The Barroso Commission as a Supranational Entrepreneur: Strategy and Agency following the Global Financial Crisis

This paper seeks to evaluate and explain the degree of supranational entrepreneurship shown by the European Commission following the global financial crisis. Focusing on the period 2007-2011, it finds that the Commission used its right of initiative and/or mobilised ideas and information to pursue a supranational European Union (EU) economic policy in few cases. These findings are explained by the Commission’s circumspection about integrationist initiatives with little chance of success and by the fact that partisanship took precedence over the pursuit of integration in some cases. The Commission could yet capitalise on the crisis but its actions in this period call for greater attention by scholars to the role of strategy and agency in supranational entrepreneurship and a reconsideration of what it means for the EU executive to lead.