Suchergebnisse

The contributions made by Spaniards to the activities of the European Commission (EC) have not yet been illuminated in academic literature. This note does not claim to establish a scientific basis for research. It is, simply, an attempt to identify some of the roles that Spanish politicians & civil servants have fulfilled in the Commission. The note finds that these roles have been overwhelmingly positive for advancing the Commission's interests & the process of European integration. It ends on a tone of warning about future developments in an enlarged Commission. Adapted from the source document.

Abstract This article analyses tensions of governance within the core-executive of the European Union – the Commission. The applied test-bed is seconded national civil servants (SNEs) hired on short-term contracts in the Commission. The analysis benefits from a rich body of surveys and interview data among current and former SNEs. The data demonstrate that the decision-making behaviour evoked by SNEs contains a mix of departmental, epistemic and supranational behaviour. Intergovernmental dynamics are shown to be much less significant. The study also demonstrates that the secondment system scarcely creates enduring supranational loyalties among SNEs. The socialising powers of the Commission is conditional and only partly sustained when SNEs exit the Commission. The temporal identity of SNEs as an 'EU civil servant' is dependent on their primary institutional embeddedness within the Commission. Theoretically, tensions of governance in the Commission are accounted for by an institutionalist approach.

Major recent studies of the European Commission have emphasised the growing politicisation and centralisation as important trends transforming its organisation. The present article analyses the role that time rules and temporal practices that structure the operation of the Commission have played in these trends. It finds a clear temporal subtext to politicisation and centralisation. This becomes evident when one examines two key time-sensitive relationships: between the political level – the College of Commissioners – and the administrative level; and between central coordination units – notably the Secretariat-General – and line units. Political time-setting, monitoring and enforcement have assumed greater prominence, reducing the temporal discretion of the administration; central 'keepers of the clock' have acquired greater power; and traditional bureaucratic advantages in time budgets and time horizons have diminished.