The extent to which the European Commission exercises 'political' roles in European integration is very much up for debate. Some recent analyses of the Commission take it for granted that its political roles have been in decline, while others have suggested they have increased – especially under the current President of the Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, who was appointed in 2014 by a much more politicised process than had been used previously and whose College has sought to present itself as being guided by a political mission and as offering political leadership to the EU. In this article, we aim to show that in the debate about the political roles of the Commission, 'political' has often been poorly defined and operationalised. By drawing on Public Administration scholarship, we offer a framework for analysing how and where in the EU system the Commission's political roles might become manifest. We then assess empirically these roles in different functions the Commission undertakes.
In the academic debate on the relative powers and influence of the EU institutions, it has become common to suggest - especially in the case of advocates of the 'new intergovernmentalism' - that the European Commission is in decline. In this article we show that while in some limited respects this is indeed the case, the Commission's overall position in the EU system is not one of having become a weaker institutional actor. The extent of the losses of its powers and influence tends to be exaggerated, while in some aspects its powers and influence have actually been strengthened. We show this by focusing on three of the Commission's core functions-agenda-setter, legislative actor and executive-all of which are widely portrayed as being in decline. We incorporate into our analysis both the formal and informal resources available to the Commission in exercising the functions.
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.
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.
The latest recommendations issued by the European Commission go towards the revision of their policy on dissemination and preservation of scientific information: the aim is to promote access to the results of the community-funded research by especially implementing the open access policy within 'Horizon 2020', the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2014-2020). The growth of "fast" documentation - which is not long-term preserved or not available in stable URLs and repositories - pushed the European Commission to produce a set of guidelines for the management of documentation at-large and of specialized documentation produced within funded projects in particular. Those guidelines try to conciliate the visibility of the project activities in two directions: "a) better quality and user-friendliness of project websites, triggering higher popolarity b) better visibility for the projects and the European Commission due to a more standardized format". The EC guidelines proved to be a very useful tool for optimizing and handling information on the dedicated portals of the community-funded projects: the general recommendations, for example, focus the attention on the importance of using social media as well as webmaster tools and virtual meeting facilities (as web streaming) and of adopting an "eu" domain. Moreover, specific directives are given not only for the structure of the project homepage but often for the web site framework as well: homepage, project overview, consortium, management structure, scientific methodology and expected documentation. Given this scenario, the web sites of these projects represent an essential vehicle for both the acquisition and the diffusion of grey literature and could also become an important resource within an European infrastructure able to overcome the disconnected and scattered nature of their content in order to optimise their riutilization. Although the term "grey literature" (GL) has never been explicitly mentioned in the Commission guidelines, it is widely known that a good amount of documentation produced within the EC projects is made up of deliverables, e-newsletters, brochures, posters, flyers, videos, project factsheets, photographs. Starting from this condition, this paper analyses the GL production available on European Projects dedicated web sites, using a sample of projects selected from EU-CORDIS. The aim of the survey is then to identify, measure, evaluate the usability and availability of grey literature provided by the European Commission projects web sites in order to verify whether this type of literature is compliant with EU recommendations. It is also important to assess to which extent grey literature is reusable for "nourishing" the European platform infrastructures devoted to the storage, dissemination and conservation of such research product.
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.
International public organizations, as the European Commission and the European Parliament, are under almost permanent political pressure to improve efficiency. While teamwork is considered to be a possible remedy, so far little research on effectiveness of multinational teams was undertaken in international public organizations. The purpose of this book is to identify the distinctive characteristics that influence multinational team performance in a public management context. Based on a qualitative research approach a complexity model of multinational team performance was developed. This model can be used as a checklist to identify possible problems in multinational teams. Additionally, managerial implications of how to deal with the inherent complexity of multinational teams are given.
This article discusses the impact that the reforms of the European Union's economic governance since 2011 have had on the European Commission's role as a policy entrepreneur. Particular attention is paid to mechanisms that are applied by the Commission to extend its scope beyond its given formal competences to shape national reform agendas. The research interest is based on the assumption that the Commission is a 'competence-maximising rational actor' (Pollack, 1997), whose primary organisational goals are to expand the scope of Community competence and increase the Commission's own standing within the policy process. Accordingly, this research contributes to the scholarly debate by identifying mechanisms applied by the Commission under the European Semester to shape European and national reform agendas in areas of sovereign policymaking competences of the member states.
'Agencification' in the European Union has emerged as an important research topic at the intersection between political science and organizational studies. This Working Paper focuses on a group of six agencies under the wings of the European Commission that is often overlooked in the literature, despite the fact that these agencies are now set up for more than a decade, and despite the fact that their portfolio is growing. It sheds light on the historical context of their establishment and their legal foundation, looks at their organizational structure, and investigates the fields of action in which they are tasked to operate. ; IHS Working Paper
This intervention analyses the new arrangements for the sale of live television rights to FA Premier League (FAPL) games. The new procedures have been produced as a result of ongoing discussions between the FAPL and the European Commission. To ensure compliance with European Union competition legislation, the Premier League has accepted the Commission's calls for an end to its exclusive distribution of live broadcast rights, bringing to an end BSkyB's 15-year monopoly of its main subscription driver (Buck and Terazono, 2005). Here, we examine the aims of the European Commission in pursuing the FAPL's exclusive deal with BSkyB (Sky) and consider whether the deal that has been brokered provides any tangible benefits to the consumer.
The paper analyzes the appointment of the European Commission as a strategic game between members of the European Parliament and the Council. The focal equilibrium results in Commissioners that duplicate policy preferences of national Council representatives. Different internal decision rules still prevent the Commission from being a Council clone in aggregate. Rather, it is predicted a priori that Commission policies are on average more in accord with the aggregate position of the Parliament. Empirical analysis suggests that the Council is, in fact, significantly more conservative than Parliament and Commission; the latter two are significantly closer to each other than Council and Commission.
The paper analyzes the appointment of the European Commission as a strategic game between members of the EU's Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. The focal equilibrium results in Commissioners that duplicate policy preferences of national Council representatives. Different internal decision rules still prevent the Commission from being a Council clone in aggregate. Rather, it is predicted that Commission policies are on average more in accord with the aggregate position of the Parliament than the Council. A data set covering 66 dossiers with 162 controversial EU legislative proposals passed between 1999 and 2002 is investigated to test this. In fact, the Council is significantly more conservative than Parliament and Commission; the latter two are significantly closer to each other than Council and Commission.
The paper analyzes the appointment of the European Commission as a strategic game between members of the European Parliament and the Council. The focal equilibrium results in Commissioners that duplicate the policy preferences of national Council representatives. Different internal decision rules still prevent the Commission from being a Council clone in aggregate. Rather, it is predicted a priori that Commission policies are on average more in accord with the aggregate position of the Parliament than that of the Council. This prediction is confirmed for a data set covering 66 dossiers with 162 controversial EU legislative proposals passed between 1999 and 2002.
Science Europe calls on the European Commission to take into account the important role of the research sector as producer and user of data. The longstanding experience of the research sector should feed into the development of an overarching EU data strategy that promotes data access across sectors. In its response to the EC consultation on the European Strategy for Data, Science Europe also underlines the need to consider sectoral policies to ensure coherence between overarching and sectoral policies.