The politicization of the EU Commission: democratic control and the dynamics of executive selection

Abstract

Since the rise of the narrative on the ‘democratic deficit’, at the beginning of the 1990s, EU governance is expected to be democratic and its executive is expected to be democratically legitimated. Since this issue was forced onto the European agenda, the EU has been in a process of continuous polity building in which the Treaties have been revised every few years by the member states to make – among other things – the holders of political power in the institutions more accountable. This article links the changes in the legal and political framework governing the appointment and tasks of the EU Commission to changes in executive recruitment. It explains how strengthened democratic control and accountability over this part of the EU executive has politicized the selection of EU commissioners. This has become visible in the access and exit procedures of this part of the EU executive, but also in shifts in the demand and supply factors in the process of EU executive recruitment. This change is best characterized as a response and adaptation to the increasingly demanding political environment within which the EU Commission finds itself entrenched – one where the highest political personnel of the EU executive need to address the modern problems of a democratic polity. Points for practitioners The expansion of democratic accountability arrangements in the EU has politicized the appointment of EU commissioners in three respects: in the procedures of appointing commissioners; in the composition of the College; and in the career pathways of commissioners. Democratization has meant that representation and political professionalization have become very significant in the selection of the EU executive.