Do the members of the EU Commission act first and foremost in the European interest or do they rather have the welfare of their respective home country and its government in mind? The Oldenburg political scientist and EU expert Prof Dr Torsten Jörg Selck wants to get to the bottom of this question.
The German Research Foundation (DFG) is funding his research project "EU Commissioners: Convinced Europeans or agents of the member states?" with a good 160,000 euros over the next three years.
As the political leaders of the EU executive, the Commissioners have a considerable influence on EU policy and thus on the lives of EU citizens. At the beginning of their term of office, members of the EU Commission swear to "exercise their duties with complete independence in the general interest of the Union" and to "neither seek nor take instructions from any government" in the fulfilment of their tasks.
At the same time, the nomination and possible reappointment of a Commissioner depends on the government of the respective member state. This raises the question for political observers, but also for academics, to what extent Commissioners may (also) act as agents of their home governments.
Empirically, this is difficult to answer due to a lack of direct insight into the work of the EU Commission. "There is now evidence that Commissioners interpret their role in different ways," says Selck. "We now want to show under which circumstances which understanding of their role takes centre stage."
The core hypothesis of the project is that proximity to the government of the sending member state makes EU Commissioners more likely to pursue national interests. Other possible factors influencing their behaviour could be the size of the member state, the length of time spent in the Commission, age, origin and party family. In order to determine which interests underlie the actions of Commissioners, the researchers from the Institute of Social Sciences want to analyse their speeches, among other things.