really core issue. So how does this kind of discussion unfold in the Council?

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: At the point when negotiations start, many states will actually not have any idea of the legal basis. They will not have done much of any scrutiny. Then there are some states that always check the legal basis. The UK was one of them. So, I mean, some states have ideas about the law. Many will have no ideas about the law. So you start waiting for the Legal Service opinion to appear. And at that point, when that legal opinion lands on the table, you know, you know basically whether you won or lost the case. That opinion will influence the position of all of those that didn't really have a position. Those who agree with it, of course, will celebrate. And then, of course, if you disagree, you know that you've lost your case because it's going to be incredibly difficult to argue against the position of the Legal Service. In that sense, it has this role in the Council, which, unlike the Commission, doesn't really have a leadership. You know, there is no council position as such. It's a group of states that have different views. So you need a broker. And very often, it's actually the Council Legal Service that acts as the honest broker in settling the law. And of course, the Legal Service also has much more continuity than any presidency who sits in that chair for six months. So in that sense, they have an enormous amount of power within the Council and almost in a way reach this position of some kind of a conseil d'état.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: I want to pick up on the idea that the Council Legal Service is doesn’t have a single leadership. It’s more like it has 27 different bosses…

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: Or maybe the Legal Service is actually its own boss. I'm not sure if I would say that they have 27 bosses. I mean, unlike the Commission Legal Service, which very clearly is serving the Commission as an institution, and there is a way of settling the Commission will. That type of a will doesn't really exist in the Council in the same sense.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: OK, I guess that, on the one hand, that gives them more room to operate. But on the other hand, it must also make their job incredibly complex. 

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: Yes, and I should immediately say they have brilliant lawyers. The quality of the work that they do is absolutely incredible. Being able to observe that, I'm just full of wonder. Of course, many of the questions that they would react to are sort of rather technical standard questions, such as can we delegate here? Is it comitology or a delegated act, which they do almost on a daily basis. But then among those will, of course, also be questions that, as you said, like the choice of legal basis will have vast political consequences because it will settle who gets to decide. That somehow did intrigue me a lot, because working in the field myself, I could also, by reading the opinions, find many that I completely agreed with and I felt were sort of solid law. And then others where I would have big questions that not all of it was what we would be told objective interpretations of the law, but at least there was room for different readings.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: I can see how there could be different readings on these issues, and we’ll come back to the question of objectivity in a moment. But let me try to summarise what you’ve said so far. You observed the dynamics of decision-making in the Council and you noticed that the Council Legal Service’s opinion of ‘the law’ carries a lot of weight, shaping the course of political discussions in a very significant way.

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: Absolutely.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: OK. For now, let’s turn to the Commission’s Legal Service. How does the role of the Commission Legal Service compare to that of the Council?

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: I think that the sort of institutional environment in the Commission is entirely different because the Commission, I mean, the Legal Service has one function, which is to serve the political will of the Commission, you know, first to try to make sure that whatever comes out of the Commission is legally solid. But then once the Commission will is settled, then it's the job of the Legal Service to defend that will. And of course, I mean, any scrutiny that happens, happens within the Commission and it's never really visible. You know, we on the outside don't really see any of that. And I think the Commission in its sort of principles of collegiality and confidentiality wants to make the utmost efforts to make sure that we don't really see anything of these legal debates taking place in the Commission. So that, I thought, was really intriguing. And of course, that's a barrier that I keep hitting when I try to request for access to legal advice in the Commission.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: I do want to come back to the issue of transparency and access to documents later, but first, let me ask you something I know very well—though I’ll ask it anyway. Could you explain how things work in practice within the Commission? So, specifically, what is the place of the Legal Service within the broader Commission structure? And how does the Legal Service interact with the other departments? In essence, how would you describe my work?

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: [Laughs] Yes. Well, I think the main thing is that sort of institutionally, the Commission Legal Service has the strongest position because it basically has to scrutinize everything that comes out of the Commission. The other DGs [directorates-general] need to be working with the Legal Service the whole time when they're preparing something. And the really big thing is that when something is mature enough to be going to the College [of Commissioners] for decision making, if you want to run the written procedure, you can only do that if you have the approval of the Commission Legal Service. So in a way, that is the trigger, because very few things actually go into an oral discussion in the College. And you don't want to go there because of a legal problem. So you mainly or usually you would try to accommodate whatever the Legal Service asks you to do, because without that, you will end up in a very political discussion.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: I can certainly confirm that. There’s often a lot of back-and-forth between the Legal Service and the other departments in the Commission, but in the end, you wouldn’t want to go to the College—the political level—without the Legal Service giving its approval, basically saying, ‘This looks solid enough to defend successfully in court’.

