Has the power of the Commission declined since the 1990s?

Résumé du document

The Commission is composed of 27 commissioners, one per Member State, referred to as “the College of Commissioners”. The Commission is led by a President, proposed by the European council– according to the outcome of the European elections– and elected by the European Parliament (EP). The Council selects the other commissioners with the nominated Commission President and then the EP conduct a vote of approval of the whole college. The term “Commission” as Paul Magnette notes “means in fact, both the College of Commissioners– political body– and the administration on which it relies” account for circa 25,000 civil servants divided into various departments called Directorates-General and services.

The European Commission is a collegial body organized as a cabinet government, whose propositions are voted by two “chambers” (namely the Council and the EP). Moreover, the Commission can be voted out of office by the EP. It can be conceived as the civil service of the European Union (EU) or as a form of federal government, hence the difficulty to label it and to understand its powers and responsibilities. As it combines various features, the Commission has a great role within the EU system: it is an administration and in the meantime a political body, and even in specific areas an independent regulatory agency. The power of the Commission is unique as it was the first and only supranational body of the European integration starting from the Treaty of Paris in 1951. As Nugent notes “it is at the very heart of the EU system”: compared to a mere civil service, the Commission enjoys much greater policy-initiating and decision-making powers deriving from the treaties and political practice.

Extraits

[...] This new actor would have taken over much of the foreign policy work of the Commission, in particular from the Directorate-General external relation (RELEX) and threatened the Commission's external representations. But in fact, Mrs Ashton‘s performances have been criticised from the day she took office. Moreover, President Barroso, motivated by the will to preserve the Commission's powers, “shifted several key issue responsibilities including the substance of EU neighbourhood policy out of DG RELEX to other Commission portfolios before those responsibilities could be moved to the EEAS”.[21] Accordingly, President Barroso also made sure that the Commission would continue to give directions to the agents working in the external representations, and not the EEAS. [...]

[...] This is related to the events which occurred in 1999 with the Santer college forced to resign in March after irregularities had been laid out and in 2004 when new President Barroso, threatened with a vote of no confidence, had to withdraw the Italian Commissioner-nominee Rocco Buttiglione. If it is undeniable that there has been at the time a loss in the status or prestige of the Commission (which has to be sensitive to the views of MEPs), this does not induce a decline in its power. It is true that the Commission does not control the majority in the Parliament and the Council, which entrust and nominate it and vote the texts it has proposed as a Government could. [...]

[...] (Consulted 10.11 .2011) NUGENT, N. & RHINARD, M., The European Commission and the European Union's external relations after the Lisbon Treaty, Paper prepared for the 12th Biennial Conference of the European Union Studies Association, Boston, March Available at: http://euce.org/eusa/2011/papers/6i_nugent.pdf (Consulted on 10.11 .2011) POLLACK, Mark A., The End of Creeping Competence? EU policy-making since Maastricht, Journal of Common Market Studies, September 2000, vol p. 519-538. Available at: http://graduateinstitute.ch/webdav/site/iheid/shared/summer/IA2009_read ings/CD5.pdf (consulted 10.11 .2011) POLLACK, Mark A., Delegation, agency and agenda setting in the European Community, International Organization, 51/ Availableat:http://graduateinstitute.ch/webdav/site/iheid/shared/summer /IA2009_readings/ME2.pdf (Consulted 10.11 .2011) PRESS ARTICLE: EurActiv (author unknown): Microsoft, la Nouvelle Amende de l'UE porte la facture à 1,7 Milliard, http://www.euractiv.com/fr/societe- information/microsoft-nouvelle-amende-ue-porte-facture-17- milliard/article-170600 (Consulted 10.11 .2011) MAGNETTE, P., Le régime politique de l'Union européenne¸2ème édition, Presses de SciencesPo p.138 NUGENT, N. [...]

[...] The first part of this paper has shown that the Commission enjoys very important responsibilities and power to ensure its treaty powers through extensive resources. Nugent even argues that in fact, powers have actually increased as it has adapted itself to the ever-changing nature of, and demands upon, the The second part aimed at balancing the arguments stating that the Commission lost its place within the EU system mostly due to the increasing influence of the European Council and Parliament and finally the third part aimed at proving that the Commission is not helpless with regards to the EU external relations. [...]

[...] ,The Government and politics of the European Union, Palgrave MacMillan, 6th edition, London p NUGENT, N., The Government and politics of the European Union, Palgrave MacMillan, 7th edition, London p Ibid NUGENT, N. & RHINARD, M., The European Commission and the European Union's external relations after the Lisbon Treaty, Paper prepared for the 12th Biennial Conference of the European Union Studies Association, Boston, March p.3. Available at: http://euce.org/eusa/2011/papers/6i_nugent.pdf (Consulted on 10.11 .2011) NUGENT, N., op.cit., 6th edition, p.166 POLLACK, M., The End of Creeping Competence? [...]