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2024 | Book

The Changing Topography of EU Administration

Organisations, Actors, and Policy Processes

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About this book

This book examines the ways in which the European Union’s administrative structures have changed over the last decade in response to several significant political events, including Brexit, the refugee crisis, and the Covid-19 pandemic. Whilst much has been written about the responses to these events at both national and European level, less attention has been given to the internal transformations they have brought about within the EU’s institutions. Multidisciplinary in approach, the book brings together leading scholars to assess the ways in which key organizations such as the European Council, the European Parliament and the European Central Bank have changed over the last ten years. It also throws light on the impact these events have had on policy actors within the EU administrative system, as well as its policy processes. It will appeal to all those interested in European public administration, political sociology, European politics, and EU studies.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Investigating the Changing Topography of the EU Administrative Space: From EU Governance to Its Administrative Terrain—An Introduction
Abstract
The introduction describes in detail the main aim behind this project, namely the multidisciplinary elaboration of a topography of the EU administration aiming at better understanding the changes resulting from the numerous crises the EU has experienced in the past decade. In this introductory chapter, we argue that this ‘topographical’ research project is embedded in the literature that poses the administration at the centre of its analytical framework. Nonetheless, we want to go a step further, focusing on the analysis of the organisations in a trans-institutional and relational manner, encompassing the perspectives of both the actors and their instruments within the EU administrative space. In the final section of the chapter, we present the different contributions which are part of the overall project.
Didier Georgakakis
Chapter 2. European Administration Challenged by Philosophy (and Vice Versa)
A Dialogue Between Nicole Dewandre and Edoardo Ongaro
Abstract
This chapter consists of a philosophical dialogue between Nicole Dewandre and Edoardo Ongaro. This dialogue begins with a series of cross-questionings, nourished by their different positioning both with regard to philosophy and in their relationship to the object ‘administration’. After introducing themselves, they discuss key scholar that have informed their thinking to delineate the contours of a relational conceptualisation of public administrations and the civil servants who compose them, as well as the great politico-practical stakes that they must now face.
Nicole Dewandre, Edoardo Ongaro

Organisations

Frontmatter
Chapter 3. An Inside View of the European Council and the Council of the European Union
Abstract
In the following chapter, Jim Cloos and Pierre Vimont, two career diplomats who spent forty years in the corridors and indeed the rooms of both the European Council and the Council of the European Union, enter into a dialogue with Michel Mangenot and Luuk van Middelaar. Their account, which takes the form of an interview, reveals new insights into the mechanisms and workings of both institutions, based on their experiences and the evolutions they have witnessed throughout the years. One of the major developments has been the growing importance of the European Council and its President in the EU system. The chapter helps better understand the administrative conditions and effects of the new centrality of this institution.
Jim Cloos, Pierre Vimont, Michel Mangenot, Luuk van Middelaar
Chapter 4. Parlementarisation Through Administration? The General Secretariat of the European Parliament and Its Transformation (2009–2022)
Abstract