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: Yeah, so in that sense, I think the Commission Legal Service has the strongest institutional position, really difficult to bypass. And of course, that's another thing that it would be so interesting to know how often it happens that the Commission actually decides against the position of the Legal Service, because I'm sure that that happens. The realities of life are such that sometimes you have to act against legal advice. And how this adjustment then actually happens, I would love to see that.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: I’m sure we’ll end up spending plenty of time discussing the Commission Legal Service. But we should, of course, talk about the European Parliament as well. How does its Legal Service compare?

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: Well, it doesn't compare at all. You know, there is a Legal Service and they also have very good lawyers working there. But the Parliament is not under any obligation to consult the Legal Service. And fairly often, you know, it's a lot easier not to consult. So that's one thing. Then, of course, they also have a Legal Affairs Committee that also works with legal issues. And many of them are exactly the same type of issues. So in that sense, you know, there is a competition. And then, of course, when I started making interviews with people in the Parliament, and that included not only lawyers, but also clients, you know, MEPs. And I asked them, you know, what do you think about legal advice? And would you ask a lawyer? They would say, well, I could always ask a lawyer, but I would keep on asking until I find a lawyer who agrees with my position. So in that sense, I think it's a really difficult job to be a legal advisor in the Parliament, because whatever you say will always be competing against many other readings of the law. And the politicians often have the choice of going for the reading that they like the most.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: You conducted many interviews with my colleagues, as well as colleagues from other legal services. What stood out to you about how they see themselves and their role?

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: What I learned, and which I already knew, is that they're excellent lawyers. You know, they're really the best lawyers that I have met. But also, they're people who are very strongly dedicated to serving what they see as the common good. It's a clear choice for many of them, that they've wanted to get a job in the [EU] institution[s] because they believe in European integration, and they think that the institutions are doing genuinely good things for us all. And I would think many of them would have the obvious choice of working in the private sector for big money, but they don't want to. I think that is my general impression. But then, of course, there is also a dark side to that. And I'm in a way also interested in the dark side.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: And what is that dark side?

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: The obvious risk is that you think of European integration as something automatic and you start solving things in very path-dependent ways. And that path-dependent tends to mean, you know, whatever problems comes in the way of Europe, we solve it by creating a new agency or expanding the powers of the European Commission or creating yet another governance structure or that we simply must create more law. So there is a bias that goes in that direction. And I think that we don't think enough about alternatives, you know. And then, of course, when you sit in an office in Brussels and you think we must have more law or, you know, the Commission must have more powers. At that moment, you will think, how can we avoid extra complications? And you lose grip of the empirical realities at Member State level that we actually have parliaments, you know, and these parliaments are often much more connected to the people. And these are the places, national elections are actually the basis where position building happens and where people feel that they have a voice. And all of that functions much better at national level still compared to the EU level. So in a way, you develop a mindset where national discussions or even political discussions becomes, you know, it becomes the enemy.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: Could you give an example?

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: Maybe I will want to talk about the EU-UK agreement. It's a really important agreement, and I think very important that it was concluded. But we all know that it took really to the final days of the time limit, and that was getting very, very stressful. And everyone in Europe basically was eager to avoid the situation of a no-deal Brexit. It's a very comprehensive agreement and it's an agreement that would always in the past have been concluded as a mixed agreement. So that basically means it's an agreement where both the EU but also the Member States are parties.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: Just for those who might not be familiar with the details of EU international agreements, there’s a key difference between EU-only agreements and mixed agreements. An EU-only agreement needs approval from the European Parliament and the Council—which means it requires the green light from both the European Parliament and the Member States’ national governments. A mixed agreement, however, goes a step further: it also requires ratification by every Member State’s national parliament, giving each parliament a potential veto. It’s a much heavier process. Do I have that right?

