The European Commission Expert Groups And The Policy Process

This book challenges the assumption that policy makers' work with advisory committees is emblematic of technocratic governance. Analyzing how and why the European Commission uses expert groups in the policy process, it shows that experts not only solve technical problems, but also function as political devices and negotiators in modern governance.

This book challenges the assumption that policy makers' work with advisory committees is emblematic of technocratic governance. Analyzing how and why the European Commission uses expert groups in the policy process, it shows that experts not only solve technical problems, but also function as political devices and negotiators in modern governance.

Om ekspertgruppers indflydelse på beslutningerne i EU

The European Commission is at the center of the European Union's political system. Within its five-year terms each Commission proposes up to 2000 binding legal acts and therefore crucially shapes EU policy, which in turn impacts on the daily lives of more than 500 million European citizens. However, despite the Commissions key role in setting the agenda for European decision making, little is known about its internal dynamics when preparing legislation. This book provides a problem-driven, theoretically-founded, and empirically rich treatment of the so far still understudied process of position-formation inside the European Commission. It reveals that various internal political positions prevail and that the role of power and conflict inside the European Commission is essential to understanding its policy proposals. Opening the 'black box' of the Commission, the book identifies three ideal types of internal position-formation. The Commission is motivated by technocratic problem-solving, by competence-seeking utility maximization or ideologically-motivated policyseeking. Specifying conditions that favor one logic over the others, the typology furthers understanding of how the EU system functions and provides novel explanations of EU policies with substantial societal implications.

This book examines the position and role of expertise in European policy-making and governance. At a time when the very notion of expertise and expert advice is increasingly losing authority, the book addresses these challenges by empirically examining specific administrative processes and institutional designs in the European Union. The first part of the volume theorizes expertise and its contestation by examining accounts of the legitimate institutional design of knowledge production processes and exploring the theoretical links of Europeanisation and expertise. The second part of the book delves into empirical institutionalist accounts of expertise and maps the role of experts in a variety of EU institutions but also explains the implications when EU bodies themselves are in an ‘expert’ position, such as agencies. The book offers insights into how individual experts deal with the challenge of producing reports that will be heard by policy-makers, while at the same time preserving their independence. Broadening its scope, the book then expands the analysis to the role of advisory committees in light of the shift from a reliance primarily on in-house expertise to including more external experts in advisory groups in the European Commission and European Parliament as well as at the European External Action. In the third part, the book opens the lens to developments beyond the EU by taking into account two highly pertinent fields: climate change and trade. These fields are highly complex, fast-developing, and politicised issues, and the book engages with them in order to provide an outside-in perspective on expertise. Chapter 6 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

At 38,000, the total number of staff at the European Commission is relatively small for a body representing half a billion citizens. Likewise, the 3,500 strong research and statistical team is modest in size given that it operates across the Directorates General and other services. In order to assist policy-makers, the Commission supplements this research base by using outside expertise to advise at all stages of the policy-making process. For many years, those who observe the European Union's institutions have recognised that this use of outside expertise to assist with the shaping of policy presents a potential democratic shortfall. The 2001 White Paper on Governance acknowledged that the line between expertise and political authority had become blurred and that, increasingly, the public questioned the independence of expert advice. The following year, the Commission published its first set of guidelines on the collection and use of expertise, listing 'openness' as one of three core principles. Despite considerable changes that have occurred in the transparency landscape in the intervening period, the Commission's commitment to this core principle of expertise remains. This article investigates the measures the Commission introduced specifically to facilitate this openness. Applying a structure-agency approach, the article characterises an expert group as a 'community of knowledge' and contrasts the transparency of the Commission's formal appointment procedures with the less visible but frequently used informal measures through which individuals are identified and approached. Based on a recent and highly relevant case, the article employs data gathered from the near contemporaneous accounts of expert group members and Commission officials. It finds that the reported appointment processes do not reflect the widespread incidence of individuals selected based on previous contact or personal recommendation and argues that this may undermine the integrity of the Commission's core principle of openness in the use of expertise and in its broader transparency measures. In terms of the motivation of those responding to the Commission's call for experts, the article finds that membership of an expert group confers a degree of professional prestige that directly benefits individual members and offers competitive advantage to their parent organisations.

This book challenges the assumption that policy makers' work with advisory committees is emblematic of technocratic governance. Analyzing how and why the European Commission uses expert groups in the policy process, it shows that experts not only solve technical problems, but also function as political devices and negotiators in modern governance.