Managing the house: the Presidency, agenda control and policy activism in the European Commission

ABSTRACT

Although the importance of international organizations is well-established, the specific contribution made to their policy outputs by administrative as opposed to political actors is rarely investigated. Still less attention is paid to how intra-organizational factors within international administrations affect the latter’s capacity to influence those outputs. Even in the case of the European Union, where the European Commission’s power over decisional outputs has been a long-standing interest, this issue has not been fully explored. Scholars have focused on horizontal factors, but have not addressed how vertical relations affect the Commission’s policy activism and therefore its influence on EU outputs. By examining how the transformation of power relations within the Commission has changed as a consequence of the strengthening of the Commission Presidency, this contribution fills that lacuna. Showing how a strong President has been able to control the Commission’s output, it demonstrates the importance of vertical relations as a variable.

KEY WORDS:

• Agenda control
• European Commission
• European Union
• international administrations
• policy output
• presidentialization

Acknowledgments

We thank three anonymous referees for constructive criticisms and participants at CES and EUSA Conferences 2013 to 2015, especially George Ross, Jarle Trondal, and Anchrit Wille, for their useful comments. We gratefully acknowledge our debt to Françoise Girard and David G. Knott, as well as to all respondents in the European Commission.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Hussein Kassim is professor of politics, at the University of East Anglia. Address for correspondence: Hussein Kassim, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom. Email: [email protected] . Sara Connolly is professor of personnel economics at the University of East Anglia. Renaud Dehousse is Jean Monnet Chair in European Union Law and Political Science, and director of the Centre d’études européennes, Sciences Po, Paris. Olivier Rozenberg is associate professor at Sciences Po, Paris. Selma Bendjaballah is associate researcher at the Centre d’études européennes, Sciences Po, Paris

ORCID

Hussein Kassim http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7603-8377

Sara Connolly http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6714-3493

Renaud Dehousse http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1781-9499

Olivier Rozenberg http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2468-7639

Selma Bendjaballah http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1091-0780

Notes

1. For an alternative view, see Moravscik (1999) and the reply by Young (1999).

2. ‘The European Commission in question’ featured an online survey with policy-related administrators (n = 1901) and interviews with commissioners (n = 5), cabinet members (n = 28) and managers (n = 119). UK ESRC grant no. RES-062-23-1188 (http://www.uea.ac.uk/psi/research/EUCIQ; Kassim et al. 2013).

3. ‘European Commission: facing the future’ included an online survey (n = 5,545) and interviews with commissioners (n = 9), cabinet members (n = 25), and managers (n = 120), conducted between March and September 2014 (https://www.uea.ac.uk/political-social-international-studies/facingthefuture).

4. Data from ‘The EU Legislative Output 1996–2014’ database, produced by the Centre for Socio-Political Data (CDSP, CNRS – Sciences Po) and the Centre for European Studies (CEE, CNRS-Sciences Po), and distributed by the Centre for Socio-Political Data.

5. Interviewees included a member of the President’s cabinet, senior managers in the secretariat general, three members of cabinets, and one director general.

6. Since the first 12 Commission Presidents have been men, the pronoun ‘he’ is used (uncomfortably) throughout.

7. See Commission (1963) Article 16.

8. This section draws on Kassim (2012), Kassim et al (2013: chs 6, 7), and Kassim (2010).

9. The Treaty of Nice was first to extend significant powers to the Commission President concerning the allocation of portfolios, while the Lisbon Treaty allows the Commission President to force the resignation of members of the Commission.

10. The Treaty of Amsterdam was a major landmark, stipulating that ‘The Commission works under political guidance of its President.’ As well as giving unequivocal recognition to the Commission President’s policy leadership role, this provision was interpreted as giving the Commission President personal authority over the organization of the Commission.

11. Interviews, Secretariat General, 14 October 2014, 5 May 2015, 17 July 2015, Kassim and Connolly.

12. The intention was that membership of these policy groups would be fluid.

13. Interview, member of Commission President's team, Kassim, 18 June 2015.

14. The European Commission in Question (EUCIQ) data also cited in Kassim et al (2013).

15. ECFTF interview 904.

16. Interview, Connolly and Kassim, 5 May 2015.

17. See http://ec.europa.eu/priorities/index_en.htm (accessed 15 November 2015).

 

Additional information

Funding

Support of the ESRC [RES-062-23-1188] and of the French Agence nationale de la recherche (ANR-12-BSH1-0012-01) is gratefully acknowledged.