The Commission: boxed in and constrained, but still an engine of integration

Abstract

In the debate about the impact of the eurozone crisis on the EU’s institutional balance, antagonists have often argued past each other. Supporters of the new intergovernmentalism contend that the European Council has supplanted the European Commission in policy leadership, while scholars who hold that the EU executive has been a winner of the crisis highlight the new management functions it has acquired. This article argues, first, that an accurate assessment of the institutional balance requires a more global evaluation of the Commission, acknowledging external and internal dynamics. Second, it contends that the crisis did not cause a Commission retreat but accelerated a process already underway that finds its origins in the presidentialisation of policy control. The adoption of fewer legislative proposals during the crisis was due to the ability and choice of a strong president to focus the attention on crisis-related areas. The broader lesson is that rather than marking a further step in the decline of the Commission, the crisis reveals how the centralisation of power within the institution and its expanded management duties have enhanced its capacity to take strategic action. The Commission’s role as an engine of integration will therefore endure, but in a different guise.

Keywords:

• European Commission
• economic governance
• eurozone crisis
• new intergovernmentalism

Acknowledgements

Without funding from the ESRC (RES-062-23-1188), Françoise Girard and David G. Knott, and the School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication at UEA, the fieldwork on which this article draws could not have been conducted. Our greatest debt is to respondents in the European Commission who completed online surveys or participated in interviews or focus groups either as part of ‘The European Commission in Question’ or ‘European Commission: Facing the Future’. We also thank the other members of both research teams and, finally, the participants of the two authors’ workshops and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.

Notes

1. The Community Method is mainly characterised by the sole right of the Commission to initiate legislation, the co-decision power between the Council and the European Parliament, and the use of qualified majority voting in the Council. It stands in contrast to intergovernmental decision-making processes where the Commission’s and the European Parliament’s roles are much weaker.

2. The surveys and interviews were conducted as part of two research projects. The first project (‘The European Commission in Question’, 2008–2009) comprised an online survey in the Commission (n = 1901) and interviews with Commissioners (n = 5), cabinet members (28) and managers (n = 119). It was led by Hussein Kassim (PI, principal investigator) and John Peterson, involved Michael W. Bauer, Sara Connolly, Renaud Dehousse and Liesbet Hooghe, and was funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (grant number RES-062-23-1188). For more information, see http://www.uea.ac.uk/psi/research/EUCIQ. The findings are presented in Kassim et al. 2013. The second project (‘European Commission: Facing the Future’, 2014) included an online survey (n = 5545) and interviews with Commissioners (n = 9), cabinet members (n = 25) and managers (n = 120), conducted between March and September 2014. The project was led by Kassim and Connolly, the research team included Michael W. Bauer, Renaud Dehousse and Andrew Thompson. For more information, see http://www.uea.ac.uk/political-social-international-studies/facingthefuture.

3. There are ‘indirect’ rights of initiative for the Parliament (Art. 225 TFEU), the Council (Art. 241 TFEU) and even the citizens via the European Citizens Initiative (Art. 11(4) TEU), who all can ‘invite’ the Commission to submit a legislative proposal. The Lisbon Treaty strengthened the Parliament’s indirect right by codifying the obligation of the Commission to give reasons when not submitting a proposal following an invitation.

4. Some of these differences reflect cross-sectoral variation in the development of the acquis communautaire. In some areas, the regulatory regime was already mature. In others, EU legislative action was newer or had been less extensive.

5. There is some debate to what extent the Commission can generally be considered a winner of the euro crisis (Bauer and Becker 2016; da Conceição-Heldt 2016); however, there is agreement that in the field of macroeconomic and budgetary surveillance, this verdict does hold true.

6. Interview conducted by Hussein Kassim and Renaud Dehousse, Brussels, 6 May 2015.

7. Interview with cabinet member of Commission President Juncker, conducted by Hussein Kassim, 18 June 2015.

8. There are important exceptions. One example is Neil Kinnock, who led administrative reform in the Prodi Commission.

9. Interview with cabinet member of former Commission President Barroso, conducted by Sara Connolly and Hussein Kassim, 5 May 2015.