The following chapter aims at filling a gap in scholarly literature in the analysis of the bureaucratic apparatus of the EU more generally speaking. Indeed, while there are quite important research projects focusing on the Commission, and to a lesser extent, on the General Secretariat of the Council, we lack studies on the General Secretariat of the European Parliament. The following account by Klaus Welle, Secretary General of the EP between 2009 and 2022 aims at enlightening the evolution of the GS under his mandate and at understanding to what extent administrative issues have been a vector to defend and potentially extend the EP role in the changing institutional framework of the European Union in the last decade. Elaborated from a semi-structured interview conducted with Hanna Corsini and Didier Georgakakis, the chapter is structured around two main sections. In the first one, Welle explains the general vision and plan behind the role played by the SG of Parliament to enable the EP’s reinforcement in the post-Lisbon Treaty period. In the second part, Welle discusses four cases which illustrate how the EP administration contributed to the empowerment of EU democracy.
Klaus Welle
Chapter 5. The General Secretariat of the Council of the EU: Between Long-term Political Transformations and Neo-managerial Reforms
Abstract
The General Secretariat of the Council (GSC) of the EU is a central element of the European institutional landscape. Indeed, the GSC serves as the administrative arm not only of the Council of the Union, but also of the European Council and its permanent president. Despite its importance, it has received surprisingly little academic attention. This chapter delves into the intertwined political and administrative reforms within the Secretariat and explores their impact on the Council’s sphere and their contribution to broader transformations in the European bureaucratic field. It aims at answering the following questions: How do these successive reforms shape the evolution of the Council’s dynamics? And how do these changes align with, and contribute to, the overarching transformations within the broader European bureaucratic field? To do so, we take a long-term view of the General Secretariat, considering both its historical dynamics and the perspectives of its officials. Our research reveals that the institutional transformations of the Council have been accompanied by administrative changes that were initially gradual and relatively autonomous. However, these changes became radical and systemic during the neomanagerial shift that permeated the entire European public service in the 2000s. Drawing on archival work and interviews with Council officials, this study aims to highlight the connections between political and administrative transformations that have characterised the General Secretariat and the European bureaucratic field over the past two decades. By doing so, we hope to shed new light on the dynamics at play within the Council ecosystem.
Oriane Gilloz
Chapter 6. Institutional Independence, Concentration of Powers and Administrative Changes at the European Central Bank
Abstract
The ECB enjoys a very high degree of independence and, at the same time, significant powers. While these powers have mainly been studied from the point of view of its competences, its political decision-making process and its central bodies (President, Executive Board, Governing Council, etc.), this chapter points to a specifically administrative dynamic that has contributed to the strengthening of the ECB. In the face of the concentration of power that has resulted not only from its Statute but also from the institution’s extensive interpretation of its independence, internal checks and balances have emerged. Through a form of ‘cunning of the reason’, such mechanisms have contributed to changes in the bank’s administration, in a process which has been ongoing until fairly recently. This chapter details some of these bureaucratic transformations, shedding some light on an aspect which has been rather neglected in academic scholarship.
Carlos Bowles, Julien Dufour
Chapter 7. Is Administrative Cooperation Between EU Member States the “Dark Matter” of the European Administrative Space? A Legal Perspective on the Implementation of EU Free Circulation Policies
Abstract
This chapter aims to draw attention to a key but under-studied dimension of the European Administrative Space (EAS): the implementation of the EU policies through administrative cooperation between Member States. It argues that administrative cooperation is not only a dimension of the EAS among others but the dimension that shapes most of the features of the EAS. Its argument is based on a review of legal provisions dedicated to administrative cooperation. The results of this review show that these provisions are at the origin of numerous, dense, and mostly dematerialised “cooperation mechanisms” organised alongside several finalities, forms, and frames.
François Lafarge

