How EU member state interests permeate into European commission decision-making: a role theoretical approach to the commission’s cabinet system
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Date
2018
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Publisher
Ankara : Ankara Üniversitesi
Abstract
Although the European Commission has to be immune to member state
influences in order to act on behalf of the whole Union, historically its cabinets have
been portrayed as national enclaves and even ‘mini-Councils’, constituting a venue
for national interests to penetrate in European Commission decision-making.
Despite the Kinnock reforms which led to the denationalisation of cabinets,
empirical evidence whether denationalisation has an effect on the cabinets’ role as
access points for national interests still needs to be discovered. This article claims
that in order to test whether the denationalisation of European Commission’s
cabinets has indeed prevented national interests to be represented in European
Commission decision-making, the focus should be on agency rather than structure.
Role theory has to contribute significantly in this regard.
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Keywords
European Commission’s Cabinets, Denationalisation, Intergovernmentalism