Sidelined Member States: Commission-learning from Experts in the Face of Comitology

Abstract:

The European Commission has built up an extensive system of expert committees over the last two decades, and reliance on these groups has become an indispensable part of EU public policy. Recent work on expert groups’ distribution across policy fields, composition, institutional features and role in the policy process attests to their significance. The likely effects of expert group involvement, however, are largely unexplored. This paper examines how involvement of expert groups empowers the Commission vis-à-vis member states. It looks at the Commission’s involvement of and learning from an expert group within the management of Europe’s first programme on technologies for the Information Society. Programme management was regulated by a comitology committee, which helps to identify the conditions under which a sidelining of member states may occur.