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The European Commission, led by its President José Manuel Barroso, is made up of a college of 27 Commissioners, one from every European Union country. Each Commissioner deals with a specific policy area, functioning in a similar way to ministers in national governments. This brochure provides a brief insight into the work of the European Commission. It presents all of the Commissioners, their policy portfolios and the priorities they have set out for their five-year terms of office.--Publisher's description

The paper deals with contemporary phenomenon of "Europeanization" of lobbying activities. The aim is to survey the outcome of interdisciplinary research on interest representation in the EU context, with regard to the European Commission and business representation. The subject is a matter of interest to contemporary political economy seen as search for institutional equilibrium in relations between public authorities, the market and civil society. Political and information exchange is presented as an interplay between the demand side and the supply side. Deliberately, the paper is concerned with economic interests only, leaving citizen or social interests beyond the scope. The questions posed are about organizational forms of their coordination, basic standards of access, and transparency of the EC-business relations.

The paper deals with contemporary phenomenon of "Europeanization" of lobbying activities. The aim is to survey the outcome of interdisciplinary research on interest representation in the EU context, with regard to the European Commission and business representation. The subject is a matter of interest to contemporary political economy seen as search for institutional equilibrium in relations between public authorities, the market and civil society. Political and information exchange is presented as an interplay between the demand side and the supply side. Deliberately, the paper is concerned with economic interests only, leaving citizen or social interests beyond the scope. The questions posed are about organizational forms of their coordination, basic standards of access, and transparency of the EC-business relations.

On November 8, the European Commission recommended that the EU grant Georgia candidate status, paving the way for the bloc to begin the country's accession process.

AbstractThe cabinets of the European Commission are seen to play a crucial role in the policy‐making process. So far, however, they have in many respects remained 'black boxes'. In this article we 'unpack' the demographic composition in terms of nationality of three commissions' cabinets. The standard portrayal of cabinets has been that of national enclaves and points of access. Reforms during the period have required a more multinational composition. Our study shows that not only have the new rules been implemented: the new formal requirements have become over‐fulfilled and increasingly so. In 2004, 96 per cent of the cabinets contained more nationalities than formally prescribed and 57 per cent of the personnel were non‐compatriots of their respective commissioners. Based on studies of comparable phenomena, it is reason to believe that decomposition of a particular demographical cluster within an organizational unit reduces the impact of such demographical factors on officials' decision behaviour.

Co-authored by an international team of researchers and drawing on interviews with senior officials, 'The European Commission of the Twenty-First Century' tests, challenges and refutes many widely held myths about the European Commission and the people who work for it.

AbstractThis article investigates the European Commission under the Presidency of Jean‐Claude Juncker during a time of acute crisis in the European Union. It asks what it means for Juncker to preside over a 'political Commission', following his appointment as the so‐called Spitzenkandidat of the centre‐right after the 2014 EP European Parliament election. More generally, it considers what makes the Juncker Commission distinctive. We ask whether Juncker views his EP mandate as giving him licence to head a Commission that is more ambitious than those headed by his predecessor, José Manuel Barroso. We provide empirical raw material for theorizing about the EU, particularly given the prominence of the new intergovernmentalism as a theoretical paradigm of European integration. We argue that it is time to redefine the term 'intergovernmental', especially given how the Commission has become more directly linked to and dependent on EU national capitals in a time of acute crisis.

Through an analysis of four European Commission advisory committees comprising organized civil society actors, this work investigates the existence of a dichotomy between the capacity of European Commission committee governance to improve system effectiveness & provide efficiency gains as well as sustain democratic credentials.

Book Cover; Title; Contents; Notes on contributors; Series editor's preface; List of abbreviations; Introduction; Actors, institutions and interdependence; Doing politics and pretending not to: the Commission's role in distributing aid to Eastern Europe; The politics of collegiality: the non-portfolio dimension; The Secretariat General of the European Commission, 1958 2003: a singular institution; Political dynamics of the parallel administration of the European Commission; The invention of a Directorate General for development (1958 1975).

Under what conditions will international compliance-monitoring institutions pursue violations of international law? The European Commission's infringement procedure is a multi-step process that culminates at the Court of Justice of the European Union when a member state has allegedly violated European Union law. The Commission, however, does not have meaningful enforcement powers, and may potentially spend valuable time and resources on a case only for a member state to not comply with European Union law. To manage this opportunity cost of pursuing other violations of European Union law, I argue that the Commission will strategically delay advancing a case through the infringement procedure when it anticipates that the political conditions will be more favorable for compliance in the future. I provide evidence that the Commission delays infringement proceedings when it expects the election of a new government that will be more likely to comply than the incumbent government.

This paper aims to analyze the leadership models of the European Commission in terms of the function of setting the agenda of the European Union and in terms of political leadership. In this context, at the European level leadership is shared between several actors, making it difficult for the European Commission to exercise leadership traditionally, mostly for its lack of direct decision-making powers. Thus, the most relevant political roles of the President of the European Commission are to set the European agenda and to persuade and influence the other stake-holders to follow his directions for deepening European integration. In this regard, the article comparatively analyzes the leadership of Jacques Delors, Jean-Claude Juncker, and Ursula von der Leyen to identify the leadership model proposed at the beginning of their term, and to what extent, they exercised a political role. The tools used in the analysis are the inaugural speeches and the following three variables: how they organized the Commission to strengthen the political role of the President, how they mobilized resources from the other institutions of the European Union, and the formation of coalitions and networks. The article concluded that the leadership model proposed by Ursula von der Leyen falls within the supranational pattern of Delors' time, moving away from the model of political leadership proposed by Juncker. The accuracy of the research is limited by the fact that Ursula von der Leyen is only in her first year as President of the European Commission.