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: Yes, a mixed agreement means that also the member states need to ratify it before it enters into force. So how do you deal with that? If you actually close an agreement on Boxing Day, and it needs to enter into force before the new year, so there's not a lot of time. That's where then the Council Legal Service appeared because they produced an opinion which basically said, well, the circumstances are so exceptional that we can certainly conclude this as an EU only agreement. So we don't need national ratification procedures. And of course, this is really exceptional. The crisis scenario will justify it. But I would think we all are aware of things that are introduced as exceptional crisis responses then actually becoming the new normal even after the crisis is over.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: I completely take your point that we should be a bit skeptical when lawyers declare that something is exceptional in the sense that it is not a precedent. But I do want to press deeper. Because, here you have a situation, in which you can imagine some lawyers saying: well, an agreement like this, it has to mixed. And others: it has to be EU-only, as a matter of law. But the Legal Service of the Council actually said: both are legally possible. You can conclude this as a mixed agreement or as an EU-only agreement. So you have a political choice to make. And in in fact, in a piece that you co-authored with Christina Eckes, you also concluded that EU-only and mixed are both legally possible to argue. Now of course, in practice, it’s not surprising that the Member States opted for an EU-only agreement because they wanted to avoid a cliff-edge Brexit. But the legal advice, in this case, to me seems, it seems deferential to the political process. How do you see that? 

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: I see it in that way, that, you know, when you actually read that opinion, it actually starts by saying, you know, this is not a full opinion. It's a selective opinion, you know, it's an opinion on selected issues. So there is a big choice in the questions that they actually chose to analyze. And my claim is that they selected issues that supported the conclusion that they wanted to find. and chose not to speak about the issues that would very clearly have spoken for the opposite conclusion. That was a political choice, in my view, in the Legal Service. And of course, also enabled all the ministers to go home to their parliaments and say, listen, you know, we know that you never had time to look at this agreement, but you know, don't worry, we've spoken with the Council Legal Service and here is an opinion that tells you you should not worry, you know, there is no problem. And post scriptum, this will never happen again. So if I view, you know, those are not purely objective legal choices, but there is a really important political element into sort of A, how that opinion was written, but also B, the conclusions that were drawn from it.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: That brings me actually to another point. When you interviewed lawyers, and you record this in your book, you found that EU lawyers describe their own legal advice as ‘frank and objective’. Could you say more about that?

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: That's what the Legal Services always claim. Our advice needs to be frank and objective and comprehensive. That's the phrase you hear everywhere. ‘Frank, objective and comprehensive.’ And this is the phrase that nearly all of them will say. So it seems to be like a really strong conviction.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: About that conviction, you write, again based on your interviews that lawyers at the EU institutions ‘seem genuinely convinced that their legal expertise is technical, apolitical, and neutral’. And II’ll be honest, I found that a bit surprising. It’s not that I don’t see a difference between the role of a lawyer and, say, of a politician or a desk officer shaping policy. But to say that law, especially public law, is ‘apolitical and neutral’ that doesn’t quite sit right with me. Personally, I try to interpret the law in a way that aligns with my own vision of a good society. But then, there are also times when I’ll reach a legal conclusion that I don’t politically agree with, or where I feel it’s just not my place to judge the political consequences. So, for me, the relationship between politics and legal expertise is a complicated one…

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: Yeah, and I think when you work in the field, I mean, you will also very quickly see that often law is, you know, it allows for many different interpretations. And, you know, when you sit there and your minister calls you and says, I want to know what the law allows me to do. I mean, usually you'll see choices. You know, there are some interpretations that will be more solid, which you can, you know, more easily anchor into the treaties or court cases or something, which you feel that give you authority to claim that these interpretations seem to be sort of more in line with what we think about the law. And then there's some that you're thinking, well, I certainly hope that she wouldn't go for that interpretation, because, you know, if we're sued later, I will have a hard time defending that position. So, I mean, when you work in the field, you very quickly lose this illusion, if you ever had one, about law being apolitical, that instead you start seeing it more as, you know, something that often is quite flexible and will allow readings and different readings.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: Many of your interviews took place during the time of the Juncker Commission, right? 

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: Yes.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: Do you see that period as particularly significant? Does your book offer a historical snapshot? Or does it point to something larger, something that is enduring or maybe evolving?

