Suchergebnisse

Introduction:The foregoing chapters of this book have demonstrated the extent to which national civil servants are involved in EU-related activities, and the dynamics of national administrative activities in the context of the EU. This chapter shifts the focus from national civil servants working on the European Union to national civil servants working for the European Union. This is a class of national civil servants for whom finding a balance between national and European interests in their work is a permanent, although sometimes implicit feature of their daily professional activities. The duality of national and European roles is perhaps the most exacerbated for the seconded national experts (SNEs), i.e. national civil servants who are temporarily working for EU institutions, in particular those seconded to the European Commission.2 On the one hand, Commission SNEs have to be loyal to the Commission and represent European interests in this supranational organ of the EU. On the other hand, their employer is still the member-state government, and they are expected to return to their home organization after their secondment term ends. The SNEs are thus practically torn between two employers: their daily employer under whose supervision they work (the Commission) and the national employer who sent them on the secondment and continues to pay their salaries (the member-state).

This article explores the compound machinery of government. Attention is directed toward decision making within the core executive of the European Union - the European Commission. The article studies seconded national civil servants (SNEs) hired on short-term contracts. The analysis benefits from an original and rich body of surveys and interview data derived from current and former SNEs. The decision-making dynamics of SNEs are shown to contain a compound mix of departmental, epistemic, and supranational dynamics. This study clearly demonstrates that the socializing power of the Commission is conditional and only partly sustained when SNEs exit the Commission. Any long-lasting effect of socialization within European Union's executive machinery of government is largely absent. The compound decision-making dynamics of SNEs are explained by (1) the organizational affiliations of SNEs, (2) the formal organization of the Commission apparatus, and (3) only partly by processes of resocialization of SNEs within the 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.