Who rules the European Commission? A comparison of the top position constellations 2015-2020

The European Commission is a collective actor. Whatever is its internal management, the top positions inside it represent a constellation of people that potentially change after each mandate and define one of the structural conditions of its action. From this point of view, what are the constellation designed by the “Political Commission” led by J.-C Junker and “the Geopolitical one” led by U. von der Leyen? In what are they similar or different? And what potential difference it makes for the political margins of play of the Commission and the challenges they have/had to face with? Building on a comparison of the profiles (n= 200) of the EC top staff (commissioners, heads and deputy heads of cabinet, directors general) with a large number of variables (socio-biographic indicators, type of careers in and out the institutions, type of training, etc), the paper aims at giving some elements of answers to these questions.