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: Well, I think it was a very specific point in time because it seemed that when I spoke with lawyers in the Commission, but not only lawyers in the Legal Service, but also many people in the DGs, I got the feeling that, you know, the role of law in the Commission was changing and there were sort of challenges to this established position of the Legal Service. And in a way, the idea that legal limits mattered much less and law should be much more the servant.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: The catchphrase at the time was, we need ‘a more political Commission’. 

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: Absolutely. And of course, the idea of a more political Commission, it's linked to sort of the feeling that the Commission should be more accountable to somebody. So in a way, there is a background of a democratic call that the Commission should be more politically steered and accountable to the European Parliament. But then, of course, this changing image of the Commission towards a more political commission had many repercussions. I mean, as you said, I was walking around, I mean, I was not walking freely around in Berlaymont [the headquarters of the Commission] ever, but sort of when I was making my interviews, it was during the Juncker Commission and shortly after that. I don't have newer data to see what happened after he finished. And of course, that would be a really interesting point of comparison. However, I do feel that generally law matters a lot less than what it used to in the past.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: So I want to share with you a thought that I had while reading your book: I wonder if some of what you heard during those interviews, especially at that time, might reflect a kind of cri de coeur, a lament against the idea of a more overtly political Commission—one where lawyers are increasingly seen as serving politicians rather than the law. And from my own experience, I’ve noticed that politicians often expect legal advisors—not just in the EU, but across the public sector—just to facilitate their objectives. They don’t want lawyers to get in the way; they want them to make their plans work. But at the same time, they rely on legal advisors to provide a stamp of legitimacy: ‘Our lawyers checked it, so it’s fine’. Now it strikes me that many public sector lawyers may be struggling with this instrumentalisation of their role. And this brings me to a broader question about what government lawyers should be. On one end of the spectrum, there’s the idea of lawyers as, kind of, tools—loyal to their political masters, there to legitimise whatever they’re asked to. But on the other, there’s the vision of lawyers as critical actors within their administration—loyal first and foremost to the law, you know, there to say what the law is and, when needed, to speak truth to power. Now, linking this to your concerns about democracy: What role do you think government lawyers should play in a democracy? Where on this spectrum do you believe public sector lawyers belong?

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: Well, that's a complicated question. But I mean, in a way, I like this idea that legal advice should be frank, comprehensive and objective. And there, of course, you as the lawyer, you do your best. I've been in that position many times trying to provide that frank, objective and comprehensive advice. And that, of course, also means that sometimes you have to say things that are inconvenient. And as a good lawyer, you will also need to say, you know, these are things that speak in favor of that position. But there are also other considerations that would draw in the opposite conclusion that will create different winners and different losers and also be open about that dimension, which I think is incredibly important in law as well.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: That’s a good bridge to another aspect that you discuss in your book, and that’s the issue of transparency and access to documents. You have written that: ‘It is common for EU legal advisers to think that impartiality and objectivity call for high levels of confidentiality.’ Could you talk more about that and why that is a particular concern?

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: It's not my only concern in relation to confidentiality, but it's one of the major ones. Because I think what we've sort of already discussed is that we see that law is really relevant. And that in a way, law does influence outcomes. And one of the ideas with the Treaty of Lisbon was specifically that lawmaking would become more public. And legal opinions are a really sort of key document in that respect. And of course, that has to do with the many years that I spent in the Council. Seeing what influence these opinions had. But of course, the Council legal [service’s] opinions are not the only document. I mean, all these choices made in the Commission based on legal advice already before a legislative proposal lands on the table are also incredibly important for the outcome of any legislative procedure. So in that sense, I feel that legal opinions actually concern constitutional issues. And I have such a hard time understanding how the question of whether the EU has competence or not can be a secret.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: But you found that there is real reluctance share these kind of opinions…

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: Absolutely. It's a very strong institutional conviction in the Legal Services that none of their work should ever basically be disclosed. But I mean, there's a court ruling that came up nearly 20 years ago, a case called Turco, which concerned a legal opinion that had to do with a lawmaking procedure. And there, I mean, basically, the Legal Services of the Commission and the Council joined up in the Court and said, you know, we cannot possibly provide frank, comprehensive and objective advice if that work is disclosed. And the [Court of Justice] said, no, actually, these legal opinions are really important in a democracy. And there should be broader public scrutiny because that has a huge legitimacy effect as well. So, I mean, these are choices that should be publicly debated. And I completely agree with that conclusion. But it’s incredibly difficult to get legal opinions from the institutions. And I’ve spent quite a lot of time in these efforts.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: So, nearly 20 years ago, in Turco, the Court did indeed emphasise openness as a precondition for democracy, highlighted how a lack of transparency in legal advice can undermine public confidence in the legislative process. But from what you’re saying, it seems the EU’s legal services haven’t yet internalised that principle as part of their mindset.

