Decentring European Governance by Mark Bevir

Author:Mark Bevir [Bevir, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367661069
Google: du24zQEACAAJ
Goodreads: 42657011
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-02-13T00:00:00+00:00

Committee governance by the EU Commission

The EU expert group system as a governance hub

We focus on a part of the EU governance system where we can expect expertisation to take place, that is, the system of policy advisory committees that are established by the Commission and that are called expert groups. Everyday policy-making at the EU level takes place to a considerable extent within the elaborate system of committees and expert groups that the Commission organises (Gornitzka and Sverdrup 2008, 2011; Moodie 2016). Such groups form the ‘auxiliary’ policy-making structure that channel input from stakeholders, academics and member state representatives into the policy process at the European level, be it in the drafting of legislative proposals and preparation of new policies or when it comes to putting programs and policies into action (Metz 2013b). This part of the EU governance system is at the discretion of the Commission’s administration – the different Directorates General (DGs) have some common guidelines for how to organise and operate such advisory groups, while the actual composition and usage of them are to a considerable degree left to the departments and subunits of the Commission. Consequently, the possible expertisation of EU governance going on in the Commission’s committee system can be seen as an expression of bureaucratic practices and traditions. In other words, these practices reflect what the Commission’s administration considers effective and appropriate bureaucratic routines (Gornitzka and Sverdrup 2008). These practices are also shaped by the political context within which the Commission operates. We can therefore expect the Commission’s use of advisory committees to be sensitive, on the one hand, to calls for boosting its knowledge and evidence base (Maasen and Weingart 2005, 5; Rimkutė and Haverland 2015), and, on the other hand, to calls for a balance of interests and transparency when including external agents into policy development (see e.g. Corporate Europe Conservatory 2010; Friends of the Earth Europe 2009; Straßheim 2008, 289). Considerable contestation has been observed with respect to the Commissions’ governance approach in general (lack of transparency, technocracy and democratic deficits) and to the opaque and ‘corporate bias’ of committee governance more specifically (Moodie 2016). Contestation of the Commission and the committee system has, of course, taken place in the midst of even wider turbulence within which EU governance has found itself – where the entire system has been challenged by expansion of its member states as well as by popular discontent and member state alienation (see e.g. Zimmermann and Dür 2016).

As concerns committee governance, we can expect that relevant actors can respond to external expectations by adjusting key organisational parameters. For instance, by shaping the participation structure or the committee’s mandate, the appointing committee can nudge the work of expert groups more towards interest representation and coordination or more towards the provision of technical information and independent expertise.

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