Resistant to Change? The European Commission and Expert Group Reform

Abstract

This article examines how the European Commission has responded to external criticism and demands for the democratisation and reform of the way it uses expert groups in EU policy making. The article analyses the nature and character of the Commission’s dialogue with its critics and the degree and extent to which it was prepared to adapt its existing internal processes and procedures to the reform agenda. Recent theories inform us that organisations respond in different ways to external criticism and demands for reform, including full adaptation, evasion, institutional decoupling and reinterpretation. The main findings suggest that the Commission was not completely resistant to changing its approach to the use of expertise. The Commission reinterpreted its critics’ demands by introducing reforms that defused this external pressure, while protecting the effectiveness of its existing internal ideology and processes. These findings serve to enhance the Commission’s image as an increasingly normalised bureaucracy and reinforce the importance of knowledge and expertise as a key source of Commission legitimacy.

Keywords:

• European Commission
• knowledge
• expert groups
• democratisation
• reinterpretation
• normalised bureaucracy

Acknowledgements

This article benefited greatly from feedback from panel members at the 2014 NOPSA Conference in Gothenburg and 2014 ECPR Conference in Glasgow. I would particularly like to thank the two anonymous reviewers and my ARENA colleagues, Morten Egeberg, Cathrine Holst, Tatiana Fumasoli, Helena Seibicke, Jarle Trondal and Silje Tørnblad for their constructive comments. Finally, my appreciation goes to my family and Pernille Martinussen for their encouragement and support.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The EPISTO Project being conducted at the ARENA Centre for European Studies (University of Oslo) is led by Dr Cathrine Holst and is examining the role and function of experts in EU policy making. The EPISTO database containing information from the European Commission’s online register of expert groups has been formed as part of the project.