Abstract
The Commission is composed of 27 commissioners, one per Member State, referred to as “the College of Commissioners”. The Commission is led by a President, proposed by the European council– according to the outcome of the European elections– and elected by the European Parliament (EP). The Council selects the other commissioners with the nominated Commission President and then the EP conduct a vote of approval of the whole college. The term “Commission” as Paul Magnette notes “means in fact, both the College of Commissioners– political body– and the administration on which it relies” account for circa 25,000 civil servants divided into various departments called Directorates-General and services.
The European Commission is a collegial body organized as a cabinet government, whose propositions are voted by two “chambers” (namely the Council and the EP). Moreover, the Commission can be voted out of office by the EP. It can be conceived as the civil service of the European Union (EU) or as a form of federal government, hence the difficulty to label it and to understand its powers and responsibilities. As it combines various features, the Commission has a great role within the EU system: it is an administration and in the meantime a political body, and even in specific areas an independent regulatory agency. The power of the Commission is unique as it was the first and only supranational body of the European integration starting from the Treaty of Paris in 1951. As Nugent notes “it is at the very heart of the EU system”: compared to a mere civil service, the Commission enjoys much greater policy-initiating and decision-making powers deriving from the treaties and political practice.