Actors

Frontmatter
Chapter 8. Determining and Conducting France’s European Policy: A Model of Symbiosis Between Presidential and Administrative Power
Abstract
Among the several factors explaining the process of ‘hyper-presidentialisation’ of the French Fifth Republic over time, one can identify an important but often neglected dimension: the evolving nature of the European construction, which has become an integrated part of the multi-level governance connecting France with its neighbours. In this chapter, we analyse the French ‘Core Executive’, namely those actors who control the access to all levels of the European arenas and processes and , thus, monopolise the representation of the French Republic at the European level. Throughout the analysis, we will uncover the close relationship between the top civil servants involved in policy-making and the Prince, a relationship that has—under President Macron—become almost symbiotic and which, in turn, reinforces both the President’s authority and the administrative power of those civil servants in the governing of France . The chapter is divided into two main sections: in the first one, we analyse the configuration of the key players who take part in the production process of the French official positions in European negotiations. In the second one, we carefully disentangle each step of the European decision-making process, and analyze the role these French key players have in it.
Jean-Michel Eymeri-Douzans
Chapter 9. ‘Porous’ Bureaucracies? External Interaction, Social Influence and Governance Preferences in the European Commission and the Council Secretariat
Abstract
EU bodies and the people who work for them are often considered remote and unresponsive. While the European Commission is depicted as a distant technocracy, the Council Secretariat is viewed as secretive and introspective. This chapter puts these assumptions to the empirical test and finds against the accepted wisdoms. Drawing on two original datasets, it maps patterns of interaction with external actors for both parts of the EU administration. It shows not only that the European Commission and Council Secretariat are in constant contact with outside actors but that their preferences about whether decision-making authority should be located at the EU or at national level are affected, even if the governance preferences of staff in the Council Secretariat are less influenced.
Sara Connolly, Hussein Kassim, Francesca Vantaggiato, Pierre Alayrac
Chapter 10. Who Leads the Administrations of the Institutional Triangle and the Agencies?
Abstract
This chapter is a statistical analysis of the European institutional triangle and agencies’ directors of administration. What are the profiles of the directors, how do they differ from each other, and what does this tell us more broadly about the sociological structures of the administrative power within the EU institutions? In order to understand this, the authors have analysed the profile of 95 directors working in the European administration through the prism of different socio-biographical variables (age, gender, nationality) and those related to career types and educational background. Finally, a multiple correspondence analysis is used to construct the cartography of this administrative fraction of the Eurocracy field.
Sophia Bordier, Didier Georgakakis
Chapter 11. Looking at Europe from the Perspective of the European Court of Auditors
Abstract
This chapter is the result of Danièle Lamarque’s professional experience at the European Court of Auditors (ECA), where she was appointed to in 2014 for a six-year mandate. Through her position and work in Luxembourg, she traces a new perspective on Europe more broadly speaking. The text is divided into two main sections: first, she describes how the ECA has built its identity since its inception. Second, she discusses how the Court both fits within the European politico-administrative field and mirrors its evolution throughout the years.
Danièle Lamarque
Chapter 12. A Mapping of the European Central Bank’s Recruitment in Times of Crisis (2005–2011)
Abstract
The financial crisis of 2007–2009 occurred against a backdrop of slower recruitment of ECB staff than in previous periods of institutional deployment. Because of its global scope and intensity, the crisis led to a considerable increase in the workload of its staff and led the institution to significantly increase the pace of its recruitment. An analysis of the profiles recruited reveals a specific social space, foreshadowing in particular one of the major institutional changes that the addition of banking supervision in 2014 represents.
Julien Dufour
Chapter 13. The General Secretariat of the Council’s Staff and Neo-managerial Reforms: Navigating Between ‘Desingularisation’ and ‘Dedifferentiation’
Abstract
This chapter aims to draw up a political sociology of the General Secretariat of the Council’s (GSC) staff. In the first part, we demonstrate that the GSC’s staff epitomises a particular variation of the European civil service shaped by a threefold process of social identification. In the second part, we aim at exploring to what extent the 2016 New Public Management reforms have been eroding this singularity. We argue that these administrative changes are encompassed within a twofold movement: first, a movement of ‘dedifferentiation’ similar to the one that the European Commission underwent and which challenges the autonomy gradually gained in the EU bureaucratic field (Georgakakis, European public service in (times of) crisis. A political sociology of the changing power of eurocrats. Springer, 2019, Revue française d’administration publique, 181(1), 5–11, 2022); second, a movement of ‘desingularisation’ which tends to sociologically challenge the singularity of the Council as an institution deeply rooted in diplomatic culture.
Oriane Gilloz

