Articles by Steffen Hurka

March 13, 2026

Are EU climate policies becoming too complex to succeed? 

Steffen Hurka
Steffen Hurka and Yves Steinebach reveal that EU climate legislation has become so complex that even well-resourced member states struggle to put it into practice. Longer, more detailed laws create implementation failures regardless of administrative capacity, suggesting the EU's climate ambitions may be undermined by how laws are written
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October 27, 2022

Complex laws are the price of inclusive democracy

Steffen Hurka
Why are laws often so hard to understand? Steffen Hurka argues that the complexity of laws increases when political conflict becomes more intense and when decision-making becomes more inclusive. Democracies aim for compromise and the balancing of interests, and complex laws are the inevitable consequence
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photograph of Steffen Hurka
Steffen Hurka
Professor of European Politics, Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen

Steffen's work focuses mainly on comparative public policy and legislative politics in the European Union.

He currently leads the Emmy Noether Research Group EUPLEX – Coping with Policy Complexity in the European Union, funded by the German Research Foundation.

EUPLEX investigates how to measure policy complexity, and explores the origins and consequences of complex policy.

www.steffenhurka.com

@steffen_hurka

The Loop

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