Intra-Institutional Policy Drift in the European Commission

The European Commission is a collective actor with important powers in policy initiation in the European Union. Policy proposals are crafted in different thematically divided departments – Directorates General (DGs) – which do not always share the same interests and positions. While consultation and cooperation occurs, a lead DG is formally in charge of an initiative and determines its final outlook before a decision is taken in the College of Commissioners. Generally, DGs are expected to act within a specific policy remit but in practice the scope of this remit is subject to strategic framing. Hence DGs sometimes come up with proposals that focus on areas outside of their responsibility domain. Such an action has implications for the internal division of power between bureaucratic units as well as for the direction of the suggested policy. Using a newly developed dataset on the policy agenda of the European Commission this study first aims to give a long-term account of the extent to which DGs pursue policy initiatives in policy areas beyond their remit. It then draws a theoretical framework of the conditions for the occurrence of such an intra-institutional topic drift. The framework encompasses factors related to the DGs’ resources, the leadership’s political clout and bureaucratic opportunity structures.