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: No. And, you know, they have no shame to go to court over and over again to present exactly the same arguments that the court shut down already 20 years ago and in many, many cases after that. So in that sense, there’s a very established jurisprudence about legal advice in legislative matters that the court says you have to hand it out, you know, but the institutions don’t want to do that.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: You yourself went to court a few times against the EU institutions challenging refusals to give access to legal opinons. Could you talk us through one of those legal battes?

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: Many of these have to do with writing of the book. Of course, many opinions I had read when I was a civil servant, but I also felt that in order to use advice in the book, I actually have to follow the right procedures and ask for access as a citizen of the European Union. So I ask for a lot of opinions. And sometimes I also appeal when I'm rejected. One example would be the case that I took to the general court, actually together with an environmental NGO, ClientEarth, which had to do with the Council legal opinion on the EU's compliance with an international convention, the Aarhus Convention, which of course substance-wise is very juicy because it has to do with access to environmental information, public participation, and access to justice. So I was working on that issue more broadly, and I was also interested in basically because there were findings from the Aarhus compliance body saying the EU is in breach. So the Commission filed a proposal to update the relevant EU legislation. And then I knew that there was a Council legal opinion which analyzed the Commission proposal. So I was eager to see whether the Council was happy with the proposal or not. And I was told, no, you cannot have that. And I asked for so many opinions that I couldn’t possibly go to court every time I'm rejected. But this one sort of annoyed me tremendously, the reply by the Council, because they said, you know, you're such a nuisance because you create external pressure on the institutions. And by creating this external pressure, you actually prevent our decision making. And I'm sorry, but I think this is an argument that a public institution in a democratic society should never invoke. It's simply inappropriate. So this was one of the cases that I've taken to court and won. And of course, I was particularly happy that the Court also addressed this point. There was also a part in the oral hearing where the judges started asking the Council lawyers for examples of this external pressure that this female academic from Finland had exercised on the Council. And the judges were told that my sin was that I had published a blog post where I criticized the Commission proposal. So in a way, I think if this kind of thinking starts spreading, then we are in trouble. But I mean, it reemerges in many, many of these cases.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: So that particular example concerns the Council, but you’ve encountered a similar attitude in other institutions as well, haven’t you?

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: Yeah, I file requests with many institutions because I've discovered that internal documents often, you know, they're much more interesting than the documents that the institutions plan to be published. And I think the Council still is good. I mean, they follow deadlines reasonably well. They hardly ever give you anything in the first round. But if you're insistent, you know, and you insist, they will hand out quite a few things. But the Commission has become incredibly difficult. You know, the regulation has deadlines, 15 days. And if it's a very broad request, you can extend it with another 15 days. But I've had requests pending for 16 months, you know, 15 days to 16 months. It really is a big difference. And somehow you get the feeling that the Commission simply doesn't bother to even keep up the performance of applying the regulation. I mean, the European Ombudsman says the Commission has, in practice, ceased to apply the public access rules. And of course, that is a bit odd.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: What you’re describing now, and of course it’s not just you, as you said, the European Ombudsman has also raised alarm bells about this, how can this be explained? Let’s bring it back specifically to legal opinions. You've interviewed a lot of EU legal advisors. I think it's fair to say that you didn't come to the conclusion that they were all evil geniuses trying to secretly make the world a darker place.

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: No. The conclusion is the opposite.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: Exactly. Yes. And so that makes me wonder, so why this reluctance? Where does this resistance come from? Is that habit or is that fear? And if so, fear of what exactly?

