The role of the Commission in the Union

For the EU Open Day, Grahnlaw, a fellow blogger, asked: "What is your response to the continuously spread allegation about unelected elites in Brussels making 80 per cent of our laws?"

Without giving a full lecture on the European Union, let me first summarize a bit the situation.

On the one side, you have the well-know 3 major actors of the European Union:

• The European Commission
• The Council of the European Union (Member States)
• The European Parliament

On the other side, since the Maastricht Treaty, The European Union is built on 3 distinct pillars:

• European Community
• Common Foreign and Security Policy
• Police and Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters

As more and more treaties got signed the EC got more to do and the Europarliament got reinforced.

As to answer Grahn's question, the EC has (absolutely) no prerogatives on the two last pillars. It is the Member States (through the Council) with a sprinkle of Parliament who make the show in those topics. I have no statistics, but I sincerely doubt the 80% figure, just due to this fact.

We play only in the first pillar. On this, it was agreed democratically that Member States will relinquish some powers to the Union (not to the European Commission, to the Union). And if you have read my previous posts, we can't go rogue: we either have the MEP or a committee on our back. Even if we have great autonomy, the Council has the last word in the vast majority of cases.

One truth must be told high and loud. In our dear Union, the Council is the main legislative power! Not the Commission, the Council... So I totally agree on one of your comments: "the Commission has weakened by the shift of the 'institutional balance' towards the Council".

So what do the Brussels Elites do for a living? We are not as powerful as some Eurosceptics would like to believe. We draft policies in our first pillar and we make sure that Member States don't deviate too much from the treaties. We are definitely not elected officials, we are technocrats.

Last but not least, at the European Commission, officials works for their respective Commissioners, who vote on decisions as a college. Commissioners are not elected but they are selected by member states (after lengthy and complicated negotiations) and approved by the Parliament.

So let's make things clear: More than often, the Brussels Elite are accused of messing up with national sovereignty; unfortunately, when you look in details at the law-making process in the European Union, Member States do a non-negligible part of the work and when the Commission is in charge, it has democratic watchdogs. People should not fall that easily on this populist belief. We are just an easy scapegoat for many governments to justify their failure.

Q&A: Committees in our daily work

Julian Frisch asks: "How do these committees affect your (personal) daily work in the Commission? Do have frequent contact to member states' experts from these committees?"

It really depends in which DG you are working in. In my case, I would say that we do have to deal with a committee quite often. There are regular meetings with the Member States experts, but they are definitely not our direct bosses. With time, you start to preempt their comments... It is all about national interests, so pretty obvious to guess.

Regarding the quality of the experts in the committees, it varies a lot. Once again, it relates to national interests. They make sure they have knowledgeable people in areas dear to their agenda. You can also imagine that some countries are more inclined to protect their own interests, for example those with large industrial powers, let say.

Accountability at the European Commission: the role of the European Parliament

European elections are soon, and it is for us, officials of the European Institutions, a very important moment that will shape our work for the next five days. It is also for me the occasion to talk about how much accountable Eurocrats are towards the European Citizens.

I am more and more bothered by those eurosceptic populists who like to portray the EC as a distant and uncontrollable beast, which comes up with stupid and irrational regulations. Once again, it is true that the Commission is a bit far away from the citizens, but is it not due in part to the laziness of European citizens?

The European Commission is in fact very much accountable to the citizens (also known as the Taxpayers) in several ways:

• The European Parliament
• The Member States
• The Court of Auditors
• The Ombudsman
• OLAF

We are accountable through all these bodies (depending on the themes) and it is serious business! For this post, I will focus on the Parliament given the coming elections.

On many matters where treaties have given the EC the initiative on legislation, the Commission is quite autonomous in spending its bugdet. However, the Parliament has a "Droit de Regard", and many MEP do not refrain from asking a lot of questions. On our side we are required to give an answer to every single request (even the stupidest) fast.

This is what I call democracy and accountability. It surely happens at the national level in some countries, but rest assured that the crazy officials that we are, are controlled by a democratic body...

I actually welcome this scrutiny, because it just reminds us that policy isn't just a theoretical exercise. It might be harder to work through the politics of the Parliament, but it is much healthier. I quite enjoy when some colleagues get rebuffed by their parliament committee, thinking that their proposal was so well thoughts... That is not how it works, fortunate. It happens to me once as well, not so long ago where a proposal was put forward not in line with the objectives of the regulations, we tried as best as we could to disguise our text... but it was magnificently rejected by the relevant parliament committee. To be honest, it is often that we receive political pressure from cabinets, some times from ass-kissing directors, and we do appreciate when the MEPs come to rescue us.

So really, nothing does piss me off more that those people who just either don't vote at the European elections or vote useless parties and then complaint that Brussels is going too far. No vote, no voice!!!