Understanding the Role of Officials and Experts in EU Institutions

Abstract

In the wake of the EU elections, newspapers and anti-EU parties have amplified long-standing sentiments depicting the EU as a meddling European super state that is run by unelected Brussels bureaucrats. Decision making in Brussels is inherently technocratic. As a result, unelected civil servants, diplomats and experts are presumed to dominate the EU systems. If true, this would at the expense of democratic processes and poses various legitimacy concerns. In this panel, we will shed led on the kind of roles that experts and bureaucrats play in various EU institutions. We will connect the technocratic character to the politics of policymaking. Four panel members will go into detail on: the attendance of officials versus ministers in Council meetings; the influence of official’s feedback in the European Public Sector Accounting Standards (EPSAS) of EUROSTAT; the bargaining power of the European Central Bank and the European Commission in intergovernmental negotiations and; the limits of the Commission’s migration policy entrepreneurship.