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: I don't know. You're the better expert probably on this question. But then, of course, I mean, the thought that comes to my head is that, you know, is there actually something to hide? Is the quality of this legal work simply so low that, you know, you need to keep it confidential? Then, of course, another question, which is also really alarming, is that somehow you get the impression that, you know, legal advice cannot be handed out because it's irrelevant. That institutions would actually routinely fail to follow the advice of their lawyers and go for solutions that they know breach the law. I don't think that is true. But, of course, this is the impression that you get. And in that sense, I'm not sure if actually confidentiality protects any of the good things. I would want to hope the institutions work on the basis of frank, comprehensive and objective advice. But I would think, you know, if that advice was actually public, it would make political pressure more difficult to exercise, at least from time to time. And it would also make it more visible when politicians have chosen to disregard that advice.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: I find the idea of openness as a safeguard for the integrity of legal advice quite compelling, not least because it helps avoid the conspiracy thinking that often arises when things are hidden. My impression is that the reasons for a lack of transparency are usually very mundane, and that malicious intent is very rare. But of course, gaps in information tend to get filled with suspicion—that’s only human. That said, I’ve noticed that attitudes toward this issue are very culturally contingent. I’m from the Netherlands, I guess it’s no coincidence that I’m sympathetic to your argument. Not that things are necessarily better in the Netherlands—I mean we often tell ourselves comforting stories about our own virtues that don’t always match reality. But the idea that transparency is the best disinfectant feels very natural to me. Do you think your Finnish background has shaped your perspective on this as well?

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: Absolutely. And of course, I'm also saying this against the background of having sat in an office for 10 years writing legal opinions. And we've never had this presumption that legal work would somehow require confidentiality. You would always work on the presumption that somebody can ask for that and it will be disclosed. And for me, that has the effect that I don't bullshit, you know, that I take my job very seriously. And I try to be very, very visible where the space for interpretation is, but also the consequences.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: So just to be clear: in Finland this type of advice would be publicly accessible.

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: I think at the level of government decision-making, when they're preparing something, I don't think everything would be sort of automatically proactively disclosed, but people can ask for them. And there is no special rule that would treat legal advice differently from any other preparatory type of documents. So I'm very much shaped by my own background. But then in other countries, they couldn't care less. They think more confidentiality, the better. And the EU should not be the place where our government secrets are leaked out.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: There’s so much more to explore there, but I want to come back to where we started: the role of legal advisors in the institutions, how they see the European public interest, and how they understand their own place in all of this. If you look at your research, it seems that their approach is often grounded in this classic, functionalist vision of integration—law as the backbone of the European project, the protector of its values. But then, those ideas, and even those values, feel increasingly contested nowadays. We’re seeing rising anti-EU sentiment, the growth of far-right politics, even its influence creeping into the institutions themselves. How do you think this changing environment is shaping the work and the sense of purpose of these EU legal advisors? Where do they land in all of this?

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: There are many elements to this, but I think one thing is that it's mistaken to think that somehow values would deliver automatic consequences, that values require making choices. And often they are difficult political choices, which I would not leave to technocrats in Brussels to make. So I think keep political problems political. Don't try to neutralize them too much. I think that's a key part of democratic governance. But then I think what you raised, what is going on in Europe, and I think also in the world more broadly. Of course, it's really challenging for the EU because I think on the one hand, we really see very strong opposition and right-wing movements getting stronger in every Member State. And they've really become a participant in the discussion. So you can no longer exclude the EU critical voices and pretend that they don't exist because they are there. They're in all parliaments, they're in the European Parliament, and they have a strong voice. And of course, it's a broader crisis of democracy that we see everywhere, questioning whether institutions can deliver. And then at the same time, when you look at what happens in the world, there are so many things where we would need to have a stronger EU. We would need a stronger EU in migration, in climate, in security, you know, you just name it. And I think all of these are important issues where the EU would need to have a stronger role. It would also need to have more money at its disposal. And it would, in certain respects, maybe also need more powers. But then, of course, you know, that's where we land in the difficult minefield because sort of think it's very generally assumed that, you know, Treaty changes are excluded. We can no longer change the treaties because if we ask the people, you know, the people will actually say we don't want to have these Treaty ratifications or approvals for various reasons, some more related to substance, other reasons. Unrelated, but you don't want to take those risks. So in a way, you're sort of caught between these opposite forces. And that's where you land in the difficult land of the law, because you will need to find flexibility in the Treaties. And I think that is a really, really big change that has happened over the past 10 years, and which really puts legal advisors working in the institutions at the forefront of any constitutional development that takes place in the EU, because their job has become, and of course, in particular lawyers working in the Commission, to find competence for the EU in matters where still for 10 years ago, no one would have thought there is competence for the EU. But that also means that really big constitutional moments and transformations and changes are no longer put to national parliaments to ratify and debate, but it actually happens in the backroom, you know, backstage among lawyers. That doesn't mean that law is irrelevant, you know, it's there. But in a way, this wish to avoid treaty reforms now guides institutional action. And I think often in ways that are far from ideal ways of responding to various crises.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: In a recent [speech], you reflected on writing your book and you said: ‘I returned to the University some ten years ago to write a book about my experiences working with the EU Institutions. This felt like the right thing to do to preserve my own critical voice, but also to protect the values and principles that figure high among my priorities for what the EU should become.’ Could you elaborate on these values and principles? What, in your view, should the EU become?

