European Commission: Structure, Powers, and History
The European Commission: An Overview
The European Commission is the executive and bureaucratic arm of the EU. It is responsible for generating new laws and policies, overseeing their implementation, managing the EU budget, representing the EU in international negotiations, and promoting the interests of the EU as a whole. The core responsibility of the Commission is to be the guardian of the treaties, ensuring that EU policies are advanced in light of the treaties. Headquartered in Brussels, the Commission consists of a college of appointed commissioners, who function collectively much like a national government cabinet in a parliamentary system. As the most visible and supranational of the EU institutions, the Commission has long been at the heart of European integration.
The Commission has less power than its detractors suggest, because the final decisions on new laws and policies rest with the Council of the EU and the European Parliament. The Commission deserves credit for the rich and creative role it has played in the process of European integration. It has not only encouraged member states to harmonize their laws, regulations, and standards in the interest of bringing down barriers to trade, but it has also been at the heart of some of the defining European policy initiatives, including the single market, efforts to create a single currency, efforts to build common foreign policy positions, and enlargement.
Origins of the European Commission
The origins of the European Commission can be traced back to the High Authority of the ECSC. Based in Luxembourg, the nine members of the Authority were nominated for six-year terms by national governments of the member states. Their job was to oversee the removal of barriers to the free movement of coal and steel, and their powers were checked by a Special Council of Ministers and a Common Assembly.
The Treaties of Rome created separate nine-member commissions for the EEC and Euratom, whose members were nominated by national governments for four-year terms. Under the terms of the 1965 Merger Treaty, the three separate commissions were merged in 1967 into a new Commission of the European Communities, more commonly known as the European Commission. As the Community expanded, the number of commissioners grew.
The Commission became less ambitious and aggressive and lost powers with the creation in 1965 of the Committee of Permanent Representatives, the creation in 1974 of the European Council, and the introduction in 1979 of direct elections to the European Parliament.
Structure of the European Commission
The College of Commissioners
Commissioners are nominated by the national governments, which usually means by the prime minister or the president. The nominations are made in consultation with the president of the Commission, and nominees must be acceptable to the president of the Commission, the other commissioners, other governments, the major political parties, and the EP.
All nominees are required to attend hearings before the relevant committees of the EP, but Parliament does not have the right to accept or reject them individually. Instead, it must approve or reject the College as a whole.
Parliament also has the power to remove the College in midterm through a motion of censure, although it has never done so.
Commissioners are not expected to be national representatives; they must be impartial in their decision-making.
Every commissioner has a cabinet, each cabinet is headed by a chef de cabinet and provides advice and the basic information and services that help commissioners do their jobs.
The President of the Commission
Serving a renewable five-year term, the president of the Commission oversees meetings of the College, decides on the distribution of portfolios, represents the Commission in dealings with other EU institutions, represents the EU at meetings with national governments and their leaders, and is generally responsible for ensuring that the Commission gives impetus to the process of European integration. In this area, the president has the same executive function as the president of the United States.
The Delors Commission will be remembered for at least four major achievements: the completion of the single market, the plan for economic and monetary union, promotion of the Social Charter, and the negotiations leading up to Maastricht.
Before the Treaty of Lisbon, the selection process was labyrinthine, inasmuch as the successful nominee could be vetoed by any national leader within the EU. The Treaty of Lisbon led to a significant change in this selection process: starting in 2014, commission presidents were to be proposed by the European Council, using the qualified majority vote. Candidates must be confirmed by the EP.
Directorates-General and Services
Below the College, the European Commission is divided into thirty-three DGs and a number of services. The DGs are the equivalent of national government departments in that each is responsible for a specific policy area. Employees consist of a mixture of full-time bureaucrats (fonctionnaires), national experts on short-term contracts, and supporting staff. Most staff work on drawing up new laws and policies and overseeing implementation; others are involved in research, translation, and interpretation.
Secretariat General
The administration of the Commission is overseen by the secretariat general with a staff of about seven hundred. The job is to provide technical services and advice to the Commission, prepare the annual work program of the Commission, and organize and coordinate the work of the DGs and services. The secretary general chairs weekly meetings of chefs de cabinet, sits in on the weekly meetings of the commissioners, directs Commission relations with other EU institutions, and generally makes sure that the work of the Commission runs smoothly.
Network of Committees
Most of the work of discussing and sorting out the details of proposed law and policies is left to a series of advisory, management, and regulatory committees.
The Council of the EU
The Council of the EU is the forum in which national governments’ ministers meet to make decisions on EU laws and policy. It is the primary champion of national interests and one of the most powerful of the EU institutions. Once the Commission has proposed a new law, the Council is responsible for accepting or rejecting the proposal. The Council also approves the EU budget, a responsibility it shares with the EP, coordinates the economic policies of the member states, champions the Common Foreign and Security Policy, coordinates police and judicial cooperation on criminal matters, and concludes international treaties on behalf of the EU. It has a mix of legislative and executive functions. Its meetings are closed.