The Policy-Making Role of the EU Commission Cabinets

Cabinets are a particular form of organizing the relationship between the political level of a government and the administration within the ministries and services. Cabinets are crucial transmission belts between the world of politics and the world of policy expertise. Cabinets in national settings do have an outspoken party-political role. Comparing role, function, recruitment patterns and composition of national cabinets with the cabinets of the European Commission, this paper analyses in a first step the specific role and the development of the Commission cabinets over the last decades. In a second step – based on staff survey data from 2008 and 2014 as well as around 70 interviews with cabinet members – the policy-making role of EU Commission cabinet are studied. The images of the cabinets’ role in terms of self-perception and in terms of the perception of “normal” staff are described and subsequently analyzed. As will be shown, first, the role of EU Commission cabinets is in some important ways different to that in national governments; second, horizontal and vertical coordination tasks have changed over time; and third, the role understanding is coined more by technical than strategic policy-making visions. In sum, the EU Commission cabinets are much more experts of technical processes and inter-portfolio compromise than political linkages to political parties or national capitals.