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: Well, I think we all have projects and, of course, I spent a lot of time self-reflecting on, Päivi, what is your political project? You know, what is it that guides your work? And I haven't come to much grander conclusions than that my project is about democracy. And I think a precondition for democracy is transparency. There's been a slow increase of democratic elements in the EU. But somehow I do see that this process has stalled and maybe actually gone on reverse, you know, that the EU is almost becoming less democratic than what it used to be. And in a way, I want to make noise about this, because for me, it's a really fundamental choice. When you're sort of voicing critical concerns, people often assume that, you know, you actually want to leave the EU or something of the sort. I would never even think about that. But I do want the EU to become better. And I want it to be more democratic. That is my project. And of course, a particular concern is the role of my own profession. Because I do see that lawyers’ position in EU democratic governance is sometimes problematic. And in a way, I see that the EU will never become more democratic unless also the lawyers in the EU institutions see that it's important and start promoting that and in a way embrace that also as their political project.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: I think that’s a great place to end. So the final question. What are three books that you recommend to the audience?

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: So in the cover of my book, there's a pink painting by a Finnish contemporary female artist. So I was thinking I need to follow that pattern. So I need to propose one really favorite book that is by a contemporary Finnish female author. And the choice is very simple: Mia Kankimäki's books. The first one is my favorite. It's called Things That Make [One’s] Heart Beat Faster, which is a book where she goes to Japan. And it sort of mixes contemporary perspectives with Kyoto 1000 years ago. And there's a second book also called The Women That I Think About at Night. So both of these are really good, especially the second one is available in a zillion languages. So that's my recommendation, number one. But then I was thinking maybe I would need to name a book that has framed my thinking as an academic. So I think my choice would be Duncan Kennedy's book, A Critique of Adjudication, which really framed my thinking of courts and what judges do, and also has led me to write about law and political institutions. Because after that book, I've never been the biggest fan of courts, to put it bluntly. And then a third book, I was thinking, a third book would need to be something that has to do with what I'm doing right now, professionally. And there, it's a tough choice between two books, one that I agree with and one that I fundamentally disagree with. The book that I agree with is a book by a person that I'm co-authoring a book with right now. And that's Peter Lindseth's book on power and legitimacy. He sees the EU very much as an administrative state, so not a constitutional actor, but more as a technocratic administrative actor. And it should understand its role in that way and understand that there are limits to what type of powers it can legitimately sort of exercise. It's not a new book, but it has a topical relevance and we'll be recycling a lot of those arguments in the forthcoming book. But then there's also a second book that I love and I've read from cover to cover, but I'm definitely, I think I disagree with almost everything that it says. And that would be Julio Baquero's book on the law of integration. I like that book because it makes the functionalist justification of European integration visible. And I think he argues it tremendously well. And I sort of appreciate the book for that as very good academic writing. At the same time, I disagree with everything that he says. And the worldview view that he expresses in that book is a very legitimate one, but it's not the only one. And in a way, it would be a good thing for the institutions to remember that that's one worldview, but there are others. And in a democracy, it should be an exchange between these worldviews in an open debate.

FELIX RONKES AGERBEEK: Thank you so much for these recommendations. For those interested, Julio was previously on the show to talk about his book, so curious listeners can go back and check out that episode. Your book, ‘The Politics of Legal Expertise in EU Policy-Making’, is also a great read, and I’m so glad we had the chance to discuss it here. Thank you for joining me on the show.

PÄIVI LEINO-SANDBERG: Thank you.