Instruments and Policy Processes

Frontmatter
Chapter 14. The European Union at the Test of Economic Crisis: How Has the EU Budget 2021–2027 Adapted?
Abstract
The European Union (EU) has been dealing with a series of economic crises for almost 15 years now (the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008, the sovereign debt crisis in the 2010s, and the COVID-19 crisis since 2020). European institutions needed to react, while having to balance EU budget constraints with the need to act rapidly and effectively at the EU level. In this chapter, we will look at the EU budget for the 2021–2027 period and its adaption to such volatile economic environment. Our analysis focuses on the different public intervention instruments of the EU for the 2021–2027 period and their funding mechanisms.
Amélie Barbier-Gauchard, Agathe Simon
Chapter 15. The Juncker Years: Economic and Social Priorities of the European Commission from 2014 to 2019
Abstract
The years 2014–2019 follow and precede the two worst economic crises that the European Union has ever known: the ‘Great Financial Crisis’ at the turn of the 2010s and the ‘Great Lockdown’ of 2020. During Jean-Claude Juncker’s five-year term as President of the European Commission, priorities, doctrines and practices changed significantly at the European level. In a context sometimes described as a polycrisis, economic and social outcomes improved, and European policies evolved. These changes helped to turn the page on previous crises and could serve as reference points for the future.
Luc Tholoniat
Chapter 16. Is There a Pilot in Crisis Management? Expectations and Challenges of Coherence in External European Interventions
Abstract
Through the example of the European Union’s response to the crisis in the Central African Republic, this chapter aims to grasp the more general issues of the division of labour in crisis management and the articulation between actors intervening in a plurality of sectors of international relations (political diplomacy, collective security, development, humanitarian aid), all of which are put under pressure by expectations of coordination, coherence, and integrated approach. The chapter shows that crisis managers are caught up in the dynamics of competitive cooperation for the control and allocation of public resources. The labelling of a situation as a “crisis” opens opportunities for action and claims while potentially raising intense coordination issues.
Yves Buchet de Neuilly
Chapter 17. Transparency Between Watchword and Bureaucracy: Looking Behind the Scenography of the Juncker Political Commission
Abstract
Jean-Claude Juncker’s mandate began with the ambition to increase transparency in the European Union. In what way does this announcement and the measures it involves constitute an inflection with respect to what was already largely done? What are the consequences of this new transparency policy? This chapter aims to answer these two questions. To do so, it first looks back at the diversity of transparency policies previously implemented and shows how Juncker’s policy manages to hold together a plurality of measures: readability of decision-making processes, access to information and citizen participation are synthesised in the publicisation imperative. In a second step, the text examines the consequences of this new transparency policy for the European administration. It shows that the measures implemented within the framework of the “Better Regulation” programme to increase the publicity of information and processes reinforce the weight of bureaucratic capital of administrative agents and interest representatives who evolve within the field of Eurocracy. Transparency thus strengthens the European bureaucracy.
Hélène Michel
Chapter 18. The Institutionalisation of the European Ombudsman and New Investigation Instruments: A Case Study of the 2017–2019 Investigation in the European Medicines Agency
Abstract
The European Ombudsman, created just 30 years ago, is a profoundly hybrid body: both parliamentary and judicial; it does, however, not fall entirely into either of these two categories. Its powers are similar both to parliamentary scrutiny, without being a legislative body, and to judicial scrutiny, without binding competences. However, its unique nature has not prevented the Ombudsman from evolving through a continuous increase in its powers and influence over the institutions, bodies, and agencies of the European Union. This dynamic has accelerated since the 2010s and was confirmed by the European Parliament voting a reform of its Statute in 2021, which validates, among other things, new powers of own-initiative inquiry, notably the strategic inquiry, thus reinforcing the European Ombudsman’s independence. However, the formalisation of these new powers has not automatically led to their full effectiveness. Precisely, this chapter aims to provide an analysis of this decoupling, explained by the process of institutionalisation of the European Ombudsman, through the study of a strategic investigation conducted by the Ombudsman in 2017–2019 into one of the most controversial agencies of the Union: the European Medicines Agency.
Juliette Raulet-Descombey
Chapter 19. The Programming Cycle and the Annual Activity Report: The EU’s Administrative Changes as Seen Through the Lenses of the Kinnock Reform Tools
Abstract
The strategic planning and programming dimension of the Kinnock reform has brought many changes to the Commission’s practices and culture. The management instruments introduced by this reform enable us to deal with the centralisation process, administrative relations, and the importance of controls. Through the analysis of the documents provided in the chapter, the author argues that there are a few lessons that can be learned. First, they indicate the growing significance of the Commission’s central services and a centralisation within the Secretariat-General. Second, they demonstrate the growing importance of quantification that results from the adoption of New Public Management doctrines. Ultimately, the chapter provides an understanding of the changing paradigms and culture of the European Commission and the links between management and politics.
Maëlle Barbot
Chapter 20. Inventing New Tools: The European Vaccines Strategy in the Covid-19 Pandemic
Abstract
At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the first reaction of the EU Member States was to fall back into national-led policies, closing borders and retracting from a common solution. The main aim of this chapter is to understand the major turnaround that was the implementation of an EU-wide vaccine strategy, even though the first signs were not encouraging, and despite the fact that the EU has only a “supporting competence” in the health care area. Step by step, the authors describe the way in which such common strategy was thought of, adopted, and implemented, highlighting the difficulties coming from within the Union and its administrative complexity, but also from the volatile environment of an exceptional international health crisis. Ultimately, even though the EU seemed to be initially overwhelmed, it became a central player throughout the process by striking a complex balance with international organisations, Member States, pharmaceutical laboratories and other private actors in the health sector.
Douglas Nascimento Santana, Lidia Sutormina
Chapter 21. The Changing Topography of EU Administrative Space. Conclusive Remarks
Abstract
The conclusive chapter discusses the result of the empirical cases presented throughout the book, showing that they validate the main thesis of the book, which is as Durkheimian as Weberian in the sense that beyond any issue about the competition for power, one of the transformations has been considerable reinforcement of the ties inside the machine, to the contrary of its potential disintegration. The renewal and adaptations of its various organisational components, a new motivation and engagement from its personnel at various scales, and a capacity to foster new instruments incorporating a relational dimension from the start have finally intensified and densified the administrative terrain of the political-institutional field.
Didier Georgakakis
Metadata
Title
The Changing Topography of EU Administration
Editor
Didier Georgakakis
Copyright Year
2024
Electronic ISBN
978-3-031-64695-9
Print ISBN
978-3-031-64694-2
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-64695-9

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