Tuesday, October 1, 2019

The European Commission as Political

The European Commission, the E.U.’s executive branch, has been known for being a technocratic institution. Yet in drafting regulations, imposing fines, and negotiating trade deals, the Commission is much like the U.S.’s executive branch. In fact, high-level appointments must secure the approval of the legislature through confirmation hearings. Yet the top of the U.S. executive branch, the White House, has been known for being ideological and definitely political. That that executive branch also promulgates and enforces regulations can be easily missed. That the E.U.’s executive branch is also political has definitely been missed or dismissed in the ideological illusion that the E.U. is merely a technocratic international organization rather than a federal system of governments. This illusion could finally be seen as such after the election of Ursula van der Leyen as President of the European Commission in 2019.


Her announcement of new titles for commissioners sparked ideological controversy because the titles themselves are inherently ideological. One commissioner would be “for Democracy and Demography,” while another would be “for Protecting our European Way of Life.”[1] Besides the inappropriateness of using office titles as ideological placards, the insertion of ideology at the top of the Commission must have surprised many Europeans who were under the ideological impression that the E.U. was merely an international technocratic organization rather than a federal system with a federal government.

The “once technocratic institution,” the Commission, was, according to van der Leyen a “geopolitical commission.”[2] Finally an explicit acknowledgement is made that the E.U. is geopolitical, and thus a federal government, rather than just a trading “bloc.” That The New York Times consistently applied this label to the E.U. in spite of the fact that it had not only an executive branch, but also a legislative one (The European Counsel and the European Parliament) and a judicial one (the European Court of Justice) boggles the mind. Unthinkingly swallowing the European illusion has effectively enabled it, and thus forestalled the day when Europeans would finally realize what they have created.

[1] Valentina Pop, “EU’s New Boss, Invoking ‘European Way of Life,” Sparks Partisan Brawl,” The Wall Street Journal, September 19, 2019.
[2] Ibid.