One EU Civil Service or Many? the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union and the European Commission Compared

Scholarship on the EU bureaucracy has focused overwhelmingly on the European Commission. Though important, that institution is only one part of the EU administration. This paper draws on new empirical data from pathbreaking research on the Commission (survey achieved sample n=5545, interviews n=200, focus groups n=5) and on the General Secretariat of the Council (survey achieved sample n=1356, interviews =111, focus groups=5) to examine the extent to which EU civil servants in the two bodies are similar in terms of their educational and professional backgrounds, share the same values and beliefs, and/or exhibit common attitudes about recent experience of crisis and administrative reform. Since the people who work for the two bodies are recruited by the same institution (EPSO) and are governed by the same Staff Regulation, it asks whether they share similar characteristics and outlook and whether there is one EU civil service or many.