7. The Commission as Part of the ‘Centre of Government’ for the Europe 2020 Strategy

If there is an effective ‘centre of government’ at the European Union level, we expect it might be located partially in the European Union. The nature of the Commission’s contribution to a centre of government function might go beyond its obvious roles in initiating and formulating legislative proposals and its work of monitoring and guiding Member States with respect to the Europe 2020 Strategy. We have noticed that the Commission, starting in 2014, may have been taking on a more overtly political involvement in the work of leadership of the European Union. It looks as though this might have happened to compensate for the way in which the European Council has discharged its political leadership role towards the Europe 2020 Strategy and other collective endeavours. From a neo-Weberian perspective, the change could be seen as politically sensitive since bureaucrats and politicians are meant to occupy different formal positions within a mass democracy system. From an early 1990s governance perspective this change in the Commission may seem unsurprising—assuming that the move to a more overtly political orientation in the leadership of the Commission was a part of a trend to ‘de-differentiation’ of the roles of bureaucrats and politicians within a system moving towards a greater capacity for partnership in problem solving and a move away from hierarchical coordination in society. These preceding comments suggest a need for some theoretical open-mindedness when approaching the empirical data presented in this chapter on the leadership and monitoring activities of the European Commission.