From competence to capacity - Mapping the staff numbers of the EU institutions over 40 years

Much of the literature that has investigated the increasingly important role of agencies in EU governance has focused on its formal competences and independence relative to the European Commission and other EU institutions. We know much less about whether the increasing size of EU agencies complemented the existing administrative capacity of the European Commission or "hollowed out" the EU's administrative core by shifting capacities from the Commission to newly established independent agencies. By collecting total staff numbers from the European Commission and both the EU's decentralized and executive agencies between 1976 and 2025, I am able to perform a novel mapping of how the EU's administrative capacities have shifted over a 40-year period. I am also able to zoom in on a period from 2013-2025 and investigate whether this development is more or less pronounced in areas belonging to the so-called "core state powers". This paper will make both an empirical and a theoretical contribution. Empirically, it will map how the administrative face of the EU has changed in terms of its pure capacity-building. It will thus complement the existing data that exists on the formal competences of EU agencies. Theoretically, it will answer the question of whether the increasing agencification of the EU has complemented or hollowed out the policymaking- and implementing power of the European Commission.